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

Desmond See edited this page 2025-01-12 01:55:28 +08:00

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Epa has launched examinations into the supply chains of a minimum of two sustainable fuel producers amid market issues that some might be utilizing deceptive feedstocks for biodiesel to protect financially rewarding federal subsidies.

EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis told Reuters that the agency has actually launched audits over the previous year, however decreased to determine the companies targeted because the investigations are ongoing.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable active ingredients, like utilized cooking oil, can earn refiners a slew of state and federal environmental and environment aids, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have actually been installing that some materials labeled as used cooking oil are in fact more affordable and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is related to logging and other ecological damage.

The problem entered focus following a surge in used cooking oil exports from Asia in current years that experts have actually said includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the amount of cooking oil utilized and recuperated in the region. The European Union is also examining feedstocks over the fraud concerns.

The EPA audits began after the company updated domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for sustainable fuel producers seeking to make credits under the RFS, he stated.

"EPA has actually carried out audits of renewable fuel producers because July 2023 which consists of, to name a few things, an assessment of the areas that used cooking oil used in eco-friendly fuel production was collected," he stated. "These examinations, however, are ongoing and we are not able to go over ongoing enforcement investigations."

U.S. senators from farm states have actually called for more oversight of biofuel feedstocks, saying federal agencies must be as strenuous in validating imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.

"The Biden administration has actually created vigorous standards to validate, not simply trust, American manufacturers, and it is essential that the very same examination is used to imported feedstocks," 6 U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, wrote 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 credit program passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. (Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Matthew Lewis)