for the economy. In 1971, the Nebraska Agricultural Products Industrial Utilization Committee (or "Gasohol" Committee) is formed to find new uses for surplus grain. The commission tests ethanol-gasoline blends in thousands of cars over millions of miles, proving that ethanol can be used as an octane-boosting additive to replace leaded gasoline. In 1973, the Arab oil embargo creates a worldwide energy crisis, leading to intensified search for alternative energy sources. Also, in the same year, the government of Brazil starts the program "Pró-Álcool" in order to substitute gas-powered vehicles in favor of automobiles powered by ethanol. Such program would lead to the development of the first ethanol powered automobile motor in the world. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter's administration creates federal incentives for ethanol production. Federal and state subsidies for ethanol amount to about $11 billion between 1979 and 2000, as compared to about $150 billion in tax credits for the oil industry (from 1968–2000), according to the General Accounting Office. By the mid-1980s, over 100 new corn alcohol production plants are built and over a billion US gallons of ethanol for fuel were sold per year. The ethanol program is controversial for several reasons, not the least of which was that the ethanol industry was dominated by one company – Archer Daniels Midland of Peoria, Ill. In 1984, the number of ethanol plants peaked at 163 in the U.S., producing of ethanol that year. In 1988, the George H. W. Bush administration proposes a cleanup of "air toxics" in gasoline, focusing on replacing benzene octane boosters with ethanol. The proposal leads to one part of the 1990 Clean Air Act. In the late 1980s and 1990s, an oil surplus drives gasoline prices down as low as $12 per barrel, driving most of the ethanol industry into bankruptcy. In 1990 and 1992, Congress passes amendments to the Clean Air Act encouraging the use of ethanol and other oxygenated fuels as replacements for benzene, toluene and xylene octane boosters. MTBE becomes the oil industry's favorite additive, but as water pollution problems were recognized, MTBE is banned in California. Ethanol production rises to the level. Between 1997 and 2002, three million U.S. cars and light trucks are produced which could run on E85, a blend of 85% ethanol with 15% gasoline. Almost no gas stations sell this fuel however. In the early 2000s, the invasion of Iraq makes Americans aware of their