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

Evonne Creason edited this page 2025-01-18 23:35:39 +08:00

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released investigations into the supply chains of a minimum of two eco-friendly fuel manufacturers amid industry issues that some might be utilizing deceitful feedstocks for biodiesel to protect rewarding federal government subsidies.

EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis told Reuters that the company has released audits over the previous year, however declined to identify the business targeted because the investigations are continuous.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable active ingredients, like utilized cooking oil, can make refiners a variety of state and federal environmental and environment subsidies, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have been installing that some products labeled as used cooking oil are actually less expensive and less sustainable virgin palm oil, an item that is related to logging and other environmental damage.

The concern entered into focus following a surge in used exports from Asia in current years that analysts have stated includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the amount of cooking oil utilized and recovered in the area. The European Union is likewise investigating feedstocks over the fraud issues.

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

"EPA has actually carried out audits of sustainable fuel manufacturers because July 2023 that includes, to name a few things, an evaluation of the areas that used cooking oil utilized in sustainable fuel production was gathered," he said. "These investigations, nevertheless, are continuous and we are unable to talk about continuous enforcement investigations."

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

"The Biden administration has actually developed energetic standards to validate, not just trust, American producers, and it is necessary that the exact same scrutiny is applied to imported feedstocks," 6 U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, composed in a June 20 letter to federal companies.

Another letter from 15 senators to the Treasury Department on July 30 urged the administration to leave out 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)