The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 7567, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, by a 224-200 vote on April 30, 2026. The bill now moves to the Senate, where Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-AR) is expected to lead consideration. For sustainable aviation fuel, the significance is structural rather than financial: this is the first time SAF has been written explicitly into the federal biofuels framework that the farm bill governs.
The bill, sponsored by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), broadens existing biofuel policy to include SAF produced from renewable agricultural feedstocks and directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to identify ways to support SAF development through agricultural feedstock crops and public-private partnerships. The USDA mandate, as worded, instructs the Secretary of Agriculture to leverage the capabilities of America’s farmers, ranchers, foresters and producers to capture opportunities in the sustainable aviation fuels market. Until now, SAF has sat under tax-credit and Department of Energy R&D programs at the federal level, with USDA’s role limited to general bioenergy and biorefinery support.
The legislation passed on a bipartisan margin: 208 Republicans, 14 Democrats, and one Independent voted yes; three Republicans joined most of the Democratic caucus against. Energy Title (Title IX) of the bill reauthorizes existing farm bill energy programs through fiscal year 2031 and authorizes $715 million in appropriations across 2027-2031 for the Biorefinery, Renewable Chemical, and Biobased Product Manufacturing Program, the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), and related instruments. SAF projects sourcing from agricultural feedstocks would be eligible to draw on these existing pipelines, expanding the practical financing channels available to U.S. SAF developers.
“We are also grateful to see House lawmakers acknowledge not only the environmental benefits of sustainable aviation fuels, but also their potential for significant economic contributions to our country’s farmers and rural communities.” — Ed Bolen, NBAA President and CEO
The National Business Aviation Association endorsed the SAF provisions. NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen called the recognition of SAF as both an environmental and rural-economy lever a milestone, and the association urged the Senate to act promptly. The bill’s text is the lever that determines what federal programs SAF projects can draw from once it becomes law, which is why the explicit inclusion in the biofuels category, rather than a separate funding line, has structural significance for project finance.
Not all biofuel constituencies welcomed the SAF-specific framing. NATSO, representing truck-stop and travel-plaza operators that retail diesel and renewable diesel, urged either removing the SAF-specific language or broadening it to other low-carbon renewable fuels. NATSO’s position is that federal biofuels research and strategy policies should remain technology-neutral and feedstock-neutral to avoid distorting investment toward one fuel pathway and inadvertently increasing emissions and fuel costs through misallocated capital. The structural concern is that an explicit SAF carve-out within the broader biofuels category sets a federal preference that could pull USDA program dollars away from on-road renewable diesel and ethanol expansion.
The bill’s passage closes a long delay in farm bill renewal. The previous five-year framework expired in September 2023 and has been operating under successive extensions, the most recent of which runs through September 30, 2026. The 224-200 vote also marks the highest level of Democratic support for a House farm bill since 2008, with 14 Democrats crossing over. For SAF watchers, that bipartisan margin matters: the SAF provisions are now anchored in a bill that has cleared the lower chamber on a coalition vote rather than a party-line one, which strengthens the case for retention rather than stripping during Senate markup. The Senate has not yet released its version.
Source: NBAA, April 30, 2026 · AVweb, May 1, 2026 · Congress.gov, H.R. 7567
