Advancing Bioenergy Technologies

The Biomass Research and Development (BR&D) Board is an interagency collaborative composed of senior decision makers from federal agencies and the White House, co-chaired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The BR&D Board, as well as the annual BR&D Initiative solicitation and Technical Advisory Committee, were established by the Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000, which was later amended by Section 9001 of the Food Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (FCEA) and was most recently reauthorized in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. USDA and DOE annually implement the BR&D Initiative, which consists of grants made available through FCEA Section 9008 and other programs. The Technical Advisory Committee is an independent body that provides input to agencies regarding the technical focus and direction of the Initiative.

The BR&D Board recently released The Bioeconomy Initiative: Implementation Framework, which serves as a guiding document for the BR&D Board member agencies to increase government accountability and efficiency, maximize interagency coordination on bioeconomy research and other activities, and accelerate innovative and sustainable technologies that harness the nation’s biomass resources.