Scottish Government

Dear Sir or Madam

Consultation on Transposition of the Minor Amendments Affecting Land Based Provisions of the Sulphur Content of Marine Fuels Directive 2005/33/EC (and Amending Directive 1999/32/EC)

I am writing to let you know that we have today published a consultation paper seeking views on the Scottish Executive's proposals to transpose the land based elements of European Directive 2005/33/EC relating to the Sulphur Content of Marine Fuels ( SCFMD) within Scotland.

Electronic copies of the consultation paper can be downloaded from the following weblink: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Consultations/Current

The SCMFD makes minor changes (in addition to the marine provisions) to the Sulphur Content of Liquid Fuels ( SCLFD) Directive 1999/32/EC which are mainly for the purpose of separating the land-based and marine based elements. The Executive intends to repeal the Sulphur Content of Liquid Fuels (Scotland) Regulations 2000 and make new regulations which include these amendments - the Sulphur Content of Liquid Fuels (Scotland) Regulations 2006.

The marine provisions within the Directive will be transposed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency( MCA). The MCA will consult on these elements at a future date. Details when published will be available from the weblink below:

http://www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga-guidance-regulation/mcga-consultations/mcga-current_consultations.htm

Responding to this consultation paper

We are inviting written responses to this consultation paper by 1 December 2006. Please send your response plus a copy of the Respondent Information Form attached to this letter to:

Claire.Dodd@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or

If you have any queries contact Claire Dodd on 0131 244 7699.

We would be grateful if you could clearly indicate in your response which parts of the consultation paper you are responding to as this will aid our analysis of the responses received.

Handling your response

We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form attached to this letter as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Executive are subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public (see the attached Respondent Information Form), these will be made available to the public in the Scottish Executive Library by 1 January 2007. We will check all responses where agreement to publish has been given for any potentially defamatory material before logging them in the library or placing them on the website. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the SE Library on 0131 244 4565. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.

What happens next ?

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to help us reach a decision on petrol vapour recovery II.

If you have any comment about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to:

E-mail: air.quality@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

This consultation, and all other SE consultation exercises, can be viewed online at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public internet access point is.

The Scottish Executive now has an email alert system for SE consultations ( SEconsult). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new SE consultations (including web links). SEconsult complements, but in no way replaces SE distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all SE consultations activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

Yours faithfully

Claire Dodd

Respondent Information Form: Sulphur Content of Liquid Fuels