Even as the venerable Wall Street Journal indicts ethanol for contributing to $3 gasoline, South Dakota's senators have joined Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa in sponsoring an amendment to the Clean Air Act that would require the country to use more of it.
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South Dakota Sens. Tim Johnson and John Thune, along with Herseth, are backing federal efforts to prod the nation to continue to ramp up use of ethanol and other renewable fuels.
Johnson, a Democrat, and Thune, a Republican, are among four co-sponsors of Grassley's Clean Air Act amendment, labeled the 10 By 10 Act.
Introduced in the Senate last week, it would require 10 percent of the nation's fuel to come from renewable sources by 2010.
Herseth co-sponsored similar legislation in the House last year.
Such a requirement would demand about 15 billion gallons of ethanol annually, according to Johnson. By the end of next year, domestic production should reach about 7 billion gallons.
South Dakota's share of that will be between 800 and 900 million gallons per year, Broin said. Yet this year, the state will have 13 ethanol plants capable of producing about 670 million gallons, and additional construction and plant expansion is planned.
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