Get on It, Schwarzenegger!

If Brazil can have flex-fuel cars, why can't we? The answer is simple: they got REALLY committed to independence from foreign oil 30 years ago, and well, we didn't:
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Brazil first started toying with the idea of nongasoline-powered cars at the peak of the global oil crisis in the 1970's, when its military dictatorship began a campaign to reduce dependence on costly foreign oil. With the help of government subsidies and generous tax breaks, automakers here designed and started manufacturing cars that ran exclusively on ethanol. Sugar millers also benefited from the pro-alcohol campaign, getting the equivalent of millions of dollars in government subsidies to refine sugar cane into ethanol. The government no longer offers the subsidies, but demand serves as an incentive to keep making ethanol.

By the mid-1980's, ethanol-only cars accounted for almost 90 percent of all new-auto sales in Brazil, making the country the biggest alternative fuel market in the world. But a poor cane harvest and high sugar prices led to an ethanol shortage in 1990, enraging motorists who eventually migrated back to cars powered by gasoline. Today, fewer than 20 percent of Brazil's autos run exclusively on alcohol, but all gasoline here has a 25 percent mix of ethanol.