"NEW YORK -- Ben Wootton was just getting ready to bring his company out of bankruptcy last month when word from Washington stopped him in his tracks."

"Instead of an expected pick-up in sales for the biofuel-based diesel that he makes from recycled cooking oil at a suburban Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, plant, demand is likely to drop due to a proposed freeze on U.S. consumption mandates.

'I won't be alive, for sure,' said Wootton, who runs the 1.5 million gallon per year Keystone Biofuels plant.

Wootton and others like him are venting their frustrations at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which they say is penalizing makers of so-called advanced biofuels like biodiesel in rules proposed last month that are primarily directed at curbing consumption quotas for ethanol in 2014."

Cezary Podkul reports for Reuters December 11, 2013. [2]