US farmers are urging the White House to crack down on Chinese imports of used cooking oil in the waning weeks of Joe Biden’s administration, warning the shipments are undermining rural America’s big bet on crops for low-carbon fuels.
Used cooking oil is a key ingredient in green diesel and sustainable aviation fuel, and imports from China have reached record highs, nearing 1mn metric tonnes in September, according to US Department of Agriculture trade data. Other countries have blocked the imports, contributing to their surge into the US.
President Biden’s landmark climate law was supposed to be a win-win: long-suffering rural farmers would get incentives to grow new crops that would fuel the next generation of clean technologies and help the environment in the process. But the law failed to limit the incentives to domestic producers, instead attracting a flood of imports.