US EPA Says it is Auditing Biofuel Producers’ Secondhand Cooking Oil Supply
By Leah Douglas
Aug 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Epa has launched investigations into the supply chains of at least two eco-friendly fuel producers in the middle of market issues that some might be using deceptive feedstocks for biodiesel to secure profitable government subsidies.
EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the firm has released audits over the previous year, however decreased to determine the companies targeted because the investigations are continuous.
The production of biodiesel from sustainable components, like utilized cooking oil, can make refiners a variety of state and federal ecological and climate aids, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have actually been mounting that some supplies identified as utilized cooking oil are really less expensive and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is connected with logging and other ecological damage.
The concern came into focus following a surge in used cooking oil exports from Asia recently that experts have said involves unrealistically high volumes relative to the amount of cooking oil used and recuperated in the region. The European Union is likewise investigating feedstocks over the fraud issues.
The EPA audits began after the agency updated domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for renewable fuel manufacturers seeking to make credits under the RFS, he said.
“EPA has actually carried out audits of eco-friendly fuel manufacturers given that July 2023 which includes, amongst other things, an evaluation of the areas that used cooking oil utilized in renewable fuel production was collected,” he said. “These investigations, nevertheless, are ongoing and we are unable to discuss continuous enforcement investigations.”
U.S. senators from farm states have actually called for more oversight of biofuel feedstocks, stating federal companies ought to be as extensive in validating imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.
“The Biden administration has actually developed energetic requirements to validate, not just trust, American manufacturers, and it is important that the very same examination is applied to imported feedstocks,” six 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 omit imported feedstocks like UCO from an fuel tax credit program passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. (Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Matthew Lewis)
