Over the last four to five years, biofuels have seen a dramatic increase in the role that they play in decarbonizing our transportation sector as a country. Specifically, the State of California enacted a Low Carbon Fuel Standard or LCFS with the intention of leading a zero-carbon transportation sector. You probably have seen announcements about California banning the sale of new liquid fuel-powered vehicles in the years to come. These programs are designed as political programs to achieve specific outcomes. For California, that means moving away completely from the use of fossil or any other liquid fuel.

The end game of California’s LCFS is to eliminate all liquid fuels— even biofuels. The pathway to get there relies on the use of biofuels in the heavy transportation sector. For many passenger vehicles, this transition is happening quickly with the use of electric vehicles. However, in other industries such as long-haul trucking, intensive heavy machinery and several other industries that rely on diesel engines, the transition to electrification is not a simple or quick process. To reduce dependence on fossil fuels, California’s LCFS program has increased the use of biodiesel and introduced the use of renewable diesel into their market. At the beginning stages, due to the availability of fuels and feedstocks, soybean oil had a short-term boom going into the California biodiesel market. That boom increased when California started incorporating renewable diesel. These products are often confused but are very different in their production and end-use profiles. While biomass-based diesel has seen growth, soybean oil makes up less than 15% of the market today compared to over 50% a few years ago.

Unfortunately for soybean farmers, we’ve been led to believe that we would have a reliable, long-term market under the California LCFS to supply soybean oil-based biodiesel and renewable diesel. However, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), an unelected group of bureaucrats, have capped and limited soybean oil. It has been replaced by imported “waste” feed stocks usually coming from Southeast Asia and often favors these products over American-produced feedstocks.

It is undeniable that in the short-term, increased demand has been generated in California for soybean oil into their biofuel market, and it is only a matter of time until California looks to completely remove row crop agriculture-based biofuels from their markets.

Currently, Senate Bill 41 has been introduced here in Illinois that would seek to create a LCFS. Illinois Soybean Growers (ISG) has been lobbying and advocating to ensure this legislation does not have a harmful impact on our in-state market for biodiesel that uses over 300 million gallons of B100 annually. The oil from more than 100 million bushels of soybeans is used to make that fuel. There are many actors at the table in support of this legislation who are looking to provide better outcomes for agriculture than are found under the California program.

However, our organization remains deeply concerned with placing the power over our in-state market for biodiesel in the hands of an unelected bureaucratic entity. The Illinois Pollution Control Board would be authorized to exercise great administrative power to implement the legislation. This includes the use of modeling that penalizes Illinois farmers for the production practices of Brazilian farmers. The Argonne GREET model contains this penalty called “Indirect Land Use Change” or ILUC.

Our organization believes firmly in the current state policy that encourages blending to increase from B11 to B20 by April 2026. That trajectory for usage of biodiesel is in the best interest of our farmers, our economy and the people of the State of Illinois. In the coming months, we will continue to educate and engage farmers across the state to stand up and oppose this harmful legislation. To continue to learn more and to engage, visit www.ilsoy.org.