Booster has always set out to deliver reliable, safe service, and from the very beginning it aimed to do that the most compliant way possible, because for the fleets that depend on Booster, trust and safety are what they are really buying. California, as it happens, has built a reputation for some of the strictest environmental rules in the country. A mid-century smog crisis in Los Angeles pushed it to pioneer the nation’s first air-quality programs and, in 1967, to create the California Air Resources Board, or CARB. More recently, it committed to conserving 30% of its lands and coastal waters by 2030, and as of 2025 has already placed more than a quarter of its land under long-term conservation. For a company built on getting fueling exactly right, that reputation was not a deterrent. It was the appeal. A permit earned in the country’s toughest fueling landscape carries weight that one earned anywhere else does not: clear California, and the rest of the country tends to follow.
Booster started in Texas, where permitting was straightforward, using it as a proving ground to refine procedures, test technology, and build something new. It was there, across varied clients and fleet configurations, that the earliest version of the Perfect Boost took shape. California is where it grew into the commitment Booster makes today: meeting the country’s strictest fire and air standards turned a promising practice into a rigorous, repeatable one. When growth became the goal, that combination was ready to travel.
But clearing California is no formality. It took years of work with regulators and local governments, and that work is exactly what keeps drivers, worksites, and neighborhoods safe when a Booster gasoline delivery tanker pulls onto a lot. This week, we spoke with Olamide Golden, one of Booster’s policy managers, about the company’s path from an idea to holding the only CARB certification in California for wet-hose gasoline delivery.
Defining a New Category Requires a New Rulebook
The idea started at an airport. Booster’s CEO, Frank Mycroft, watched mini tankers refuel planes on the tarmac and wondered why that same on-demand convenience couldn’t reach the places people actually work. If fuel could be delivered directly to the aircraft, why not to the collected personal vehicles parked at a corporate campus?
Fleet fueling itself was not new. For decades, tankers have delivered diesel to construction sites and fuel to aircraft at airports under long-established standards. What was new was bringing on-demand gasoline fueling to fleet employee parking lots and corporate campuses, where the environment is open and public. As Golden described it, “[I]t’s a very open environment. You think about parking lots: there are cars, people, and different hazards. There really was a need to ensure the strictest safety standards would be met, and that there would be controls in place so there wouldn’t be mishaps with a fuel tank on site when the public is around.” That setting demanded the strictest possible safety standards, and those official standards did not yet exist for mobile fueling.
So Booster helped write them. The company worked with CAL FIRE, California’s state fire agency, to develop Section 5707 of the International Fire Code, the section that set the industry-wide fire safety standard for on-demand mobile fueling. Booster worked with fire officials and safety consultants to help shape it from the start. Rather than operate in a gray area, Booster worked to write safe mobile fueling into the rules everyone follows.
How Does Fire Code Work, City by City?
In the United States, fire code flows downstream. The International Fire Code sets a model minimum then individual states adopt and adapt it – in California, as the California Fire Code – and then municipalities decide how to apply it locally. On-demand mobile fueling has its own place in that code, Section 5707.
Because fire code is ultimately adopted at the municipal level, Booster’s team seeks permit approval city by city, and no two cities handle it quite the same way. Some grant a blanket operational permit: operate anywhere within city limits, as long as the fire code is followed. Others approve fueling site by site, reviewing a submitted map and plan for each location. Some choose to permit the individual tankers themselves, and some simply ask Booster to file for a business license.
Over the years, Booster’s track record for safety has earned faster approvals, with more cities recognizing the standard the company already holds itself to. Golden told us, “[It takes] paperwork and a lot of phone calls, a lot of questions being answered. It’s never a dull day at Booster.” But that is the difference between a gasoline delivery that is merely convenient and one that is demonstrably safe.
What Does It Take to Certify a New Emissions Source?
