By Leah Douglas

Aug 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released investigations into the supply chains of a minimum of 2 manufacturers amidst market concerns that some may be using deceitful feedstocks for biodiesel to secure lucrative federal government aids.

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

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

The problem came into focus following a surge in used cooking oil exports from Asia in current years that analysts have said includes unrealistically high volumes relative to the amount of cooking oil used and recuperated in the region. The European Union is also investigating feedstocks over the fraud issues.

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

“EPA has carried out audits of renewable fuel producers given that July 2023 which includes, amongst other things, an examination of the areas that utilized cooking oil utilized in sustainable fuel production was gathered,” he said. “These examinations, however, are ongoing and we are unable to talk about continuous enforcement examinations.”

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

“The Biden administration has actually produced energetic standards to verify, not simply trust, American producers, and it is important that the same examination is used 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 advised 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)