LITTLE ROCK—Mike Beebe doesn’t normally pump his own gas on the state-funded vehicle that carts him around the state, but the Arkansas governor gave it a shot Monday while trying to promote biofuels.

“You know, I don’t get to drive anymore so I’m either having to drive (first lady) Ginger’s car or something else for me to be able to fill up the car,” Beebe said as he stood nearby his Chevrolet Suburban at a gas station in downtown Little Rock.

“But, honestly, I know how.”

The work was pretty easy. The nozzle had already been placed in the SUV’s gas tank and all Beebe had to do was squeeze the nozzle’s trigger and lock it into place.

“Does that help you?” he said to reporters standing nearby.

The fill-up was part of a news conference Beebe held at Go Green Biofuels in Little Rock. The governor filled up the SUV that transports him around the state with E-85, an ethanol blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.

Beebe’s SUV is a flex-fuel vehicle, which can run on both gasoline and ethanol.

Beebe filled up the car as the station reduced the price of its E-85 fuel to $1.85 a gallon for two hours to promote alternative fuels.

A sign for the station before the event listed the price of E-85 at $3.35 a gallon.

At the special price, it cost $38 to fill up the governor’s ride.

Buddy Rawls, the Go Green Biofuels station owner, said the station is the only one in Pulaski County to offer E-85 and said there are only a handful of other stations that offer the ethanol-based fuel in the state.

Rawls said he was able to open his station with the help of a $50,000 grant through an alternative fuels program that lawmakers approved last year.

Beebe said he’d like to see similar stations pop up around the state to help meet a goal to have more state vehicles run on alternative fuels in the coming year.

“The big holdup has been—and it’s always been—that it’s subject to availability,” Beebe said.

“You don’t want folks driving 75 miles to comply with a desire to use biomass fuels, so it’s really incumbent upon us to try and proliferate the distribution of the biofuels.”

Beebe wasn’t the only one to take advantage of the lowered prices.

Eric Krebs, a civil engineer, paid $29.36 to fill up his Chevrolet Impala with about 15.7 gallons of E-85 during the promotion.

Krebs said Monday was the second time he had filled up with E-85 at the station.

“I think you get a little bit less gas mileage with the flex-fuel, but with prices this low, it’s definitely worth it,” Krebs said.