On October 3, 2011, Rodney Hailey, the Chief Executive Officer of Clean Green Fuels, LLC was charged with wire fraud, money laundering, and Clean Air Act violations for allegedly selling $9 million in fake renewable energy credits. According to the complaint, Hailey is alleged to have sold 32 million renewable energy identification numbers representing approximately 22 million gallons of biodiesel fuel. The credits were purchased by oil companies to demonstrate compliance with a provision in the Energy Independence and Security Act that requires these companies to either produce a specific quantity of renewable fuel or purchase renewable energy credits.
On November 7, 2011, U.S. EPA issued notices of violation to 24 companies that had purchased these invalid credits, noting that the use by these companies of invalid credits to demonstrate compliance was still a violation "regardless of that person's good faith that the [credits] were valid at the time they were acquired." U.S. EPA has ordered these 24 companies to submit revised corrected compliance reports within 14 days or face potential penalties of $37,500 per day. Please click here to go to U.S. EPA's website for more information on these notice of violations.
