The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a national program for adoption of renewable fuel in the US transportation sector. It requires the sector to produce a minimum volume of renewable fuel annually. The RFS was established by the Energy Policy Act (EPA) in 2005, which amended the Clean Air Act, with a target of 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel in 2006. The standard was updated in 2007 by the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) wherein, the target was scheduled to reach 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel in 2022. Moving forward, EPA will determine the future targets from 2022. The aim is to increase the mandated minimum renewable volume annually which must be met by using both conventional biofuel and advanced biofuel.
The statute is focused on four categories of renewable fuel, namely, conventional biofuel, advanced biofuel, cellulosic biofuel and biomass- based biofuel. In order to be considered as a specific renewable fuel, it must achieve certain Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reductions in comparison to gasoline and diesel fuel.