Making Policy in the Absence of Certainty: Biofuels and Land Use Change
Biofuels are an important tool to help decarbonize our transportation system, and their role will likely grow in coming years. New tax credits authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act are being finalized; these would offer significant incentives for the biofuel alternatives to conventional jet fuel, so-called “Sustainable Aviation Fuels” or SAF. But it’s not always clear how sustainable these fuels truly are, or whether they offer a significant GHG advantage over petroleum. The proposed SAF tax credits limit eligibility to fuels that offer at least a 50% reduction in life cycle GHGs compared to petroleum and give additional incentives to those that exceed that threshold.