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

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By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has actually introduced investigations into the supply chains of a minimum of 2 sustainable fuel manufacturers in the middle of industry issues that some may be utilizing fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to secure profitable government aids.

EPA representative Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the company has actually introduced audits over the previous year, but decreased to identify the companies targeted because the examinations are ongoing.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable components, like utilized cooking oil, can make refiners a multitude of state and federal ecological and climate subsidies, consisting of tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have actually been mounting that some supplies labeled as used cooking oil are in fact more affordable and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is connected with logging and other ecological damage.

The issue entered focus following a rise in used cooking oil exports from Asia recently that experts have said involves unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil utilized and recuperated 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 eco-friendly fuel producers seeking to earn credits under the RFS, he stated.

"EPA has actually conducted audits of sustainable fuel manufacturers because July 2023 that includes, to name a few things, an evaluation of the places that used cooking oil utilized in renewable fuel production was gathered," he stated. "These investigations, however, are ongoing and we are not able to talk about continuous enforcement examinations."

U.S. senators from farm states have required more oversight of biofuel feedstocks, saying federal companies ought to be as rigorous in as they are auditing domestic supply chains.

"The Biden administration has actually produced vigorous requirements to verify, not simply trust, American producers, and it is vital that the same scrutiny is applied to imported feedstocks," 6 U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, wrote in a June 20 letter to federal agencies.

Another letter from 15 senators to the Treasury Department on July 30 advised the administration to exclude 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)