On November 14, 2019, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Representative Peter Welch (D-VT) introduced legislation seeking to reform the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The Growing Renewable Energy through Existing and New Environmentally Responsible (GREENER) Fuels Act is intended to mitigate the “harmful environmental impacts of the corn ethanol mandate,” according to a press release issued by the lawmakers. The bill would phase out the corn ethanol mandate and immediately reduce the amount of ethanol in fuel by as much as 1 billion gallons by capping the amount of ethanol that can be blended into conventional gasoline at 9.7 percent. The legislation also seeks to help farmers return cornfields to pasture and wildlife habitat through a 10 cents per renewable identification number (RIN) fee to fund a new Private Land Protection and Restoration Fund in the U.S. Treasury. The fund will help pay for Department of Interior (DOI) programs that pay for easements on private lands to keep them out of agricultural production; keep the lands in conservation uses like grass, forest, stream buffers, or pollinator habitat; and help farmers transition land currently in crop production into other uses. The GREENER Fuels Act also would extend the cellulosic and advanced next-generation biofuel mandate until 2 billion gallons of annual production is achieved or 2037, whichever is sooner, and alters the way the mandate is implemented to produce liquid transportation fuels that dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
