EPA to make 'necessary' US biofuel credit changes
By RYAN TRACY
WASHINGTON -- The US Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday it is "committed" to making "necessary adjustments" to its biofuel credit program in response to insistences of fraud.
The comments from two EPA officials, made in prepared testimony for a House hearing, were the agency's first public commitment to make changes to the program.
The agency oversees a market where refiners and biofuel producers trade credits to show they are complying with federal mandates to use biofuel.
Oil refiners, which are required to buy the credits, have faced millions of dollars in fines and added costs as a result of buying phony credits.
EPA has previously resisted making changes and said the market was designed to be "buyer beware."
"The EPA understands the seriousness and urgency of the fraudulent [credit] issue and has been diligently working with industry to alleviate uncertainties in the renewable fuels market," Byron Bunker, acting director of the compliance division of the agency's office of transportation and air quality, and Phillip Brooks, director of the agency's air enforcement division, said in their prepared testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel.
"We are committed to taking action to make necessary adjustments to the program in a timely manner."
Dow Jones Newswires
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