Growth Energy, an association of some 50 U.S. ethanol companies, launched an effort this month to mandate country-of-origin labeling for gasoline.

"We want the industry to be as transparent as possible," said Steve McNinch, CEO of Western Plains Energy in Oakley and a board member of Growth Energy. "We want people to be aware when they fuel up where the oil is coming from."

The nation's refiners, however, immediately panned the idea as unworkable.

The proposal is part of a multi-pronged approach ethanol producers are making to increase ethanol consumption in the U.S. Another key issue for the industry is allowing higher percentages of ethanol to be blended with U.S. gasoline. Federal law now limits it.

Canada is the largest single supplier of oil for U.S. refineries, accounting for 15 percent of the supply, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration. As a group, however, the 13 nations that make up the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, account for more than half the nation's oil supply.

Those countries include Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Iraq.

"People need to be educated on where the oil in their gasoline is coming from," McNinch said. "In all this debate about energy, it makes a lot of sense to give people the whole picture. If they see it's from Venezuela or Iraq at the pump, maybe they'll respond. Those are not our allies. Many are our enemies. We're probably funding both sides of the war on terror ourselves."

As long as gasoline remains relatively cheap, consumers won't change buying habits without such knowledge, McNinch contends.

"The American people deserve to know the truth about the hidden costs of oil," retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, who co-chairs Growth Energy, said in first announcing the proposal Sept. 1. "The neighborhood filling station doesn't pump neighborhood gas - it pumps a product of foreign origin that costs consumers and taxpayers billions of dollars every year. It's past time for the American people to understand what our dependence on foreign oil costs our country and what they can do to help stop it."

Details on how such a system would work have not been worked out, McNinch admitted, other than suggesting the labeling information indicate what country is the fuel source as a percentage of each gallon of gas produced by the refinery.

The association said it would be up to the fuel industry to decide how to implement the labels.

"Growth Energy clearly doesn't understand fuel markets, consumers, supply or demand," stated Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association in a prepared statement.

"Given the nature of the global fuel markets, which include ethanol, it's impractical and impossible to label the origin of base resources on a finished product," Drevna stated.

He called Growth Energy's proposal "nothing more than a distraction intended to divert attention away from their failing campaign to force the implementation of mid-level ethanol blends without a sound, scientific basis while also dismissing legitimate consumer and land-use concerns."

Drevna was referring to an effort to increase the percentage of ethanol allowed in gasoline from 10 to 15 percent. Federal law now limits the blend to 10 percent except in E-85, an 85 percent ethanol blend.

The industry is awaiting a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency on an application made in November 2008 to allow the higher blend, contending it would not violate the Clean Air Act. A ruling is expected as early as December, McNinch said.

"The facts are that it doesn't degrade automobile equipment anywhere below 20 percent," McNinch said. "But facts don't always win battles. A lot of it is politics."

The change is opposed by small engine manufacturers and the grocery industry, McNinch acknowledge, over concern small engines and fuel pumps won't hold up under the changed formula.

He denied a need for concern, however, except among boat owners, which have fiberglass tanks, and he argued pure unleaded gas would still be available for them.