If during your vacations you are passing by Sioux Falls or you happen to live near there, you can get E85 at 1.85 USD per gallon at the Holiday Station at 5000 North Cliff Avenue in Sioux Falls on August 16th from 3 to 6 PM. The station is also offering free root beer floats during the three-hour promotion. The promotion is sponsored by Holiday, General Motors Corporation, the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition and the American Lung Association of South Dakota.

One of the claimed advantages they are promoting is that E-85-powered vehicles are able to reduce ozone pollution by 20 percent and global greenhouse emissions by a 30 percent.

Related:

• Can any car use E85?
• VeraSun and GM bring D.C. its first E85 fueling location
• More cheap ethanol, this time in Iowa

[Thanks to Bob from ALAMN for the tip]

The fact that lots of politicians are interested in promoting ethanol is not new for us. Besides the funding of research in biofuels, a new bill is coming to promote ethanol and educate citizens about their goodnesses. US. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Barack Obama, (D-IL), Kit Bond (R-MO), George Voinovich (R-OH), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced legislation to expand consumer access to E85. Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), and John Kerry (D-MA) are also co-sponsors of the legislation.

The ethanol promotion would be achieved by providing grants through the USDA to farmer-owned ethanol producers to install additional E85 pumps at rural gas stations as well as the equipment needed to sell E85 directly to gas stations, bypassing oil companies. They consider that home-grown renewable fuels mean jobs for the country, cheaper fuel for cars and less dependence on foreign oil.

According to Sen. Klobuchar, less than 1 percent of US gas stations serve E85 (1,200 out of 170,000). She will work to include the legislation in the 2007 Farm Bill, which the Senate is expected to take up in the coming months. The bill sets the amount of federal grant assistance at 20 percent of the total project cost, providing enough funding to complete 1,000-2,000 new E85 pumps over the five-year life of the Farm Bill.

Related:

• The Biofuels Innovation Program Act
• GM and Governor's Ethanol Coalition to increase E85 awareness

[Source: US Senate via Domestic fuel]