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SAYBOLT FINED $3.4 MILLION FOR FALSIFIED REPORTS
Release Date: 01/15/99
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FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 1999
SAYBOLT FINED $3.4 MILLION
FOR FALSIFIED REPORTS
Saybolt Inc., a leading firm in the petroleum inspection industry which has laboratory facilities in Woburn, Mass., Kenilworth, N.J., and New Haven, Conn., pleaded guilty on Jan. 7, to conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act and was fined $3.4 million by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. Saybolt was also sentenced to serve five years probation and must purchase advertising in petroleum industry trade publications announcing the terms of its guilty plea. In its plea, Saybolt admitted to conspiracy and to sending the EPA falsified reports of laboratory tests performed on petroleum products. The falsified reports routinely overstated the oxygen content of reformulated gasoline (RFG) and also routinely reported that tests of other petroleum products, such as home heating oil, were “on-specification,” regardless of whether the products met specifications or not. RFG is required to contain more oxygen than other blends of gasoline in order to reduce smog, which is known to cause respiratory illnesses in people. The case was investigated by the EPA Criminal Investigation Division, the EPA National Enforcement Investigations Center, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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