On the night of Monday to Tuesday, November 22, the Senate gave its approval to the use of used cooking oils as fuel, while limiting it to “captive fleets” businesses and communities.
The legalization of the use of frying oil as fuel, proposed by Green MPs, had been retained by the government in the version of the draft budget adopted using Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows adoption without a vote. It was approved in July in the National Assembly, as part of the bill on purchasing power, but the senators had substituted a simple request for a report, ultimately rejected by the Constitutional Council.
The position of the Senate has therefore evolved, since it no longer opposes the measure, but therefore confines the use of edible oils to the sole fleets of companies or communities that fill up at a single specific pump.
Experimentation with captive fleets should allow “to progress, since there is both monitoring, fuels, settings and manufacturers who are around this device”insisted the general rapporteur of the budget, Jean-François Husson (Les Républicains).
The provision did not give rise to any debate in the hemicycle, but the government issued an opinion “unfavorable” to the restriction proposed by the general rapporteur. The Senate had previously increased from 300 euros to 500 euros the ceiling of the tax credit for the installation by an individual, a self-employed person or an individual entrepreneur, of a charging system for electric vehicles.