Indiana Republican Senator Dick Lugar copped some headlines this week with his Purdue University Summit on Energy Security. The summit drew about 900 leaders to the Purdue campus to discuss energy issues, including Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Purdue President Martin C. Jischke and U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind.

In his keynote address, Lugar called for a national program “that would make virtually every new car sold in America a flexible fuel vehicle. We should ensure that at least one quarter of filling stations in America have E85 pumps. We should expand ethanol production to 100 billion gallons a year by 2025, a figure that could be achieved by doubling output every five years. We should also create an approximate $45 per barrel price floor on oil through a variable ethanol tax credit to ensure that investments keep flowing to alternatives. And we should enact stricter vehicle mileage standards to point automobile innovation toward conservation. The plan I am proposing today would achieve the replacement of 6.5 million barrels of oil per day by volume — the rough equivalent of one third of the oil used in America and one half of our current oil imports.”

The Purdue summit website has summit presentations, comments from Lugar, Jischke and Daniels, and audio files from the event.