BRIEFS: No break at Mitsubishi

NORMAL, Ill (AP):

The Mitsubishi plant in central Illinois will skip its traditional summer production shutdown for the first time this year, due to a new order for rental-fleet vehicles.

Workers at the plant in Normal learned Thursday that they won't be idled for a week or two, as they usually are in the summer.

Dan Irvin, a spokesman for Mitsubishi Motors North America, told The (Bloomington) Pantagraph that the plant received an order for almost 1,200 Endeavors, the plant's midsize crossover SUV. The plant typically shuts down for maintenance and model changeovers, but the only way to get the SUV order done is to keep working.

The move came after Mitsubishi announced in February that it will invest millions of dollars at the Normal plant to begin making the Outlander Sport SUV next year.

US to increase use of E-85 fuel

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP):

The federal government wants to increase production and use of a higher blend of ethanol fuel by giving financial assistance to gas stations that install more pumps for the fuel, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Friday.

Vilsack said President Barack Obama wants the US Department of Agriculture to help ensure 10,000 flex-fuel pumps for E-85 are available across the country within the next five years.

E-85 is a blend of 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent gasolene. Current ethanol blends contain 10 per cent ethanol. There are eight million flexible fuel vehicles currently on the nation's roads and 2,300 stations where people can get E-85, Vilsack said.

"The president was pretty clear that he wants to reduce our nation's net dependence on foreign oil by one-third by 2025," Vilsack told The Associated Press. "One way to do that is to increase production and increase use of renewable biofuels."