By Leah Douglas
Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Agency has launched examinations into the supply chains of a minimum of two renewable fuel producers in the middle of market issues that some might be utilizing fraudulent feedstocks for biodiesel to protect lucrative government aids.
EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis told Reuters that the firm has launched audits over the past year, however declined to identify the business targeted because the investigations are continuous.
The production of biodiesel from sustainable active ingredients, like utilized cooking oil, can earn refiners a multitude of state and federal environmental and environment aids, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But fears have been mounting that some products identified as utilized cooking oil are in fact cheaper and less sustainable virgin palm oil, an item that is associated with deforestation and other ecological damage.
The problem came into focus following a rise in used cooking oil exports from Asia in current years that analysts have actually stated involves unrealistically high volumes relative to the quantity of cooking oil used and recovered in the region. The European Union is likewise examining feedstocks over the scams issues.
The EPA audits started after the company updated domestic supply-chain accounting requirements in July 2023 for renewable fuel manufacturers looking for to make credits under the RFS, he stated.
"EPA has actually conducted audits of sustainable fuel producers because July 2023 that includes, among other things, an examination of the places that used cooking oil utilized in renewable fuel production was gathered," he stated. "These investigations, nevertheless, are continuous and we are not able to talk about continuous enforcement examinations."
U.S. senators from farm states have required more oversight of biofuel feedstocks, stating federal firms need to be as rigorous in verifying imports as they are auditing domestic supply chains.
"The Biden administration has created energetic standards to validate, not just trust, American manufacturers, and it is imperative that the exact same analysis 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 prompted the administration to exclude 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)
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US EPA Says it is Auditing Biofuel Producers' Pre owned Cooking Oil Supply
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