Budget Reconciliation Proposal Would Exclude Sustainable Aviation Fuels Produced by US Farmers

Last week, Biden administration officials including U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack touted the greenhouse gas benefits of sustainable aviation fuels, including the potential for growing ag markets.

The current bill uses what ag groups say is “decades-old” GHG emissions models rather than the latest lifecycle models that show biofuels produced with ag feedstocks such as corn and soybeans have better profiles than originally believed.

“Without a change in these three bills before the House of Representatives, U.S. biofuel producers will not be able to participate in the SAF market, rural communities will be locked out from contributing to a cleaner climate, and our nation’s ability to decarbonize the airline fleet will suffer,” the groups said in a letter to the two leaders on Sunday.

The letter is signed by the Advanced Biofuels Business Council, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, Growth Energy, National Biodiesel Board, National Corn Growers Association, National Farmers Union, National Sorghum Producers and the Renewable Fuels Association.

“Numerous members of our respective organizations are poised to produce SAF or sustainable feedstocks for SAF,” the groups said.

The groups said the action would “ensure that the administration’s vision for reducing aviation emissions and the cited opportunities for American agriculture are not realized.

“Instead, SAF blend stock from Brazil, Singapore and elsewhere will be subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, while U.S. producers and farmers are shut out,” the letter said.

The committees would require the use of a lifecycle-emissions model from the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency, to measure the carbon intensity of various fuels.

The groups said the model is “inaccurate and effectively excludes agriculture-based biofuels from these federal incentive programs.”

The letter said improvement in biofuels production have been “well-recognized” by the U.S. Department of Energy’s GREET model, which is considered to be the state-of-the-art model used globally to measure life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.