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 released examinations into the supply chains of at least 2 sustainable fuel producers amid market issues that some might be using deceptive feedstocks for biodiesel to secure lucrative government subsidies.

EPA representative Jeffrey Landis told Reuters that the company has actually released audits over the previous year, however declined to determine the companies targeted because the examinations are continuous.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable ingredients, like utilized cooking oil, can earn refiners a slew of state and and climate subsidies, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have been mounting that some materials identified as utilized cooking oil are in fact less expensive and less sustainable virgin palm oil, an item that is connected with logging and other environmental damage.

The concern came into focus following a surge in used cooking oil exports from Asia recently that analysts have said includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil used and recuperated in the region. The European Union is likewise examining feedstocks over the scams issues.

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

“EPA has actually performed audits of sustainable fuel manufacturers given that July 2023 that includes, among other things, an examination of the places that utilized cooking oil utilized in eco-friendly fuel production was gathered,” he stated. “These examinations, however, are ongoing and we are not able to talk about ongoing enforcement examinations.”

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

“The Biden administration has created energetic requirements to verify, not just trust, American producers, and it is necessary that the very same scrutiny is applied 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 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)