Renewable-fuels fraud cases expose weakness in EPA program

Pfft! All schemes to “address climate change” through GHG constraint are frauds, simply because they can never achieve their stated aims. This guy was simply more blatant than most.

The luxury cars lined up on Catron Road in a suburban subdivision north of Baltimore. A baby blue Rolls-Royce, a white Maserati, a black Bentley and two Ferraris. More than a dozen jammed the street and driveway in front of Rodney R. Hailey’s five-bedroom colonial.

Hailey told people that his company, Clean Green Fuel, was in the business of making renewable fuel, but some neighbors grew suspicious. One eventually complained to law enforcement officials.

Hailey, they allege, never produced so much as a drop of clean biodiesel. They say he sold phony renewable-fuel credits to major oil companies, brokers and producers, then simply pocketed the cash, spending lavishly on cars and jewelry.

The case landed Hailey, who denies the allegations, in federal court in Maryland. It also prompted calls for greater oversight of the fuel credit program run by the Environmental Protection Agency.

As the United States works to use more clean energy, companies that make or import gasoline or diesel are required to use a certain amount of renewable fuel. If they don’t, there’s another way to meet the mandate: They can buy credits that represent renewable fuel another company has made. Those credits are called renewable identification numbers — or RINs.

It’s all about incentives to boost production of renewable fuel. Companies can buy the credits even if they don’t buy the fuel — which still will be consumed in the United States.

But allegations against Hailey’s company, and another Texas company that also sold those credits, have exposed opportunities for fraud in the system, some in Congress say.

“We need to make sure that EPA is doing its job,” Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, said in a statement. “That means addressing problems like RIN fraud before they get further out of hand and cause significant damage.”

WaPo