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

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Epa has released investigations into the supply chains of at least 2 renewable fuel producers amid market issues that some might be using fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to protect financially rewarding government aids.

EPA representative Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the agency has actually introduced audits over the past year, but decreased to identify the business targeted due to the fact that the examinations are continuous.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable active ingredients, like utilized cooking oil, can earn refiners a multitude of state and federal environmental and environment subsidies, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But fears have been installing that some products identified as used cooking oil are in fact more affordable and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is connected with logging and other environmental damage.

The problem entered into focus following a rise in utilized cooking oil exports from Asia in the last few years that experts have said includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil used and recuperated in the area. The European Union is also investigating feedstocks over the scams concerns.

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

"EPA has actually carried out audits of sustainable fuel producers considering that July 2023 which consists of, to name a few things, an assessment of the locations that utilized cooking oil used in eco-friendly fuel production was collected," he said. "These examinations, however, are ongoing and we are not able to go over continuous enforcement investigations."

U.S. senators from farm states have actually called for more of biofuel feedstocks, saying federal agencies should be as strenuous in verifying imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.

"The Biden administration has actually produced energetic standards to verify, not simply trust, American producers, and it is crucial that the same analysis 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 urged the administration to omit 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 Matthew Lewis)