ACE gives feedback on USDA’s feedstock carbon intensity calculator

In Washington, the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) provided feedback on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) technical guidelines for quantifying, reporting, and verifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with agricultural production of biofuel feedstock and the Department’s Feedstock Carbon Intensity Calculator (FD-CIC), welcoming that they overall sufficiently inform farmers how individual conservation practices can reduce the carbon intensity (CI) of their crops.

ACE CEO Brian Jennings commended USDA for providing farmers a practical, science-based pathway to lower their CI scores and create new revenue opportunities. “USDA’s guidelines are a significant step forward in acknowledging the critical role farmers play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Jennings said. “By avoiding the all-or-nothing bundling approach and allowing farmers to stack practices like reduced tillage and nutrient management, these guidelines create flexibility and real-world applicability for producers.”

ACE highlighted the importance of ensuring these guidelines are fully integrated into the implementation of the 45Z Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit and adopted consistently in state and regional clean fuel programs. “Regulated fuel markets historically penalize ethanol based on many outdated assumptions around farm-level GHG emissions. It is long overdue for farmers to get credit for their conservation practices which, according to the latest science, reduce the overall carbon footprint of ethanol and other biofuels, and these USDA guidelines help unlock that value,” Jennings added.

The organization also emphasized the need for continuous improvement of the FD-CIC tool. ACE recommended accounting for specific crop yield, climate, soil, and management-specific estimates of nitrogen use efficiency and nitrous oxide emissions, as well as making updates based on real-world data, such as findings from ACE’s own USDA-funded Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) projects. Through these RCPP projects, ACE is working with farmers across 10 states and 167 counties to implement conservation practices on nearly 100,000 acres. The initiative will gather extensive soil and crop data to validate greenhouse gas benefits and inform updates to lifecycle models like GREET.