Big River Resources hired Empact Technologies to manage prevailing wage compliance for the 45Z clean fuel production tax credit across four ethanol facilities, using AI-powered documentation and managed services to ensure compliance that can increase the credit value from 20 cents to one dollar per gallon of fuel produced.
- Big River Resources produces approximately 385 million gallons of ethanol annually across four facilities in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin
- The 45Z tax credit base amount is 20 cents per gallon, but reaches $1 per gallon if prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements are met
- Empact's NexusIQ platform reviews certified payroll reports, timesheets, and pay stubs weekly for all covered workers to ensure compliance
- Prevailing wage rules apply to all construction, alteration, and repair work at operating facilities, not just new construction projects
- Empact backs its compliance work with financial guarantees and reliance letters that protect credit value when transferred to buyers, insurers, and lenders
Big River Resources, a farmer-owned ethanol producer based in West Burlington, Iowa, has hired Empact Technologies to manage prevailing wage compliance for the 45Z clean fuel production tax credit at four facilities producing about 385 million gallons of ethanol a year.
Houston-based Empact announced the four-year engagement Tuesday. Big River is replacing legacy Davis-Bacon labor compliance software with Empact's full-service model, which pairs the company's NexusIQ artificial intelligence platform with managed compliance services. The work covers qualifying alteration and repair projects at Big River's operating plants.
The stakes are in the credit math. For fuel produced after 2025, the base 45Z amount is 20 cents a gallon, or $1 a gallon if the facility meets prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements, according to the IRS. Both figures are adjusted for inflation and multiplied by the fuel's emissions factor. Documentation is the difference between a credit and five times that credit.
That puts contractor payroll at the center of tax credit value. Prevailing wage rules require that laborers and mechanics employed by a producer or any contractor or subcontractor on construction, alteration or repair of a facility be paid at least the prevailing rates set under the Davis-Bacon Act. Producers claiming the higher amount must file a separate Form 7220 for each facility to establish compliance. Repair work at an operating plant, not just new construction, falls inside the requirement.
The process works at the contractor level. NexusIQ checks each contractor-week against underlying pay and time records rather than certified payroll summaries alone and flags what does not reconcile. Empact staff then carry those issues through to resolution with contractors and maintain the compliance record for the length of the engagement.
Empact also takes on a share of the compliance risk. The company backs its work with a financial guarantee and issues a reliance letter Big River can share with tax credit buyers, insurers and lenders. That matters when credits are transferred rather than claimed directly, because buyers price in the risk that a claim will not hold up.
Deb Green, interim CEO and chief operating officer of Big River Resources, said the company's facilities needed a modern platform to manage prevailing wage compliance.
"Empact gives our plant teams one system across every site, takes work off our contractors, and gives us confidence that the documentation behind our 45Z credits will hold up," Green said.
Charles Dauber, founder and CEO of Empact, said the platform reviews certified payroll reports, timesheets and pay stubs for covered workers every week.
"Producers need the highest level of rigor to ensure prevailing wage compliance for their critical 45Z tax credits," Dauber said.
Big River operates ethanol plants and grain elevator sites across Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin and sells distillers grains and distillers corn oil. The company, formed as a cooperative in July 1992, employs more than 200 people. The announcement did not disclose financial terms or the value of the credits covered.
