U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will use a Kansas City convenience store as a stage to talk about combatting high gas prices with biofuels.

Vilsack plans to use Monday’s speech to highlight a step the federal government has taken toward wide distribution of gasoline mixed with 15 percent ethanol by allowing manufacturers to register as suppliers.

While the Environmental Protection Agency is moving the process forward by allowing the registration, E15 still must clear another set of federal tests and become a registered fuel in individual states. Ethanol makers then must convince petroleum marketers to sell it at gas stations.

The new blend would be restricted to 2001 and newer vehicles.