EPA proposes feedstock restrictions
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposes to restrict the official designation of ‘renewable fuel’ to biofuel from producers which can provide documentary evidence that their feedstock is sustainably produced.
This has drawn complaints from biofuels producers which argue they will face a bureaucratic nightmare.
The proposal is contained in the consultation document for the proposed enhanced Renewable Fuel Standard. It states that fuel should be entitled to the tax breaks that renewable status brings only if the producer can prove that the land on which the feedstock was grown was cleared and cultivated before 19 December 2009.
The EPA makes various suggestions about how such a proposal could be implemented, such as by requiring renewable fuel producers to obtain documentation from their feedstock suppliers and to include that information in production reports submitted to the EPA.
In a comment submitted to the EPA regarding the RFS2 rulemaking, Adam Dunlop, Blue Flint Ethanol’s director of health, safety and environment, states that ‘the rule appears to place an impossible burden of tracking feedstocks on renewable fuel producers’.
This has drawn complaints from biofuels producers which argue they will face a bureaucratic nightmare.
The proposal is contained in the consultation document for the proposed enhanced Renewable Fuel Standard. It states that fuel should be entitled to the tax breaks that renewable status brings only if the producer can prove that the land on which the feedstock was grown was cleared and cultivated before 19 December 2009.
The EPA makes various suggestions about how such a proposal could be implemented, such as by requiring renewable fuel producers to obtain documentation from their feedstock suppliers and to include that information in production reports submitted to the EPA.
In a comment submitted to the EPA regarding the RFS2 rulemaking, Adam Dunlop, Blue Flint Ethanol’s director of health, safety and environment, states that ‘the rule appears to place an impossible burden of tracking feedstocks on renewable fuel producers’.
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