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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Thursday, May 09, 2024
The Biden administration’s long-awaited guidance for a new tax subsidy for sustainable aviation fuel does little by itself to jump-start the production of SAF made from ag feedstocks like corn ethanol. The most important set of rules are yet to come.
The Treasury Department released long-awaited guidance for a new tax credit for sustainable aviation fuel. Ethanol-derived SAF would be eligible as long as the corn is produced with three climate-smart farming practices.
The Biden administration is expected to announce key updates this week to its carbon-intensity scoring for sustainable aviation fuel this week, while lawmakers are struggling to break a partisan impasse over a new farm bill that Republicans are determined to move through the House Ag Committee in May.
The latest outbreak of highly avian pathogenic influenza has now claimed a large layer operation owned by the nation’s largest egg producer, Cal-Maine Foods. Nearly 2 million birds will be killed at the Texas operation, the company said Tuesday.
The biofuel industry is eagerly awaiting the Biden administration’s update of a model that will be used to measure the carbon intensity of sustainable aviation feedstocks and determine their eligibility for a valuable new tax incentives. But industry officials caution that the update is only one in several policy actions that will be needed to get SAF production off the ground.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Friday the Biden administration would need several more weeks to finalize its carbon assessment of feedstocks for sustainable aviation fuel, but he continued to express confidence that most of the product would ultimately come from agricultural sources.
Lawmakers have until Friday to pass the first of their fiscal 2024 spending bills, including the measure needed to fund USDA, or they’ll have to pass another stopgap spending measure to avert a partial shutdown of the government. The Biden administration also is scheduled to announce a critical update of the GREET model that’s used to measure the carbon intensity of biofuels.
In this opinion piece, Harold Wolle, president of the National Corn Growers Association, urges President Biden to consider the value of farmers to combat climate change with the aviation sector and explains why GREET, as originally designed, is the best model for determining GHG reductions from biofuels.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack told ethanol industry advocates he is confident that E15 (gasoline blended with 15% ethanol) will be available in all 50 states by 2025 and will be able to qualify for sustainable aviation fuel and clean fuel tax incentives.
The Biden administration has taken a major step toward allowing ag commodities to qualify for a new tax subsidy for sustainable aviation fuel, but there are still key details to be worked out that affect the eligibility of oilseeds and corn ethanol as SAF feedstocks.
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