The Green Scissors coalition of taxpayer and environmental advocates submitted comments on the clean fuel production credit, which was established by the Inflation Reduction Act to replace the expired biodiesel tax credit. In these comments, Friends of the Earth, R Street Institute, Taxpayers for Common Sense, U.S. PIRG, and Environment America urge the Administration to ensure that its implementation of the new credit will not subsidize first generation food-based biofuels.
The coalition raises particular concern that this credit could devolve into VEETC 2.0, an ethanol tax credit that was phased out in 2011 due to bipartisan opposition. Ethanol and other first generation biofuels are proven drivers of increased emissions, with land-use impacts that threaten carbon-rich wetlands, forests, and grasslands, higher food and fuel costs, and more.
Green Scissors cautions that “consumer and taxpayer costs may increase due to reckless implementation” of the new credit and calls on the Administration to ensure that the credit is not “wasting taxpayer dollars on special interests and mature industries that already have received taxpayer support for more than four decades.”
Founded in 1994, the Green Scissors coalition works to eliminate government spending that is both economically wasteful and harmful to the environment.