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 released investigations into the supply chains of a minimum of 2 renewable fuel producers amid industry concerns that some may be utilizing deceitful feedstocks for biodiesel to protect lucrative government aids.
EPA representative Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the agency has launched audits over the past year, however decreased to recognize the companies targeted since the investigations are ongoing.
The production of biodiesel from sustainable ingredients, like utilized cooking oil, can make refiners a multitude of state and federal ecological and environment aids, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But fears have been installing that some materials identified as used cooking oil are in fact less expensive and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is connected with logging and other environmental damage.
The concern entered focus following a rise in utilized cooking oil exports from Asia in current years that experts have actually stated includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil used and recovered in the region. The European Union is also examining feedstocks over the scams concerns.
The EPA audits began after the company updated domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for renewable fuel manufacturers seeking to make credits under the RFS, he said.
"EPA has carried out audits of eco-friendly fuel manufacturers given that July 2023 that includes, amongst other things, an assessment of the locations that used cooking oil used in renewable fuel production was collected," he stated. "These examinations, nevertheless, are continuous and we are not able to go over continuous enforcement investigations."
U.S. senators from farm states have required more oversight of biofuel feedstocks, saying federal firms should be as strenuous in verifying imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.
"The Biden administration has actually developed vigorous standards to validate, 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 companies.
Another letter from 15 senators to the Treasury Department on July 30 urged the administration to exclude imported feedstocks like UCO from an additional tidy fuel tax passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. (Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Matthew Lewis)