Biofuels requirement breed multi-million dollar fraud scams

Bloomberg/BNA:
Recent developments in multi-million dollar fraud cases involving biofuels tax credits and renewable fuels credits have raised new questions about the ability of enforcement officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice to keep control of the markets in renewable fuels incentives ( United States v Jalal,, S.D. Ohio,, No 2:16-cr-00180,, guilty plea 9/27/16 ; United States v. Chemoil Corp.,, N.D. Calif.,, No. 3:16-cv-05538,, settlement 9/29/16 ).

Malek Jalal, owner and manager of a New Jersey feedstock collector and processor, pleaded guilty Sept. 27 to conspiracy and obstruction of justice for his role in a $6 million scheme to fraudulently claim tax credits and renewable energy credits multiple times on the same load of fuel, according to a Justice Department statement.

Two days later, the department and the EPA announced that they had reached a settlement with Chemoil Corp. requiring the company to pay a $27 million fine and to retire more than 65 million renewable fuel credits—worth over $71 million at current market prices—over claims that the company exported nearly 50 million gallons in biodiesel between 2011 and 2013 without retiring the Renewable Identification Numbers that were generated for the exported fuel.

A spokeswoman for the biodiesel industry told Bloomberg BNA in the wake of the announcements that fraud in biofuels credits remains an isolated phenomenon in an industry that has succeeded in reining in its bad actors as it has matured. But a former EPA official says that it will remain very difficult for officials in resource-strapped agencies to stay on top of fraud in renewable energy credits without changes in the current structure of the program.
...
The best way to stop it is to do away with the requirement that refiners use biofuels.  The fuel is not needed and was the product of a perceived scarcity of oil that has been replaced by a glut of oil yet this ridiculous requirement persists.  Let biofuels compete in the open market without forcing others to take it.  If it can't make under those circumstances that is just further evidence that it is not needed or wanted.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more