As you know, our nation is again facing another energy crisis. Today, I want to spend the majority of my time outlining for you and the Members of the Subcommittee our views on how ethanol and other renewable fuels can increase the supply of fuel while providing economic opportunity for hundreds of rural communities across the country. Ethanol continues to be a major focus of NCGA policy and research activities. Thousands of farmers are now invested in cooperatives that produce 40 percent of the 1.6 billion gallons of ethanol made in 2000 from 600 million bushels of corn. Moreover, there are dozens more ethanol projects in various stages of development throughout the Corn Belt that are attracting additional farmer-investors.
Ethanol is simply the biggest value-added success story in agriculture today.
Background Ethanol is an alcohol produced primarily from grain using a process almost as old as civilization itself. Today, however, ethanol production has come a long way from the wineries of ancient Greece or the stills of Prohibition. Fuel ethanol is produced on a mass scale utilizing millions of bushels of grain annually in the process. While the fundamentals of ethanol production have remained constant, the process technology has become quite sophisticated. There are now two general types of processing facilities, known as wet mills and dry mills that produce fuel-grade ethanol in the United States.