On December 10 MRAA joined with 40 other organizations in an open letter to Congress and a full page advertisement in Political, a Capitol Hill newspaper, asking Congress to support several bills that have been introduced in both the House and Senate which would eliminate the corn ethanol mandate in the renewable fuel standard (RFS).

The ad and open letter to Congress said the recent EPA’s newly released proposal for biofuels is a small step in the right direction, but it is clearly insufficient to effectively address the harmful federal policy and that only Congress can solve the problem. The production of corn ethanol now consumes approximately 40 percent of the corn produced in the U.S. annually.

The EPA’s decision will do little to reduce ethanol’s share of the annual corn crop and virtually nothing to alleviate the broad economic and environmental damage currently caused by using corn for fuel. Farmers are increasing corn production by converting wetlands to crop land.