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 actually introduced investigations into the supply chains of at least two eco-friendly fuel manufacturers in the middle of industry concerns that some might be using deceitful feedstocks for biodiesel to protect financially rewarding federal government subsidies.

EPA representative Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the firm has launched audits over the past year, but decreased to identify the business targeted due to the fact that the investigations are ongoing.

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

The issue entered into focus following a surge in utilized cooking oil exports from Asia in current years that experts have actually stated involves unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil used and recuperated in the area. The European Union is also examining feedstocks over the scams concerns.

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

“EPA has performed audits of sustainable fuel producers because July 2023 which consists of, among other things, an examination of the areas that used cooking oil used in eco-friendly fuel production was collected,” 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 firms need to be as strenuous in validating imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.

“The Biden administration has created vigorous standards to verify, not simply trust, American producers, and it is necessary that the same examination is used to imported feedstocks,” six 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 tidy fuel tax credit program passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. (Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Matthew Lewis)