State and federal officials will discuss biofuels, energy policy, the environment, and national security during a forum in Iowa City next week. David Sandalow is an Energy and Environmental Scholar with the Brookings Institution, which helped organize the event. Sandalow spent much of 2005 traveling with former Vice-President Al Gore, helping with his lecture series that became the movie "An Inconvenient Truth."
Today, Gore and a U.N. panel on climate change were named co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. "My thought today is ‘sometimes dreams come true,’" Sandalow said today during a teleconference with the media. "Nobody deserves this prize more than Al Gore and the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
Sandalow will release a book next week entitled "Freedom From Oil," which outlines his thoughts on cutting U.S. dependence on foreign oil. His recommendations include requiring that half of all of the major oil company’s gas stations install pumps that carry ethanol, and requiring half or more of all cars be "flex-fuel" in the next few years. Sandalow says he plans to talk about the "politics of ethanol" at next week’s forum.
"My observation is that, when I started writing this book about two years ago, everybody I talked to, almost, was in favor of ethanol around this country and it was wildly popular as a way to reduce oil dependence," Sandalow said. "Today, I hear about as many skeptical comments about ethanol as I hear support." The forum is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, October 17, in the Main Lounge of the Iowa Memorial Union on the U of I campus.