Senators Manchin and Corker Introduce Bill to Fix Consequence of Renewable Fuels Mandate
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) today introduced the “Foreign Fuels Reduction Act,” legislation that would help ensure only domestically-sourced fuels are used to meet the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
“It is time for America to create an all-of-the-above energy policy that will help lead us to energy independence,” Manchin said. “It’s simply common sense to use all of our resources, and that includes non-food based biofuels. I am proud to cosponsor this bill with my good friend Senator Bob Corker to make sure that we continue to develop domestic non-food based biofuels while stopping the current system’s incentives to import food-based ethanol products from foreign countries.”
“It’s become obvious that the Renewable Fuel Standard is having some unintended consequences. This bill is a common sense step toward potentially mitigating gasoline price increases the RFS may contribute to in the near future. Because its mandated biofuels volumes are too high, the RFS is also unintentionally incentivizing ethanol imports. Our bill helps to correct that problem by more properly aligning mandated levels with what we produce domestically,” said Corker.
The Foreign Fuel Reduction Act would require that a reduction to the volume of cellulosic biofuel required under the RFS also results in a pro rata reduction to the total volume of renewable fuel and advanced biofuels, thereby helping to ensure that the RFS is met only by domestically sourced biofuels.
A fact sheet on the Foreign Fuels Reduction Act is attached.
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