TOPEKA, KS -- Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, James Woolsey, will address the significance of ethanol in the national's domestic energy supply, based on a report he co-wrote with Indiana Senator Richard Lugar titled, The New Petroleum. The special June 22 presentation in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is part of the Governors' Ethanol Coalition meeting.

Woolsey remains optimistic about the role of ethanol in the changing fuels marketplace. "As advancements in technology continue to make ethanol more competitively priced, it will democratize the world's fuel market. Recent breakthroughs in genetic engineering and processing are radically changing the viability of ethanol as a transportation fuel. Genetically engineered biocatalysts and advanced processing technologies can make the transition from fossil fuels to biofuels affordable, improving the world's security picture in many ways."

Transportation sector accounts for 60 percent of U.S. oil demand. "This creates a difficult challenge for planners, policy makers and alternative-energy advocates, because the massive infrastructure to support gasoline-powered cars is particularly resistant to change. This makes America highly vulnerable to breaks in oil supplies," Woolsey said.

The International Energy Agency now projects world oil production outside OPEC will peak this year and world production will peak between 2010 and 2020. Woolsey says that once production peaks, even though exhaustion of world reserves will still be many years away, prices will begin to rise sharply. OPEC countries in the Middle East control more than two-thirds of the world's reserves.

In addition to Woolsey, Governors' Ethanol Coalition meeting attendees will receive updates on transportation fuel issues in California and New England as well as the status of developments on reformulated gasoline. Woolsey's presentation is open to the public and will be held at the Collins Plaza Hotel in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at 4:45-5:45 pm on June 22.

Woolsey is a partner at the law firm of Shea & Gardner in Washington, DC. He was Director of Central Intelligence from 1993-1995. He is currently on the Board of Directors of BC International Corporation, a company scheduled to begin production of ethanol from bagasse, or sugar cane milling waste, by the end of 2000 in Jennings, Louisiana.