The U.S. ethanol industry is continuing to urge the Biden Administration to use the most accurate model for transportation lifecycle assessment for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Ethanol organizations including the Renewable Fuels Association, U.S. Grains Council, and Growth Energy sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen encouraging the use of updated scoring in the U.S. Department of Energy’s GREET model instead of carbon intensity scoring used in the CORSIA model for corn-based ethanol SAF.

“We strongly support the adoption of the DOE’s GREET model by the U.S. Treasury as the standard for carbon intensity scoring of conventional aviation fuels and SAF. The latest DOE GREET model relies on the most current information and highest-resolution data regarding the energy use, carbon emissions and potential land use impacts associated with the corn ethanol-based SAF process. By incorporating the DOE GREET model into its evaluation framework, the Treasury can unlock the full potential of agriculture to meet the growing demands of the global aviation industry while simultaneously reducing its carbon footprint.”

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack spoke in Washington DC this week about ethanol’s role in SAF and said that USDA is “working on the modeling to make sure that there’s a broad array of feedstocks that can qualify including ethanol….We’re spending our resources at USDA to make sure the GREET model is where it needs to be.”