Fire is only half the story. In California, dispensing gasoline is treated as a serious source of air emissions, regulated by the California Air Resources Board, or CARB. Traditional gas stations manage those emissions with vapor recovery systems, the accordion-style sleeves familiar to anyone who has fueled a car in the state. When Booster began, gasoline delivery was new enough that CARB had to determine how it fit.
Beginning in 2019, Booster worked with CARB directly, going through a multi-year evaluation as a “novel facility,” the regulator’s term for a source that does not fit the existing categories. The core of the work was proving that Booster’s operation added no new emissions to the environment while fueling. Earning the certification also meant securing sign-off from a range of state agencies including CAL FIRE, the California Highway Patrol, Cal/OSHA, California’s Division of Measurement Standards, and the California State Water Resources Control Board. Each agency had to confirm Booster met its requirements. The result, a CARB executive order, marked the first time in more than two decades that CARB had certified a new method of air-pollution control for gasoline dispensing. Ms. Golden told us: “Booster is very proud of our CARB Executive Order for mobile fueling because it shows that even in the strictest environmental state, there’s still room for innovation and that regulators are willing and able to work with companies who are also willing and able to meet safety and health, and strict standards.”
Booster is the Only Certified Gasoline Mobile Fueler in California
Booster’s CARB executive order is the basis for a distinction no competitor in the state can currently claim: Booster is the only certified mobile fueler for gasoline in California. The certification, which took years to earn, is what allows the company to say plainly that its operation is not an added emissions source.
Certification is not the end of the relationship. CARB sets the standard, but California’s local air districts implement and enforce it, and they want to know where every drop goes. Booster shows them, submitting spreadsheets on a monthly basis, and at times a weekly one, that account for every vehicle fueled, every site serviced, and every gallon loaded into a Booster tanker. Certified once and forgotten it is not; the performance stays continuously on the record because equipment can degrade, company policies can change (though Booster’s have not), and boards like CARB are obligated to protect Californians today and in the future.
That dedication to standards is not only a response to what regulators require. Some of it Booster holds itself to. The company’s Perfect Boost commitment, developed and revised since Booster’s founding, sets an internal goal of not a single drop spilled at any fueling stop. Trained service professionals place absorbent pads both on the ground and over the nozzle during every fill, and Booster tracks each Smart Tanker’s maintenance, certifications, and wear so that its own equipment never becomes the source of a leak. It is the same principle behind the CARB executive order, applied daily and by choice: meet the standard, then keep proving it.
Why Carrying No Stored Fuel Protects Communities
While it’s true that equipment and companies can change over time, there is an environmental advantage built into the mobile fueling model itself that helps Booster adhere to these strict environmental regulations. Traditional gas stations store fuel in underground tanks, and those tanks can leak as they age, threatening soil and groundwater over time. Booster carries no fuel on-site. Gasoline moves from the terminal, to the tanker, to the vehicle in a single chain, with no stationary storage left behind to corrode or seep. For a city weighing whether to welcome mobile fueling, taking an underground storage tank out of the equation is a genuine safety argument, not a marketing line.
What CARB Certification Means For Booster’s Expansion
The CARB certification renews on a multi-year cycle, the reporting continues month after month, and the codes themselves keep evolving as the industry grows. Staying certified in California means staying in the room, with fire officials, with air districts, and with the cities and people Booster serves.
That groundwork is already opening doors elsewhere. Golden shared a perfect example of this alignment when Booster was looking to open in the Pacific Northwest: “When [we] approached the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency in Washington State and explained to them what we were doing in California, they said, ‘Oh, you’re certified by all these folks. If you can do it there, we really don’t have any questions.’” This was real evidence in a single conversation that Booster had made the right decision starting in one of the hardest regulatory states in the country.
This is the first in a multi-part series about how Booster does this work: safely, legally, and in new states every month. Keep an eye out for future regional permitting profiles as Booster continues to grow.
If your team is looking for gasoline, diesel, or renewable diesel delivery, reach out to a member of the Booster team to learn about our coverage in your state.