§2 Biorefinery, renewable chemical, and biobased product manufacturing assistance
This section revises the biorefinery, renewable chemical, and biobased product manufacturing assistance program—which provides loan guarantees for commercial-scale biorefineries producing advanced biofuels, renewable chemicals, or biobased products to promote energy independence and rural economic development—by (1) expanding the purpose statement to include direct development of advanced biofuels (specifically defining them for this section to include ultra-low-carbon bioethanol and zero-carbon bioethanol); (2) broadening the definition of biobased product manufacturing to cover conversion into end-user products, renewable chemicals, and biobased products (previously limited to end-user products) and removing the requirement that equipment be "technologically new"; (3) adding competitive grants, subject to funding availability, for eligible entities to develop, construct, or retrofit pilot- or demonstration-scale biorefineries, with awards limited to 60% of project costs (non-Federal share may include up to 30% in materials); (4) establishing grant selection criteria, including a priority scoring system based on factors such as market potential, non-Federal funding, innovative feedstocks or processes, environmental benefits, rural development, replicability, scalability, and energy security, plus a third-party feasibility study (waivable for proven technologies); (5) modifying loan guarantee selection criteria to allow waiver of the feasibility study for proven technologies and making guarantees available year-round; (6) authorizing $100 million annually for loan guarantees and grants for FY2026 through 2030; and (7) making conforming changes to definitions, cross-references, and funding allocations.