U.S. Senator Harkin (D-IA) will be speaking at the 24th Annual Ethanol Conference hosted by the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE). The event will be taking place on August 22-24 in Des Moines with Harkin presenting on Wednesday, August 24th.

“We are honored that Senator Harkin will be joining us for our 24th annual ethanol conference,” said Brian Jennings, Executive Vice President of ACE. “He has been a champion for ethanol in the Senate, particularly when it comes to consumer fuel choice with his legislation calling for the deployment of more Flexible Fuel Vehicles and blender pumps.”

Senator Harkin was elected to Congress in 1974. After serving ten years in the U.S. House of Representatives, he was elected to the Senate in 1984. He has been re-elected in 1990, 1996, 2002 and 2008. During his time in Congress, Harkin has been a strong supporter of ethanol in his capacity as a senior member and former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. Recently, the Senator introduced the Biofuels Market Expansion Act of 2011. The legislation mandates that a large majority of vehicles sold in the US be flex-fuel, requires major fuel distributors to install blender pumps and offers federal loan guarantees for ethanol pipelines.

“The ethanol industry is making history by challenging the decades-old dominance of petroleum-based fuels in our transportation systems,” said Harkin. “Supplying 10 percent of our gasoline demand is a huge accomplishment, but the byproduct of this success is critical market infrastructure needs. We need actions to enable ethanol and other biofuels to increase that to 20 percent, and then to 30 percent and beyond. Those levels of domestic biofuel supplies, coupled with increasing vehicle efficiencies, truly can eliminate our need for oil imports as well as the insecurities that come with those imports.”

For more information about the conference and to register visit ACE’s website.