Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is raising red flags about a large increase in imports of used cooking oil, which can replace soybeans in the making of biodiesel fuel.
Grassley says used cooking oil can also be a key ingredient in what’s known as sustainable aviation fuel, which he says is a promising new market for Iowa.
“We want that made out of soybeans, but it can be made out of almost anything that has grease in it,” Grassley says, “and used cooking oil has grease in it.”
Iowa leaders are urging lawmakers to create a tax credit for the production of sustainable aviation fuel in the hopes Iowa could build a refinery for it. Georgia, North Dakota and Montana already have such refineries but demand is said to be rising for the airplane fuel.
Grassley says the imports of used cooking oil are getting a subsidy, which he sees as counter-productive.
“Although soybeans might get some subsidy,” Grassley says, “it’s very possible that used cooking oil would get a bigger subsidy, because there’s a carbon footprint that determines the level of subsidy.”
A federal report shows the U.S. imported a record of 3.2 billion pounds of used cooking oil this year through August, which Grassley says is enough to displace about 270-million bushels of soybeans. Calling it a “massive year-over-year imports increase,” Grassley says more than half of the imported used cooking oil is coming from China.
“We shouldn’t give any subsidy to anything coming into this country for an import to encourage more of that, particularly in competition with our own product,” Grassley says, “but that’s what the law requires, so I hope we can change the law.”
Grassley says he’s concerned the flood of imports will unfairly undermine American producers and the domestic feedstock industry.