A bill aimed at eliminating the corn-based ethanol requirement in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has been reintroduced in Congress. IDFA in the past has joined a coalition of food groups in expressing support for the bipartisan legislation that will protect food makers and consumers from unnecessary food price increases. The bipartisan “Renewable Fuel Standard Reform Act” was introduced by Representatives Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Jim Costa (D-CA), Peter Welch (D-VT) and Steve Womack (R-AR) and cosponsored by an additional 30 members of Congress. Their bill would prohibit corn-based ethanol from being used to meet the Renewable Fuel Standard and would reduce the total size of the standard by 42 percent over the next nine years. 

IDFA President and CEO Connie Tipton urged changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard in her address to attendees at the recent Dairy Forum 2015.

“We need policy changes that favor production of crops for food over production for fuel – changes like repeal and reform of ethanol and biodiesel mandates in the renewable fuel standard that would make more corn available and less costly for food uses,” said Tipton. “We need to feed people, not cars.”

The fuel mandate, which is proposed every year by the Environmental Protection Agency, determines the amount of ethanol and biofuels refiners must blend into the nation’s fuel supply.

The EPA failed to release its final rule for 2014 volume standards, and has pushed back proposing the 2015 volume requirements. Saying the “majorly flawed RFS just isn’t working,” the bill’s sponsors argue the amount of ethanol required in the standard is “unworkable” for refiners, cars, and equipment that must use the fuel, and believe there is an opportunity and the momentum to reform the RFS this Congress.

A press release from the Feed Food Fairness Coalition, of which IDFA is a member, can be found here.