National Restaurant Association Calls on Congress to Reform Renewable Fuel Standard

National Restaurant Association Calls on Congress to Reform Renewable Fuel Standard Renewable Fuel Standard Reform Act would help cut food costs (Washington, D.C.) As a long-time advocate of reforming the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the National Restaurant Association today commended four Congressmen for introducing the Renewable Fuel Standard Reform Act, which would help protect consumers and businesses from food price volatility. The bipartisan legislation was introduced today by Congressmen Bob Goodlatte, Jim Costa, Steve Womack and Peter Welch. “Food costs are a top business challenge for the restaurant industry, which operates on razor-thin margins,” said Scott DeFife, EVP, Policy & Government Affairs, National Restaurant Association. “The Renewable Fuel Standard Reform Act would benefit consumers, businesses and the overall economy by helping to lower these costs, and we applaud Congressmen Goodlatte, Costa, Womack and Welch for their bipartisan efforts to reform the RFS.” In a letter to bill sponsors, the Association noted that wholesale food costs have increased nearly 30 percent in the last six years. The Association attributed this rise in costs to the RFS’s corn-based ethanol mandate, highlighting the fact that 40 percent of U.S. corn crops were devoted to fuel production, rather than food or feed, last year. The Renewable Fuel Standard Reform Act would bring down costs by eliminating the conventional biofuels mandate, and effectively prohibiting the use of corn-based ethanol in the RFS. The legislation also reduces the total size of the RFS and restricts the standard to only being met through the use of renewable biomass and other advanced biofuels.