“This is like Solyndra,” the official said. “This is a government-created freaking mess, and they never policed it.”
Politico reports,
Shell Oil, ExxonMobil and Morgan Stanley are among the major oil and financial companies potentially on the hook for millions of dollars in civil fines tied to fraudulent renewable fuel credits — and that could be the tip of the iceberg.
The Environmental Protection Agency last week sent out 24 notices of violations to companies linked to the purchase and use of what turned out to be fake “renewable identification numbers” sold by Clean Green Fuel. A RIN is a 38-digit number required by the EPA to document the production of a certain amount of renewable-blended fuel.
The owner of Clean Green Fuel, Rodney Hailey, was charged Oct. 3 with wire fraud, money laundering and a violation of the Clean Air Act for allegedly selling 32 million RINs valued at $9 million and representing 22 million gallons of biodiesel fuel.
But industry officials say the EPA is using the companies as a scapegoat while ineffectively policing the RIN trading market…
“This is like Solyndra,” the official said. “This is a government-created freaking mess, and they never policed it.”