"With the current situation in the Middle East, America must reduce its dangerous dependence on foreign oil and expand its use of alternative sources of energy," Grassley said. "Ethanol is a particularly good alternative because ethanol can make an immediate difference for national security. We can start using more ethanol tomorrow and ramp-up quickly. It can have an impact this year and next year rather than five or ten years down the road."
Iowa's senior senator worked with Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle introducing the legislation, which calls for using 5 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2010.
The proposed renewable fuels standard would create more than 214,000 new jobs, replace 67 billion gallons of foreign crude oil by 2012, and increase net farm income by $5.1 billion a year.
"Renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel will improve air quality, strengthen national security, reduce the trade deficit, decrease dependence on Saddam Hussein for oil, and expand markets for agricultural products," Grassley said.
Last year, the domestic ethanol industry produced a record 2.13 billion gallons of fuel, displacing approximately 3.75 billion gallons of foreign crude oil and using more than 800 million bushels of excess grain. Today's ethanol industry supports nearly 200,000 jobs nationwide. According to the Argonne National Laboratory, the use of ethanol-blended fuels reduced CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 4.3 million tons in the United States during 2002. This reduction is equivalent to removing the annual greenhouse gas emissions of more than 636,000 cars from the roads.
Grassley has a long history of promoting expanded use of renewable sources of energy. In 1992, he authored the first-ever wind energy production tax credit. In 1997, he led the successful effort to extend the ethanol tax credit for ten years. Yesterday, Grassley introduced legislation with Sen. Blanch Lincoln, of Arkansas, to provide an income tax credit and excise tax rate reduction for biodiesel fuel mixtures.
Grassley is the chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, a senior member of Judiciary and Budget committees and a member of the Agriculture committee.