Clarification of the Preamble for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) Final Rule 

Published on October 27, 2010

There were several errors in the preamble to the final rule dated October 27, 2010 (75 FR 

66202-66243), CCC published to implement BCAP. This document describes needed 

clarifications to the preamble of that final rule. The clarifications provided below do not revise 

or modify BACP policies and requirements established by the final rule in 7 CFR 1450.

On page 66206, in the chart titled “Conditions Where Eligible Materials will Qualify for 

Matching Payments,” there was a typographical error in line 8 titled “Trees and shrubs with 

timber, lumber or wood pulp value.” In the third column, the letter “N” should be a “Y.” So, for 

clarification, trees and shrubs with timber, lumber, or wood pulp value do qualify for matching 

payments if they are collected or harvested by separation from a higher-value product that was 

collected or harvested directly from the land before transport and delivery to the biomass 

conversion facility. On page 66210, in the second column, second paragraph, the sentence 

starting with Federal- or State-owned biomass, had a typographical error; the word “ineligible” 

should have been “eligible.” Therefore, “Federal- or State-owned biomass conversion facilities 

may be project sponsors, but will not be eligible to enter into a BCAP contract with CCC 

because neither Federal- nor State-owned land is eligible for establishment payments and annual 

payments.”

On page 66218, in the third column, in the section titled “Filing of False Claims (§ 

1450.12)”, in the second paragraph, the email address had a typographical error. The correct 

email address is usda_hotline@oig.usda.gov.

On page 66222, in the second column, there was a typographical error in the sentence 

“Eligible materials that can be attributed to the creation of black liquor are materials that were 

delivered principally for the manufacture of a higher-value product that is not heat, power, 

biobased products, or biofuels, not for the recovery of chemicals where energy is an ancillary 

side effect and therefore do not qualify for matching payments.” The word “not” after the word 

“biofuels” should be “they are not materials that are used primarily.” Therefore, “Eligible 

materials that can be attributed to the creation of black liquor are materials that were delivered 

principally for the manufacture of a higher-value product that is not heat, power, biobased 

products, or biofuels, they are not materials that are used primarily for the recovery of chemicals 

... do not qualify for matching payments.”

On page 66227, in the first column, to conform with the rule portion, the sentence “While 

the same laws and other restrictions do not generally apply to privately held land, the BCAP 

regulation provides that provisions of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (16 U.S.C. 6512), 

must be followed on private land in order for material harvested from that land to qualify for a 

BCAP matching payment” should have been deleted from the document. The requirement had 
been deleted from the rule portion, but inadvertently the conforming change had not been made 

in the preamble.

On page 66232, in the Regulatory Flexibility Act section, in the first and second columns, 

in each of the three bullets, there was a typographical error in the abbreviation; “NIACS” should 

be “NAICS,” which is an abbreviation for the North American Industry Classification System.