LANSING, MI – Could corn and other crops grown in Michigan eventually find their way into the fuel tanks of passenger jets taking off from the state’s airports?
Some Michigan lawmakers hope so.
They’re pushing legislation that proponents say could cut planet-warming carbon emissions and pollution from flying while supporting farmers and a nascent American industry producing sustainable aviation fuel, industry jargon for jet fuel derived from sources other than petroleum.
It can be fashioned from a variety of materials, including used cooking oil, manure, landfill waste and corn, before being blended with conventional fuel and pumped directly into airplanes.
A proposed law introduced last year by East Lansing Democratic state Sen. Sam Singh, Senate Bill 447, would subsidize in-state purchases of the fuel for flights leaving Michigan with a tax credit of between $1.50 and $2 per gallon. It would apply to fuels produced or blended in Michigan.
“This is an opportunity for us to decarbonize a very difficult industry. It by no means is solving the problem, but we have an opportunity here to reduce the carbon emissions from planes, be able to do that and build that out in our state with our (agricultural) community, especially our friends that are growing corn all across our state,” he said as the bill cleared a Senate committee with bipartisan support but some detractors on Dec. 5.
It still has to advance in the state House and Senate this month to have a chance at becoming law, competing with other pent-up legislation in the lame duck session before Democrats lose their governing trifecta in January.
Major air carriers with Michigan hubs, like Delta Air Lines, are leaning into the fuel as a means to meet their net-zero emissions pledges.
It’s the “only lever” the industry can currently pull to get there, said Delta’s Chief Sustainability Office Amelia DeLuca during a March Michigan Senate hearing. “We cannot put batteries on an airplane today and expect it to travel around the world.”
As it stands, air travel represents roughly 3% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, per federal estimates. But while non-fossil jet fuel production is ramping up, it’s still just a tiny sliver of the amount used by major U.S. airlines, and costs more than convention fuel.
Sustainable aviation fuel arrived to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport for the first time in its history this year, for use in Delta flights.
Michigan would join several other states, including Washington, Minnesota and Illinois in incentivizing purchases, if Singh’s bill became law. If 10% of aviation fuel sales qualified for the tax credit, it would cost the state between $40.8 and $54.4 million per year, according to a Senate Fiscal Agency analysis.
The bill has agribusiness boosters, particularly in Michigan’s corn growers, who testified in support.
But it’s also got detractors in a soybean industry group and several existing biofuels producers in the state.
It could put producers in competition with large out-of-state oil companies for input materials, they wrote in letters of opposition. They took particular aim at the bill’s allowance of “co-processing” until 2030, where existing petroleum refineries combine fossil fuels with renewable feedstocks like vegetable oils or fats.
Some environmentalists are also skeptical of sustainable aviation fuel. They argue ramping up production could increase net emissions as cropland is diverted away from food production and expanded, sucking up more water for irrigation in the process.
In a statement, Nichole Keway Biber, an organizer with the Clean Water Action group in Michigan, called sustainable aviation fuel a “false solution” equating it to a big ag subsidy married to fossil fuel interests, given the fact the fuels are blended with conventional fossil-based jet fuel.
“Legislators must show responsibility, vote no on SB447 and other such legislation that further incentivizes expansion of industrial-scale operations on agricultural lands already pushed to the brink of collapse by polluting, unsustainable practices,” she said.
Others have raised broad concerns about biofuels production itself spewing pollution, despite the industry’s green image.
But sustainable aviation fuel has support from the White House, at least under President Joe Biden, with his administration’s signature climate bill, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, including tax credits for the fuel. But final guidelines for the credits may not be finalized before Donald Trump takes office, casting doubt on the policy, Reuters recently reported.
