1 US EPA Says it is Auditing Biofuel Producers' Secondhand Cooking Oil Supply

Marissa Shipman edited this page 2 months ago

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has actually launched investigations into the supply chains of at least two eco-friendly fuel producers in the middle of industry issues that some might be using fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to protect profitable government subsidies.

EPA representative Jeffrey Landis told Reuters that the agency has introduced audits over the previous year, however decreased to determine the companies targeted because the investigations are ongoing.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable active ingredients, like used cooking oil, can earn refiners a slew of state and federal ecological and climate aids, consisting of tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have been installing that some materials labeled as utilized cooking oil are in fact cheaper and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is related to logging and other environmental damage.

The concern came into focus following a surge in utilized cooking oil exports from Asia in recent years that analysts have actually said includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil utilized and recovered in the region. The European Union is likewise examining feedstocks over the fraud issues.

The EPA audits began after the company updated domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for sustainable fuel manufacturers seeking to make credits under the RFS, he stated.

"EPA has performed audits of eco-friendly fuel producers considering that July 2023 that includes, to name a few things, an examination of the places that used cooking oil used in renewable fuel production was collected," he said. "These investigations, nevertheless, are ongoing and we are unable to go over ongoing enforcement investigations."

U.S. senators from farm states have required more oversight of biofuel feedstocks, stating federal firms ought to be as strenuous in validating imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.

"The Biden administration has actually created vigorous standards to validate, not simply trust, American producers, and it is important that the exact same scrutiny is applied to imported feedstocks," 6 U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, composed in a June 20 letter to federal agencies.

Another letter from 15 senators to the Treasury Department on July 30 prompted the administration to exclude imported feedstocks like UCO from an additional tidy fuel tax credit program passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. (Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Lewis)