GoodFuels

Pumping for Ethanol

Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas was out filling up cars with fuel early Monday morning at the grand opening of a new ethanol blender pump station in Colwich that was held in conjunction with the announcement of a new initiative in Kansas that will help fuel station retailers obtain funding and the equipment needed to sell higher blends of ethanol. The new initiative introduced by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC), ICM and the Kansas Corn Commission aims to install a minimum of 100 blender pumps around the state over the next year.

Brownback also helped ICM president Dave Vander Griend cut the ribbon for TJ Convenience store’s new blender pumps, which offer ethanol in four different flavors - E10, E20, E30 and E85. The higher blends can only legally be used in flex-fuel vehicles.

Back in Washington, the senator is working on legislation that would increase the number of flex-fuel vehicles that can use those higher blends with the Open Fuel Standard Act, which he introduced last month along with Senators Salazar of Colorado and Lieberman of Connecticut. The act would require half of new automobiles to be flex-fuel by 2012, and 80 percent by 2015.