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

Lea Waldon edited this page 2025-01-11 12:23:49 +01:00

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched investigations into the supply chains of at least 2 sustainable fuel producers amidst industry issues that some might be utilizing fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to secure lucrative government subsidies.

EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis told Reuters that the company has actually introduced audits over the previous year, however decreased to identify the companies targeted since the examinations are ongoing.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable ingredients, like used cooking oil, can make refiners a multitude of state and federal ecological and climate subsidies, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have been installing that some materials identified as used cooking oil are actually less expensive and less sustainable virgin palm oil, an item that is associated with logging and other environmental damage.

The issue came into focus following a rise in utilized cooking oil exports from Asia recently that experts have stated includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the amount of cooking oil used and recuperated in the area. The European Union is also examining feedstocks over the fraud issues.

The EPA audits began after the agency updated domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for sustainable fuel manufacturers seeking to earn credits under the RFS, he said.

"EPA has performed audits of renewable fuel manufacturers because July 2023 which includes, among other things, an evaluation of the places that utilized cooking oil utilized in renewable fuel production was gathered," he stated. "These investigations, nevertheless, are continuous and we are not able to go over continuous enforcement examinations."

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

"The Biden administration has created energetic standards to validate, not simply trust, American manufacturers, and it is essential that the exact same scrutiny is used to imported feedstocks," six U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, wrote in a June 20 letter to federal firms.

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 credit program passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. ( by Leah Douglas in Washington Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Matthew Lewis)