Press Release of Senator Lugar Lugar calls for 10 percent ethanol in all Indiana gasoline Monday, March 6, 2006 U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar praised the Illinois Senate’s passage of legislation requiring gasoline sold in that state to contain 10 percent ethanol (E-10). “I hope that the Indiana General Assembly will follow Illinois’ lead and quickly pass a requirement that all gasoline sold in Indiana be 10 percent ethanol. We are facing a coming energy crisis because our nation imports 60 percent of our petroleum needs. Governments control more than half of the world’s oil reserves. The oil industry does not operate under market forces. Rather, it can be driven by the political agendas of the oil-controlling nations,” said Lugar, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “The Illinois Senate has passed a bill by 52-3 that would require fuels sold in our neighboring state to contain 10 percent ethanol by 2008. Tax revenues from these ethanol sales would be plowed back into the expansion of renewable energy. Minnesota has already implemented a similar requirement. I encourage the Indiana Legislature consider following suit. “Cars can easily use 10 percent ethanol fuel. In fact, most fuel sold in Indiana is already E-10. This requirement would assure that an increasing portion of our transportation fuel was homegrown, that it comes from the Midwest, and not the Mid-East,” said Lugar, who manages his family’s 604-acre corn, soybean and tree farm. “This is one answer that Indiana has to our energy problem and a step we should take toward greater fuel freedom. Currently about 100 million gallons of fuel ethanol are produced per year in Indiana. Many entrepreneurs are eager to construct additional ethanol facilities and at least six plants seem to be on the way to becoming a reality. Production from these facilities, added to the existing New Energy plant in South Bend, could equal 510 million gallons of Indiana produced ethanol. This figure represents over 16 percent of gasoline use in Indiana,” said Lugar, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. A decade ago, Lugar began pushing for a national biomass ethanol research program. Witnesses at Agriculture Committee hearings he chaired from 1996 to 1999 said this would be the most efficient method to produce ethanol. In 1999, Lugar and former CIA Director James Woolsey co-authored a seminal article that linked foreign policy and high cost of securing foreign oil flowing to the United States with the development of homegrown ethanol derived from any form of cellulose "(The New Petroleum," Foreign Affairs). Lugar then authored and passed the Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000, which remains the nation’s premier legislation guiding renewable fuels research. In 2005, Lugar led 21 bipartisan Senators in introducing the Fuels Security Act to more than double the production and use of domestic renewable fuels including ethanol, biodiesel and fuels produced from cellulosic biomass. This legislation laid the groundwork for the renewable fuels section of the energy bill that passed Congress in July 2005. Lugar also joined with Sen. Evan Bayh in introducing the Fuel Security and Consumer Choice Act that would require all U.S. marketed vehicles to be manufactured as Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) within ten years. FFVs can use both regular gasoline and E-85 renewable fuel (motor fuel with 85 percent ethanol content). On the web: Senator Lugar’s energy web page: http://lugar.senate.gov/energy ###