Firm allegedly exploits green law

• Tweet

TORONTO, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- A Toronto-based company exploited a loophole in U.S. law to repeatedly haul the same biodiesel load back and forth over the border, U.S. officials said.

The biodiesel transported by Bioversel Trading, Inc. via Canadian National Railway numerous times across the border at Sarnia-Port Huron had posed a mystery to the U.S. Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Canada Border Services Agency, CBS News reported.

Bioversel made several million dollars importing and exporting the same cargo at cost of $2.6 million during June 2010, CBC News said

The U.S biodiesel market was the subject of legislative hearings during the summer concerning problems with the Environmental Protection Agency's biodiesel regulatory program. Problems with the biodiesel credit system affected the industry, especially smaller biodiesel companies attempting to produce fuel safer for the environment, CBS News reported.

Bioversel CEO Arie Mazur said the border crossings involved renewable identification numbers, or RINS, which are credits established by the EPA to track and promote renewable fuel production.

Northern Biodiesel Inc. of Ontario, N.Y, one of the corporations Bioversel asked to act as the "importer of record," found the same fuel was going back and forth across the border and the same gallons of fuel used many times over to create new RINs under NBI's name. The corporation alerted the EPA and accused Bioversel of "trying to perpetrate a fraud against NBI and the Renewable Fuel Standard program."