9.3 RC1 psql encoding reporting inconsistently?

This is 9.3 RC1 on a Fedora 7 system. Why does \l report the encoding
as SQL_ASCII
and \set report it as UTF8?

psql (9.3rc1)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# \l                       List of databases Name     Owner   Encoding  Collate Ctype   Access privileges
--------- -------- --------- ------- ----- ---------------------
postgres  postgres SQL_ASCII C       C
template0 postgres SQL_ASCII C       C     =c/postgres          +
postgres=CTc/postgres
template1 postgres SQL_ASCII C       C     =c/postgres          +
postgres=CTc/postgres
(3 rows)

postgres=# \set
AUTOCOMMIT = 'on'
ECHO = 'queries'
PROMPT1 = '%/%R%# '
PROMPT2 = '%/%R%# '
PROMPT3 = '>> '
VERBOSITY = 'default'
VERSION = 'PostgreSQL 9.3rc1 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc
(GCC) 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-27), 32-bit'
DBNAME = 'postgres'
USER = 'postgres'
PORT = '5432'
ENCODING = 'UTF8'
postgres=#
--
Mike Nolan