According to an AP article, House and Senate spending bills would drastically reduce Environmental Protection Agency dollars for a law designed to boost ethanol use.

The article reports that of the $11.4 million requested by President Bush to implement the Renewable Fuels Standard in last year’s energy bill, the House has approved only $2.4 million and the Senate only $1.4 million.

“It’s as if they haven’t read their own press releases about the need to promote alternatives to gasoline,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of the Washington advocacy group Clean Air Watch.

House lawmakers did not respond to requests for comment, but a spokesman for Sen. Conrad Burns, the Montana Republican who chairs the Senate subcommittee, said Burns expects the funding to increase in final House-Senate negotiations on the bill.