CROP Act

1. What happened: Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced the CROP Act (S.3297) on December 2, 2025. The bill amends Section 40A(g) of the Internal Revenue Code to extend the biodiesel fuels credit — which expired December 31, 2024 — through May 31, 2026, with retroactive effect to December 1, 2025. The bill was read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Finance, its only committee referral. The bill has one sponsor and one cosponsor. No House companion bill has been introduced. No markups, hearings, or further actions have occurred since introduction. 2. Money trail: The bill does not authorize or appropriate any new spending. It is a tax expenditure — it reduces federal revenue by the amount of credits claimed. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation has not published a score for this specific bill, but the biodiesel credit typically costs the Treasury $1-2 billion per year when fully in effect. The mechanism is a nonrefundable general business credit (subchapter B of subtitle A of the Code) and an excise tax credit (subtitle D) for biodiesel mixtures. Importantly, the bill includes a no-double-benefit clause preventing producers from claiming both this credit and the section 45Z clean fuel production credit for the same fuel. 3. Structural winners and losers: The primary beneficiaries are US biodiesel manufacturers and soybean crushers. Archer-Daniels-Midland ($ADM) is the largest US biodiesel producer and soybean processor. Bunge Global SA ($BG) also has significant US oilseed crushing and biodiesel capacity. Renewable diesel producers using the section 45Z pathway are NOT affected — the no-double-benefit provision prevents stacking. Petroleum diesel producers see no direct effect. Feedstock suppliers (soybean farmers) benefit indirectly through increased demand for soybean oil. 4. No real market data provided for stock prices. Structurally, the credit window (retroactive to Dec 2025 through May 2026) is short — only six months. The bill is a 'one-off' temporary extension rather than a multi-year renewal, limiting the strategic value for long-term capacity investment decisions. 5. Timeline: The bill is at the earliest legislative stage — introduced and referred. It requires committee markup, Senate floor consideration (where it would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster unless attached to a must-pass vehicle), House passage, and presidential signature. With a single Republican sponsor and no bipartisan cosponsorship, the path to standalone passage is narrow. The most likely route to enactment would be attachment to a year-end tax extenders package or a government funding bill — but the current session timing makes even that uncertain. If not passed before the credit's May 31, 2026 expiration, the retroactive provision becomes moot.