Atlantic Council Releases Report on Sustainable Aviation Fuel Policy in the United States

In Washington, D.C., the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center released a new report, Sustainable Aviation Fuel Policy in the United States: A Pragmatic Way Forward which provides a set of near and long-term federal policy options that could be implemented in order to encourage the use of sustainable aviation fuels.

The report contextualizes each policy choice and explains the implications of each option, differentiating between policies that can be implemented in the near-term and policies that require long-term implementation.

The aviation sector is in need of decarbonization, but it is one of the most challenging transportation sectors to decarbonize, since decarbonization options that may work for ground or maritime transport are generally not feasible for air travel. Sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) present an opportunity to decarbonize the aviation sector, but federal policies that address SAF have largely included SAF as an add-on to existing policies that are meant primarily to address ground transportation. However, due to the unique challenges presented to decarbonization by the aviation sector, the use of SAF should be incentivized through pragmatic, sector-specific federal policies.