USDA, Treasury, IRS, DOE, and market updates with separate publication dates, effective dates, and regulatory status labels.
Carbon capture can reduce an ethanol pathway's lifecycle emissions, but Section 45Z includes an anti-stacking rule for facilities receiving 45Q. Treasury's proposed facility definition shows why the boundary matters.
The post-2025 45Z feedstock rule favors U.S., Canadian and Mexican origin while EPA's final 2026-27 RFS volumes require more biomass-based diesel feedstock. The result is a new sourcing advantage for North America.
Section 45Z rounds the fuel emissions factor to the nearest 0.1. At the 2026 PWA rate, crossing one rounding threshold changes gross credit value by 10.9 cents per gallon.
EIA data show U.S. biofuel plants used a record 1.434 billion pounds of soybean oil in May 2026. Renewable diesel plants accounted for most of the month-over-month increase.
EIA's August 2026 outlook shows ethanol production rising through 2027 while domestic gasoline blending stays near 0.94 million barrels per day. Net exports are filling the gap.
Ethanol repriced corn starch and renewable diesel repriced soybean oil. S&P Global's biofuels report suggests carbon intensity could become the next crop attribute a fuel market pays for, though the data infrastructure to price it doesn't fully exist yet.
S&P Global's June 2026 biofuels report frames a shift from volume-based biofuel policy to carbon-intensity-based markets, one that could tie a farmer's income to how a crop was grown rather than just how much of it was grown.
S&P Global models a scenario where U.S. corn production rises nearly 47% on slightly less acreage by 2050, driven by yield rather than land expansion. The company is explicit this is a conditional, optimized scenario, not a forecast.
S&P Global's chart of ethanol CI-reduction levers puts agriculture next to carbon capture and renewable energy as a decarbonization option, but its climate-smart-agriculture figure is an indicative scenario, not a current 45Z or farmer-CI adjustment.
S&P Global's biofuels report ties agricultural technology adoption to market incentives more than technical availability. Applied to farmer CI programs, that means a program's payment structure is as important to its design as its carbon accounting.
Green Plains, The Andersons, and Aemetis are now reporting tens of millions of dollars of 45Z value in Q2 2026 earnings, and some are selling credits for cash and financing CI-reduction projects around them.
Biofuel producers are selling Section 45Z credits to banks and corporate buyers through structured, insured transactions, turning carbon-intensity data into an underwriting input for a real financial market.
ADM will invest in four existing US soybean-crush plants to add about 700,000 metric tons of annual capacity, phased in from mid-2028 through early 2029, and says it is evaluating up to 10 plants for further expansion.
Bunge's and ADM's Q2 2026 crush results and a University of Illinois basis study show biofuel demand reshaping soybean economics, but they do not establish that farmers are being paid a low-CI premium.
A farmdoc daily analysis runs the official FD-CIC calculator through Illinois county data and finds cover-crop-driven 45Z value ranging from $0 to $243 per acre, with the biggest swing coming from an unregulated variable outside the farm gate.
The final rule establishes the technical framework for qualifying feedstock production under 7 CFR Part 2100, including the FD-CIC calculator methodology.
Proposed regulations address the clean fuel production credit, including feedstock CI treatment and credit transfer mechanics. Comments are open.
The official Feedstock Carbon Intensity Calculator is published with the final rule. Commercial tools should identify their version and reconciliation to the official tool.
Several software and program providers have announced enrollment and verification readiness. FDCIC.com is reviewing public claims and has not yet completed any rating.