05/05/2012 (Jakarta Post) - The government says it has submitted an official response to a recent notification from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on qualifications for its renewable fuel program.

The government’s response, sent on April 26, said that in calculating greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA used data which was based on assumptions, and therefore did not represent real conditions, the Trade Ministry’s director general for foreign trade, Deddy Saleh, said on Friday. He also said that that the planned rule ignored Indonesia’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting the environment.

The EPA said in a recent regulatory filing that palm oil-based biodiesel reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent compared to the petroleum diesel fuel that it is designed to replace, slightly lower than the 20 percent threshold demanded in the renewable fuel standard (RFS) program in the world’s largest energy market