Refinery industry says EPA was slow to react to biodiesel fraud

The refinery industry and lawmakers are leveling fresh criticism at the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the agency failed to act quickly enough to protect the industry from fraudulent biodiesel certificates. 

The issue surrounds a series of fraud schemes uncovered in the last year in which companies obtained and traded bogus EPA renewable identification numbers (RINS) that are supposed to prove fuel blenders and refiners have used require amounts of biodiesel in their products.