House Passes “Big Beautiful Bill” with Alterations to 45Z

In May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.1, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”.  This budget reconciliation bill included many notable changes to the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), including cancellation of most renewable energy incentives and environmental provisions and changes to the Clean Fuel Production Credit, called 45Z after the section in the IRA.  If passed without modification in the Senate, the proposed changes would go into effect on January 1, 2026.  These changes can be viewed as being significant for two main groups – low carbon fuel producers and domestic farmers. 

The most important change to the act, which will positively impact gaseous and liquid low carbon fuels producers, is the proposed extension of the program expiration date by four years, from December 31, 2027 to December 31, 2031.  This will help to stabilize the investment landscape for companies looking to expand or start producing low carbon fuels in North America.  Additionally, the proposed changes would disallow specified foreign entities or foreign-influenced entities, currently including only current foreign adversaries of the US, from claiming 45Z tax credits.  Finally, renewable natural gas (RNG) producers will now have separate pathways for dairy, swine and poultry manure in order to maximize potential credit generation. 

The “Big Beautiful Bill” also includes several provisions designed to support domestic production of crop-based feedstocks for low carbon fuels.  The first is that while the IRA allowed for tax credit generation of all foreign feedstocks except for used cooking oil (UCO), the new act would restrict credit generation only to fuel made from feedstocks produced in the U.S., Mexico, or Canada.  This will be a boon to domestic farmers as it is likely to push up the demand, and therefore cost, of North American produced soybean oil, canola oil, UCO and tallow. 

Additionally, the proposed act explicitly disallows the consideration of indirect land use change from the calculated carbon intensity (CI) as part of the lifecycle analysis (LCA).  Given that the credit value is based on how far below a baseline the fuel’s calculated CI is, a double-digit reduction in the CI for crop-based fuels would significantly increase the tax credit value for these fuels.  This will be a huge win for corn ethanol, and soybean and canola oil based renewable diesel and biodiesel and thereby further incentivize the production of these feedstocks.  This will also provide significant incentive to increase soybean crush capacity within the United States, which has been steadily growing in recent years.

At TRICORD, we have been monitoring the progression of changes to the IRA generally and 45Z specifically and have been keeping up with the latest news.  We have experience calculating facility CI values using the Argonne GREET model, among others, and have helped renewable fuels producers to navigate this ever-changing landscape. 

If you need support understanding the IRA rules and opportunities, please reach out to our renewable fuels team leader Hannah Losey, P.E. at Hannah.Losey@tricordconsulting.com.