Companion bills presented in House and Senate to reform RFS

In Washington, Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.) introduced companion bills in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate to reform the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) by mitigating harmful environmental impacts and advancing the next generation of biofuels.
The GREENER Fuels Act (Growing Renewable Energy through Existing and New Environmentally Responsible Fuels Act) is the first bill in Congress to reform the RFS.
The Welch/Udall bill would:
First, 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.
Second, help farmers return cornfields to pasture and wildlife habitat through a 10 cents per 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 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.
Third, extend the cellulosic next generation biofuel mandate until 2 billion gallons of annual production is achieved or 2037, whichever is soonest, and improve the way the mandate is implemented to produce liquid transportation fuels that dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.