The Environmental Protection Agency has come out with proposed regulations that it says would cut U.S. petroleum consumption by nearly 4 billion gallons a year.

The proposal is to require that just less than 4 percent of all the gasoline sold to motorists next year be a renewable fuel, like ethanol.

Besides reducing the nation’s dependency on oil, the EPA calculates that the move would reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by up to 14 million tons a year.