A Tennessee state audit found that the state agencies missed their goal of reducing their use of petroleum products by 20 percent. Legislation enacted in 2007 gave state agencies, universities and community colleges until January 1, 2010 to meet this goal.

“The 20 percent reduction was a challenging goal,” said Alan Jones, manager of the environmental policy office at TDOT. The problem, he noted, is that there aren’t enough E85 and biodiesel stations to serve all the state vehicles. According to TDOT, there are just 33 pumps across the state selling B20 and only 27 pumps provide E85.

About 9 million cars on the roads today are flexible fuel vehicles and nearly 139,000 located in the state of Tennessee. “A lot of those vehicle owners continue to use 100 percent unleaded and in fact, surveys have shown that a lot of those vehicle owners don’t even realize they can use E85,” he said.