Ethanol Policies
In April 2005, 30 governors who are members of the Governors' Ethanol Coalition (GEC) requested that President Bush and congressional leaders enact federal legislation to increase ethanol production in the United States.

The details were provided by GEC in a report entitled the "Ethanol from Biomass: America's 21st Century Transportation Fuel". GEC stated it believed that increasing dependency on foreign oil is a "major risk to the nation's energy, economic, and environmental security" and requested the President and leaders in The Congress to support increased ethanol and bio-diesel production in order to reduce our use of foreign oil. The governors stated that the U.S. commit to implement three recommendations in order to mitigate risks to our security.

1.  National Security Renewable Fuels Act and performance-based incentives. Enact standards that requires production of a minimum of 8 billion gallons a year of ethanol and bio-diesel by 2012.
2.  Research and development. Invest $800 million in research and development funding for biomass ethanol production during a 10 year period.
3.  Commercialization and production incentives. Offer market incentives to improve and apply technology and commercialize large-scale production of 1 billion gallons of biomass ethanol by 2015 at competitive cost.

The report requests that these recommendations be implemented in a coordinated fashion to achieve the objective of generating a minimum of 5 percent of U.S. transportation fuel from ethanol by 2010.

Ethanol Initiatives
Cellulose ethanol is a renewable, advanced bio-fuel which can be utilized in today’s automobiles.  It offers a cost effective method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and gasoline use in vehicular transportation.  Accordingly, it delivers improved vehicle efficiency.

For the government's part, President Bush has included in the government's 2007 budget $150 million to assist in the development of biomass-based transportation fuels from agricultural waste products.  These will include switchgrass, wood chips, and stalks.  This represents a $59 million increase over the fiscal year 2006.

Ethanol Projects
Iogen Corporation is a Canadian company which is developing technology to produce cellulose ethanol.  This is a renewable, advanced bio-fuel to be used as a fuel in current vehicles. Goldman Sachs has recently invested $30 Million Canadian in Iogen's renewable cellulose ethanol technology.  The Royal Dutch/Shell Group has previously invested as a major investor in Iogen.