Help get environmental guardrails on sustainable aviation fuel
Putting environmental guardrails on an existing tax credit will help make sure new sustainable aviation fuels are actually sustainable. (Photo via Canva)
Sustainable aviation fuel's impact on the Mississippi River watershed will be significant. Whether that impact is positive or negative will come down to the policy decisions state leaders make.
The 2026 legislative session is the first big opportunity of the year to push this industry in the right direction.
FMR is supporting a bill that would put much-needed environmental guardrails around an existing state tax credit for sustainable aviation fuel. As it's currently written, the state SAF tax credit requires a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but does not do enough to safeguard water quality, soil health and biodiversity by rewarding the most sustainable sources.
The state is actively positioning itself as a leader in SAF. If it wants to do so legitimately, lawmakers need to put rules in places that ensure SAF made in Minnesota is actually sustainable.
The 5 environmental guardrails: A closer look
Scaling the tax credit to carbon intensity:
The lower-carbon a feedstock is, the larger the tax credit becomes, which encourages the use of the lowest-carbon options. As the tax credit is currently constructed, all fuels receive the same credit as long as they reduce emissions by at least 50%. (So a 51% reduction and a 90% reduction are awarded with the same financial incentive.)
Requiring domestic feedstocks:
For SAF made from crops, those crops must be grown in the U.S. to qualify for the tax credit. This helps disincentivize converting natural lands (like the Amazon rainforest) into crop production to serve our SAF market.
Preventing land use change:
Only crops grown on longstanding farmland would be eligible. For example, someone who plows existing woods or prairie to create new cropland for SAF couldn't benefit from the tax credit.
Prohibiting enhanced oil recovery:
A SAF producer cannot claim the tax credit if carbon capture is then used for enhanced oil recovery.
Including green hyrdogen:
Expanding the definition of SAF will allow promising low-cabron technologies such as green hydrogen to qualify for the tax credit, when it's ready.
Since last session, we've been building support for these guardrails among a wide range of stakeholders and legislators. What we have now is a set of tax credit improvements with bipartisan support, and the backing of environmental groups, agriculture organizations and SAF industry decision-makers — all of whom recognize the promise of SAF if we do it right, and the peril to our waters and habitat if we get it wrong.
Help us pass these important guardrails
The House and Senate tax committees will take up the SAF environmental guardrails bill soon. We need these committees to support the current version of the bill so it has a chance to pass the full Legislature later in the session.
If your representative is on the House or Senate tax committee, now is a great time to help. Use the form below to send a message to your state legislator, urging them to support these bipartisan environmental guardrails on SAF. (HF 1669/SF 1312).
Not sure if your legislator is on the committee? Enter your information in the form below and it will let you know.