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

Gail Battle edited this page 1 week ago

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has actually launched investigations into the supply chains of a minimum of 2 eco-friendly fuel manufacturers in the middle of industry concerns that some might be using fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to secure profitable federal government subsidies.

EPA representative Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the agency has launched audits over the past year, but declined to determine the business targeted due to the fact that the investigations are continuous.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable components, like utilized cooking oil, can earn refiners a variety of state and federal environmental and climate subsidies, consisting of tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But fears have been mounting that some products labeled as used cooking oil are in fact more affordable and less palm oil, an item that is related to logging and other environmental damage.

The concern entered focus following a surge in used cooking oil exports from Asia in the last few years that experts have actually said includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil used and recuperated in the region. The European Union is likewise examining feedstocks over the fraud concerns.

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

"EPA has actually conducted audits of eco-friendly fuel producers considering that July 2023 which includes, among other things, an examination of the places that utilized cooking oil utilized in eco-friendly fuel production was collected," he stated. "These investigations, however, are continuous and we are not able to talk about continuous enforcement investigations."

U.S. senators from farm states have required more oversight of biofuel feedstocks, saying federal companies should be as rigorous in confirming imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.

"The Biden administration has created energetic standards to validate, not just trust, American producers, and it is imperative that the exact same analysis is used to imported feedstocks," six U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, wrote in a June 20 letter to federal firms.

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