US EPA Says It Is Auditing Biofuel Producers Secondhand Cooking Oil Supply
By Leah Douglas
Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Epa has released examinations into the supply chains of at least two renewable fuel manufacturers in the middle of industry issues that some might be utilizing fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to secure profitable government aids.
EPA representative Jeffrey Landis told Reuters that the agency has launched audits over the past year, but decreased to determine the companies targeted because the investigations are ongoing.
The production of biodiesel from sustainable components, like used cooking oil, can earn refiners a variety of state and federal ecological and environment aids, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have been mounting that some supplies labeled as used cooking oil are actually cheaper and less sustainable virgin palm oil, an item that is associated with logging and other ecological damage.
The problem came into focus following a rise in utilized cooking oil from Asia in current years that experts have actually said involves unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil utilized and recovered in the area. The European Union is likewise examining feedstocks over the fraud concerns.
The EPA audits started after the company upgraded domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for renewable fuel manufacturers seeking to make credits under the RFS, he said.
"EPA has actually conducted audits of sustainable fuel manufacturers because July 2023 that includes, to name a few things, an evaluation of the areas that used cooking oil used in sustainable fuel production was gathered," he said. "These examinations, however, are continuous and we are not able to talk about continuous enforcement investigations."
U.S. senators from farm states have called for more oversight of biofuel feedstocks, stating federal companies need to be as rigorous in validating imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.
"The Biden administration has actually developed energetic standards to confirm, not simply trust, American producers, and it is essential that the same analysis is used 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 leave out imported feedstocks like UCO from an additional clean fuel tax credit program passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. (Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Matthew Lewis)