Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack held his last official press conference of his tenure at USDA on Wednesday, announcing the publication of an interim rule on Technical Guidelines for Climate-Smart Agriculture Crops Used as Biofuel Feedstocks.

The interim rule establishes 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 will facilitate the recognition of climate-smart agriculture within clean transportation fuel programs, creating new market opportunities for biofuel feedstock producers while enhancing climate benefits.

The action today is essentially what was missing from the 45Z guidance offered by U.S. Treasury last week and makes changes from the rules for 40B, according to Sec. Vilsack. “First of all, there’s an additional crop in addition to corn and soybeans. We now include sorghum. There are additional climate smart agricultural practices, including reduced tillage and fertilizer application timing. As importantly, practices may be used individually or in combination. They are not required to be bundled. And the CI reductions that result from using each practice would be better and more precisely estimated than they were for the pilot program in 40B.”

Click here to get the details from USDA and listen to Vilsack’s press conference below: