The renewable fuels standard (RFS) is one of the federal initiatives that will bring about a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions even before the U.S. Congress enacts comprehensive climate change legislation. When President Barack Obama announced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) final RFS rule at a White House meeting with state governors in February, he was able to dodge a bullet previously aimed at the RFS.

The bullet that President Obama dodged is whether corn-based ethanol provides a net GHG emissions reduction relative to fossil fuels. When the U.S. House of Representatives was considering the Waxman-Markey climate change bill last summer, corn-ethanol industry lobbyists took aim at this issue. They succeeded politically. Since then, EPA responded scientifically in its RFS final rule. As a result, a "political" fix was no longer needed.

The RFS is the outgrowth of two laws. In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress directed EPA to design a program to blend renewable fuels into the nation's motor vehicle fuel supply. In the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Congress set a target of 36 billion gallons of ethanol (21 billion gallons from cellulosic sources or biomass) to be used in transportation fuels by 2022. The 2007 law set an interim target for this year of nearly 13 billion gallons.