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

By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Epa has introduced investigations into the supply chains of at least two renewable fuel producers in the middle of market issues that some may be using fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to secure lucrative government aids.

EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the agency has actually launched audits over the past year, but declined to recognize the business targeted because the examinations are ongoing.

The production of biodiesel from sustainable active ingredients, like utilized cooking oil, can make refiners a multitude of state and federal environmental and climate subsidies, consisting of tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have actually been installing that some supplies identified as utilized cooking oil are in fact more affordable and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a that is connected with logging and other ecological damage.

The issue entered focus following a rise in used cooking oil exports from Asia in recent years that analysts have said involves unrealistically high volumes relative to the amount of cooking oil utilized and recuperated in the area. The European Union is likewise examining feedstocks over the fraud issues.

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

“EPA has actually conducted audits of renewable fuel producers considering that July 2023 that includes, amongst other things, an evaluation of the locations that used cooking oil used in renewable fuel production was gathered,” he stated. “These examinations, however, are ongoing and we are not able to talk about continuous enforcement investigations.”

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

“The Biden administration has actually created vigorous standards to verify, not simply trust, American manufacturers, and it is imperative that the very same scrutiny is used to imported feedstocks,” six U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, composed in a June 20 letter to federal firms.

Another letter from 15 senators to the Treasury Department on July 30 advised the administration to leave out 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)