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

Elwood Teichelmann edited this page 2025-01-18 23:32:23 +08:00

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Epa has launched investigations into the supply chains of a minimum of 2 renewable fuel producers in the middle of industry concerns that some might be utilizing fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to protect profitable federal government aids.

EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis told Reuters that the agency has released audits over the past year, but decreased to identify the companies targeted since the investigations are continuous.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable active ingredients, like utilized cooking oil, can earn refiners a multitude of state and federal ecological and climate subsidies, consisting of tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have been installing that some supplies labeled as utilized cooking oil are actually more affordable and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is related to deforestation and other ecological damage.

The concern came into focus following a rise in used cooking oil exports from Asia recently that analysts have said includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the amount of cooking oil utilized and recuperated in the region. The European Union is also examining feedstocks over the scams concerns.

The EPA audits started after the agency updated domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for eco-friendly fuel producers seeking to make credits under the RFS, he said.

"EPA has actually carried out audits of eco-friendly fuel manufacturers because July 2023 that includes, amongst other things, an examination of the locations that utilized cooking oil utilized in eco-friendly fuel production was collected," he stated. "These examinations, however, are ongoing and we are unable to go over continuous enforcement examinations."

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

"The Biden administration has produced vigorous standards to verify, not simply trust, American producers, and it is vital that the very same examination is used to imported feedstocks," 6 U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, wrote in a June 20 letter to federal companies.

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