The Obama Administration has moved to boost biofuels.

The administration issued a renewable fuel standard proposal aimed at expanding the supply of biofuels and for the first time requiring them to meet emission-reduction targets.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said the new rule is designed to help promote and provide financial assistance to the biofuels industry and to increase the supply of renewable fuels to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

"As we work towards energy independence, using more homegrown biofuels reduces our vulnerability to oil price spikes that everyone feels at the pump," Jackson said last month during a conference call with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The proposed standard is the latest in a series of EPA rule changes aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and U.S. dependency on foreign oil. It was accompanied by an announcement that a federal Cabinet-level biofuels working group has been created to assist in the research, development and production of biofuels.

During the conference call, Chu announced plans to provide $787 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to accelerate advanced biofuels research and development and to fund the construction of commercial biorefinery demonstration projects.

"Developing the next generation of biofuels is key to our effort to end our dependence on foreign oil and address the climate crisis," Chu said.

EPA said it expects that by 2022, the renewable fuels standard will reduce dependence of foreign oil by more than 297 million barrels a year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 160 million tons a year.

The proposed rule would establish new volume requirements for cellulosic biofuel, biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel and total renewable fuel that must be used in transportation fuels each year.

The proposed rule, to be fashioned to comply with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, includes new definitions and criteria for both renewable fuels and the feedstocks that produce them.

EPA said the greenhouse gas emission assessments must evaluate the full life-cycle emissions effects of fuel production, including significant emissions from land use changes resulting from reducing corn grown for the worlds food supply.

Environmentalists said they fear the increases in corn ethanol production could cause farmers in developing nations to clear rain forests and release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

"EPA has taken an important step towards getting biofuels right," said Nathanael Greene, director of renewable energy policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "If we get the rules of the road right through policies such as this one, we can harness the ingenuity of Americas farmers, foresters and entrepreneurs to create a new generation of biofuels that will help create jobs and reduce our dependence on oil."