Public Chapter 821 - Summary and Comparison
An important amendment to the Tennessee Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Act was passed by the General Assembly in their 2002 session. Public Chapter 821 became effective July 1, 2002. If you would like to read the text of this change, click here and you will link to the Secretary of State's webpage and you can read the text. The changes are summarized below.
The new law:
- Allows someone other than the tank owner to pay tank fees if fee payment is to establish, maintain or restore fund eligibility for future petroleum releases at a site. A signed agreement is no longer needed to accept tank fees from parties other than the tank owner.
- Allows fee payment alone to restore fund eligibility if outstanding fees are the reason for that ineligibility. This applies to releases discovered after July 1, 2002 and only if the tank was registered prior to the discovery of the release.
- Authorizes the petroleum site owner to receive reimbursement for clean-up costs for site remediation and/or for third party judgements, after deductible(s) are met.
- Links certificates to payment of all outstanding fees and late payment penalties. This allows anyone to determine with increased reliability that fees have been paid for a particular site and therefore the site is eligible for reimbursement from the fund.
- Authorizes the Commissioner to reduce late payment penalties to 10% per year plus statutory interest upon petition by the tank owner/operator.
The previous law only allowed the tank owner or the tank operator to pay fees. The previous law made the petroleum site owner (property owner) responsible for clean-up of petroleum contamination, but did not allow the property owner to be reimbursed for clean-up costs if the site was fund eligible. An written agreement was necessary before fees could be accepted from anyone other than the tank owner.
Under the previous statutory/regulatory scheme, a tank owner/operator would have had to perform a site investigation to demonstrate that a site was not contaminated as well as pay fees and pass an inspection to restore fund eligibility to the site. If the site was found to be contaminated it did not qualify for restoration of fund eligibility.
The previous statutory/regulatory scheme only allowed reimbursement to a tank owner and/or operator. If the tank owner/operator declared bankruptcy, dissolved the business or passed away leaving contamination at a fund eligible site, the owner of that petroleum site (property owner) could not receive reimbursement for clean-up work performed at the site.
Under the previous statutory/regulatory scheme an extensive file and database research was necessary to determine fund eligibility status for a site.
The previous law had no provision for reduction of late payment penalties
Updated August 6, 2002
