By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Epa has actually introduced examinations into the supply chains of a minimum of two renewable fuel manufacturers amid market concerns that some might be using deceitful feedstocks for biodiesel to protect lucrative federal government subsidies.

EPA spokesperson Jeffrey Landis informed Reuters that the agency has actually released audits over the previous year, but decreased to recognize the companies targeted due to the fact that the investigations are ongoing.

The production of biodiesel from components, like used cooking oil, can make refiners a multitude of state and federal ecological and climate aids, including tradable credits under a program administered by the EPA called the Renewable Fuel Standard. But worries have been installing that some supplies labeled as utilized cooking oil are actually less expensive and less sustainable virgin palm oil, a product that is associated with logging and other environmental damage.

The issue entered into focus following a rise in used cooking oil exports from Asia recently that experts have stated includes 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 issues.

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

"EPA has conducted audits of renewable fuel producers because July 2023 that includes, amongst other things, an examination of the locations that used cooking oil used in renewable fuel production was collected,” he said. “These investigations, however, are continuous and we are unable to go over continuous enforcement examinations.“

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

"The Biden administration has created energetic requirements to validate, not just trust, American manufacturers, and it is essential that the same analysis is applied to imported feedstocks,” six U.S. senators, led by Roger Marshall and Sherrod Brown, composed in a June 20 letter to federal companies.

Another letter from 15 senators to the Treasury Department on July 30 prompted 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)