“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.
“Many others are working toward participation in the full value chain in the relatively near future. Because biomass feedstocks are essential SAF sources, it is imperative that tax credits and other programs properly account for the lifecycle emissions of these sources and the petroleum products these new fuels will replace.”
Last week the White House convened a group of more than 150 stakeholders including Vilsack who said, “USDA and American agriculture will make sustainable aviation possible in concert with our federal and industry partners and their stakeholders.”The reconciliation package from the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, however, would exclude from incentive programs SAF derived from agricultural feedstocks.
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.
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