By Leah Douglas
Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched investigations into the supply chains of a minimum of two renewable fuel producers in the middle of industry concerns that some might be utilizing fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to protect profitable federal government aids.
EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the company has launched audits over the previous year, however decreased to determine the companies targeted due to the fact that the investigations are ongoing.
The production of biodiesel from sustainable active ingredients, 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 materials identified as used cooking oil are in fact less expensive and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is connected with logging and other environmental damage.
The problem entered into focus following a rise in utilized cooking oil exports from Asia recently that experts have stated involves unrealistically high volumes relative to the amount of cooking oil used and recuperated in the region. The European Union is also examining feedstocks over the fraud .
The EPA audits began after the company upgraded domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for renewable fuel manufacturers seeking to earn credits under the RFS, he stated.
"EPA has actually carried out audits of sustainable fuel producers since July 2023 which includes, to name a few things, an assessment of the places that utilized cooking oil used in eco-friendly fuel production was collected," he stated. "These examinations, nevertheless, are continuous and we are not able to talk about continuous enforcement examinations."
U.S. senators from farm states have called for more oversight of biofuel feedstocks, saying federal companies ought to be as strenuous in verifying imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.
"The Biden administration has actually developed energetic standards to validate, not simply trust, American producers, and it is vital that the same analysis is used 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 prompted 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)
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US EPA Says it is Auditing Biofuel Producers' Secondhand Cooking Oil Supply
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