Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ahead of the Energy Department’s final carbon footprint model to decide make-or-break tax credits for Sustainable Aviation Fuel, fears the final model may fall short.
Grassley says the final model, more than a month late, may place one of three growing conditions on corn, soybeans or other SAF feedstocks–minimum tillage, cover cropping or precision chemical applications. Grassley says ahead of the final so-called GREET model, such requirements to grow feedstocks for the huge aviation fuel market would show Energy, EPA and USDA don’t understand co-mingling of grain.
He says, “You carry it to the elevator, whether you use one of these three principles or not, and I think most farmers would fall into at least, those first two categories, cover crops and minimum tillage, you aren’t going to know whether the farmers practice that or not.”
Resulting, Grassley says, in one of two things. He says, “It’s going to be easy to violate the formula, and get all of our corn into the formula, or you’re not going to get any corn into the formula. And if you don’t have any grain in this formula, you’re not going to have enough feedstock to make all of the aviation fuel that’s going to be needed that these environmentalists are crying for.”
The White House wants three billion gallons by 2030, and a whopping estimate of 36 billion by 2050. Grassley argues USDA must make clear to the other agencies how grain is handled. He says, “Because, this is a ‘stupid approach’ from the standpoint of both the need for new aviation fuel to the fight global warming, and the ability to produce that amount of fuel is going to be impeded if you don’t have grain involved in it.”
Story courtesy of NAFB News Service and Berns Bureau Washington/by Matt Kaye
