Technical Guidelines for Climate-Smart Biofuel Feedstocks

Effective beginning 5/20/2025: Please note this site is under review and content may change.

As of June 2026, there is a final version of the Technical Guidelines for the Production of Regenerative Agricultural Biofuel Feedstocks rule, this page is maintained for archival purposes. Access the final rule and documentation here: www.usda.gov/technical-guidelines-regenerative-biofuel-feedstocks

On January 15, 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the release of an interim rule on Technical Guidelines for Climate-Smart Agriculture Crops Used as Biofuel Feedstocks.

The interim rule established guidelines for quantifying, reporting, and verifying the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the production of biofuel feedstock commodity crops grown in the United States. These guidelines may inform the subsequent development of requirements for other programs which incentivize low-carbon biofuels.

USDA requested public comment on the interim rule to help inform future revisions or additions to the final rule. The interim rule was posted for public inspection on January 16^th, 2025 at regulations.gov and was published on January 17^th, 2025.

Interim Rule Text

Technical Guidelines for Climate-Smart Agriculture Crops Used as Biofuel Feedstocks (PDF, 1008 KB)

Beta Version: USDA Feedstock Carbon Intensity Calculator

In June 2026, USDA released the final version of the USDA FD-CIC tool, access here: Final USDA FD-CIC

Archived USDA FD-CIC tool (beta version): Archived USDA FD-CIC (ZIP, 30.0 MB)

Archived USDA FD-CIC User Guide (beta version): Archived USDA FD-CIC User Manual (PDF, 484 KB)

The USDA Feedstock Carbon Intensity Calculator (USDA FD-CIC) (beta version) quantifies carbon intensities (CI), in greenhouse gas emissions per bushel, for three domestic feedstock crops: field corn, soybeans, and sorghum. The USDA FD-CIC (beta version) feedstock CIs reflect the impact of specified climate-smart agriculture practices used during crop production. The USDA FD-CIC tool (beta version) allows producers to evaluate the following practices (as single or stacked practices):

No till
Reduced till
Cover crops
Nitrification inhibitors
Fertilizer timing: Split in-season application
Fertilizer timing: Spring only application

The interim rule Technical Guidelines for Climate-Smart Agriculture Crops Used as Biofuel Feedstocks includes USDA FD-CIC in Subpart C: Quantification of Farm-level Crop-specific Carbon Intensity. The rule also defines the practices listed above.

The county-level feedstock CIs in USDA FD-CIC were calculated in two steps. For the first step, USDA calculated the difference between the feedstock CI with CSA practices and the feedstock CI under business-as-usual farming practices. This calculation was performed at the county level, for each county in which the feedstock is produced. As a second step, USDA subtracted the difference calculated in step one from the national average baseline feedstock CI for each crop. The national average baseline feedstock CIs are used in Argonne National Laboratory’s Research and Development Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technology (R&D GREET). This step ensures a consistent baseline between USDA FD-CIC and the R&D GREET model. The full methodology underlying USDA FD-CIC is explained in the methodology documents linked below.

Request for Beta Testing, Peer Review, and Public Feedback

USDA is releasing USDA FD-CIC (beta version) for beta testing, peer review, and public feedback. USDA will evaluate and respond to the public feedback and peer review provided on USDA FD-CIC, after which USDA will take final action to establish an operative version. Before such final action is taken, users should consider values from USDA FD-CIC as preliminary and should not rely upon them.

The underlying models used to generate values in USDA FD-CIC have undergone extensive peer review. Further, under USDA’s authorities in section 2709 of the 2008 Farm Bill, in April 2024, USDA published Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Agriculture and Forestry: Methods for Entity Scale Inventory. The publication of these methods adhered to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines "Final Information Quality bulletin for Peer Review" 70 FR 2664-2677, and this document has been designated by OMB as a highly influential scientific assessment. The method recommended for quantifying changes in soil carbon stocks and nitrous oxide emissions from agricultural soils refers to the DAYCENT ecosystem model, which is used as described in this rule to generate the CI estimates in USDA FD-CIC.

However, the values produced by USDA FD-CIC require additional beta testing, peer review, and public feedback.