Ten years ago this month, Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed the Renewable Fuel Standard, which ensures part of our transportation fuel comes from homegrown sources. Today, biofuels are boosting America’s energy independence and national security, supporting American farmers and agriculture, cutting pollution, and lowering prices at the pump. This is why the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union supports a strong RFS, and so should Colorado’s congressional delegation.

The RFS has been a major stimulus to the nation’s economy, producing $184.5 billion in annual economic output and $46.2 billion in wages each year, and supporting more than 852,000 American jobs that can’t be outsourced. These gains have come primarily in rural economies across the nation that are making a strong comeback thanks to renewable fuel. Thanks in large part to the RFS, farm income rose 88 percent from 2006 to last year — nearly doubling. That’s keeping family farmers and the communities who rely on them in business.

Closer to home, the RFS has been a boost to Colorado farmers and our economy. According to an analysis by Fuels America, the renewable fuel sector — including conventional ethanol, cellulosic biodiesel and advanced biofuels and their suppliers — generates $2.7 billion of total economic output annually in Colorado. The sector supports 10,619 Colorado jobs and generates $642.2 million in wages annually, contributing $111.6 million in federal taxes and $62.3 million in state taxes each year.

The more renewable fuel Colorado farmers produce, the less oil we import from hostile foreign regions — and, thanks to the RFS, renewable fuel now makes up nearly 10 percent of our fuel supply. That brings America closer to energy independence, and keeps us from getting embroiled in conflicts over foreign oil interests. Thanks to the RFS, foreign oil imports are down by nearly two-thirds, the lowest level in decades.

A strong RFS will continue to provide further opportunities for innovation and investment in advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol — the cleanest motor fuel in the world, made right here in America. Ninety percent of growth under the RFS is in the advanced biofuel sector, including cellulosic ethanol.

And this biofuels revolution is contributing to innovation here in Colorado at our research universities. In April, for the second year in a row, the team from the University of Colorado Boulder won an international renewable fuels competition. Their prototype vehicle, appropriately named Tatonkatoo, is ethanol-powered and gets 842 miles to the gallon.

But all of that success has been threatened by the EPA’s proposal to let the oil industry control our nation’s supply of clean, secure, American renewable fuel. The EPA must get America’s Renewable Fuel Standard back on track to ensure a cleaner, stronger, more secure future for our nation.

America’s Renewable Fuel Standard — passed with strong, bipartisan support and signed into law by President Bush — is a national success story. We need to keep it that way — and Colorado’s family farmers agree.

Kent Peppler is president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, a progressive, grassroots organization founded in 1907, that represents family farmers and ranchers in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.