U.S. Struggles to Rescue Green Program Hit by Fraud

The following is an excerpt from an article in:


The New York Times
Friday, October 12, 2012

U.S. Struggles to Rescue Green Program Hit by Fraud

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — A Maryland man is awaiting sentencing for what may seem an unusual crime: selling bogus renewable energy credits and using the $9.3 million in illicit proceeds to buy jewelry and a fleet of luxury cars.

In a similar case in Texas, a man has been indicted for selling a whopping $42 million in counterfeit credits. He bought real estate, a Bentley and a Gulfstream jet.

As a result of such cases, the Environmental Protection Agency is scrambling to retool a program that relies on such credits to encourage the use of cleaner diesel fuel in engines. The refining industry has meanwhile seized on the schemes to argue that government fuel mandates don’t work and the rules should be relaxed or scrapped.

Under the E.P.A. program, initiated in 2009, a producer who makes diesel fuel from vegetable oils and animal fats receives renewable energy credits for every gallon manufactured. The producer can then resell the credits to refiners, who pay millions of dollars for them under a government mandate to support a minimum level of production.

The credits can also be resold, a commonplace activity in the arena of corporate compliance with federal environmental rules.

The problem is that at least three companies were selling bogus credits without producing any biodiesel at all, the E.P.A. has said in announcements over the last year. Agency officials declined to comment for this article.

Now no one is certain how many of the credits are real. So far, more than $100 million in fraudulent credits have been identified, the refining industry estimates. That amounts to roughly 5 percent of the credits issued since 2009, but the percentage could rise as current investigations of other producers progress.

The credits are easier to counterfeit than hundred-dollar bills. Known as “renewable identification numbers,” or RINs, the 38-digit credits have no physical form and are traded electronically. Exxon Mobil, Marathon and Sunoco are among the many big companies that have bought bogus credits.

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