mission-agroenergy-ltd

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

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has actually launched investigations into the supply chains of a minimum of two renewable fuel producers in the middle of market concerns that some might be using deceptive feedstocks for biodiesel to protect profitable federal government subsidies.

EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis told Reuters that the firm has launched audits over the previous year, however decreased to recognize the companies targeted because the examinations are continuous.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable ingredients, like used cooking oil, can earn refiners a variety of state and federal ecological and environment subsidies, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have actually been installing that some materials identified as utilized cooking oil are really more affordable and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is associated with logging and other ecological damage.

The concern came into focus following a surge in utilized cooking oil from Asia recently that experts have actually stated involves unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil utilized and recuperated in the region. The European Union is also investigating feedstocks over the fraud concerns.

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

"EPA has actually carried out audits of sustainable fuel manufacturers because July 2023 that includes, to name a few things, an evaluation of the locations that used cooking oil used in sustainable fuel production was gathered," he said. "These examinations, however, are ongoing and we are unable to go over continuous enforcement examinations."

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

"The Biden administration has developed energetic requirements to verify, not simply trust, American manufacturers, and it is necessary that the exact 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 companies.

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)