Feb 29, 2024
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack expressed confidence that the U.S. EPA will issue an emergency waiver to allow E15 to remain available this summer and discussed the USDA’s ongoing efforts with regard to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) during a Feb. 28 congressional hearing.
Vilsack appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on Feb. 28 during a hearing that was focused on USDA oversight and the upcoming Farm Bill.
During the hearing, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, expressed support for the final rule issued by the EPA in February that will allow E15 to be available year-round in eight Midwest states starting with the 2025 summer driving season, but expressed disappoint that the EPA delayed implementation of the rule until next year. She cited previous comments made by Vilsack and asked if he is confident the Biden administration will issue a year-round waiver allowing E15 sales to continue during the 2024 summer driving season on a nationwide basis. Such emergency waivers were implemented by the EPA for the 2022 and 2023 summer driving seasons.
Vilsack indicated that he is confident that the EPA will issue an emergency waiver allowing E15 sales to continue nationwide this summer and said he expects that waiver to be issued in the same timeframe it was the past two years—likely in April. “I am pretty sure they will have the resources and the data necessary to make the decision and have the decision stick,” he said in reference to the emergency waiver.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned Vilsack on the USDA’s advocacy work related to SAF. Vilsack said he thinks the USDA has two primary roles to play in relation to SAF. The first is to advocate for a rule related to the Inflation Reduction Act tax credit that allows for a broad range of feedstocks, including the traditional feedstocks that are used to biofuels, to qualify for the tax credits and for the incentives. This includes the use of ethanol as a SAF feedstock.
“Part of my responsibility is to articulate the need [and] the science behind that,” Vilsack said. “I think we’ve been successful in getting the GREET model incorporated in this process.” He added that the agency is now in the process of talking about climate smart agriculture, and stressed “we’re going to continue to pound the table on that.”
The second responsibility is for the USDA to provide the science and the data behind the availability of the feedstock, the logistics for the supply chain, and how to accelerate adoption and commercialization of SAF, Vilsack said. He said he was in attendance at the recent opening of LanzaJet’s facility in Georgia and noted that the U.S. has set a goal to produce 36 billion gallons of SAF. The LanzaJet facility is a 10 MMgy plant. “Obviously, we have to accelerate dramatically the commercialization and availability [of SAF],” Vilsack said. “We have to figure out the tools we can use at USDA—our loan programs and so forth—to try to accelerate that.”
Regarding USDA’s advocacy in updating the GREET model, Vilsack said he thinks the people USDA worked with appreciate ethe fact that he is a strong advocate and that the team at USDA is very thoughtful and provides the scientific data to back up what they are saying. He said the agency isn’t just advocating for SAF because it would be good for farmers, USDA is advocating for SAF because the science supports it. He noted that USDA’s advocacy work helped some folks who were skeptical of the GREET model embrace it. The agency is now in the process of educating those folks on climate-smart agriculture so that they understand the benefits of cover crops, efficient fertilizer, no-till, and other things of that nature—and understand that you can calculate the benefits of those climate-smart ag practices and that those benefits should be incorporated into SAF calculations.
Vilsack also touched on the importance of domestically producing SAF feedstocks. “If you can’t domestically produce the feedstocks for this fuel, then you’re going to have to import them,” he said. “Why would be do that?”
A full replay of the hearing is available on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry website.
Read the original story here.