US EPA Says it is Auditing Biofuel Producers‘ Pre-owned Cooking Oil Supply

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has introduced investigations into the supply chains of a minimum of two eco-friendly fuel producers amid industry issues that some might be using deceitful feedstocks for biodiesel to protect profitable federal government aids.

EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the agency has actually launched audits over the past year, but decreased to determine the business targeted due to the fact that the examinations are ongoing.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable ingredients, like utilized cooking oil, can make refiners a slew of state and federal ecological and climate subsidies, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But fears have been installing that some supplies labeled as utilized cooking oil are actually less expensive and less sustainable virgin palm oil, an item that is connected with deforestation and other ecological damage.

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

The EPA audits began after the firm upgraded domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for renewable fuel producers seeking to make credits under the RFS, he said.

„EPA has actually performed audits of renewable fuel manufacturers given that July 2023 that includes, amongst other things, an assessment of the places that utilized cooking oil used in renewable fuel production was collected,“ he said. „These examinations, nevertheless, are continuous and we are unable to go over ongoing enforcement investigations.“

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

„The Biden administration has actually created energetic standards to validate, not simply trust, American producers, and it is important that the very same examination is applied to imported feedstocks,“ 6 U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, composed 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)