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

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By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Epa has actually into the supply chains of a minimum of 2 eco-friendly fuel producers amidst industry issues that some may be using deceitful feedstocks for biodiesel to protect financially rewarding federal government aids.

EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the agency has actually launched audits over the past year, however declined to identify the business targeted since the examinations are continuous.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable components, like utilized cooking oil, can earn refiners a variety 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 fears have been installing that some supplies labeled as utilized cooking oil are in fact less expensive and less sustainable virgin palm oil, an item that is related to logging and other ecological damage.

The concern entered into focus following a rise in utilized cooking oil exports from Asia in current years that experts have actually said involves 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 scams concerns.

The EPA audits started after the firm updated domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for eco-friendly fuel manufacturers seeking to earn credits under the RFS, he stated.

"EPA has actually conducted audits of sustainable fuel producers because July 2023 that includes, amongst other things, an evaluation of the areas that utilized cooking oil used in eco-friendly fuel production was collected," he said. "These investigations, nevertheless, are ongoing and we are unable to discuss continuous enforcement investigations."

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

"The Biden administration has developed vigorous standards to confirm, not just trust, American manufacturers, and it is necessary that the same scrutiny is applied to imported feedstocks," six 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 omit 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)