WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 5 million vehicles on the road can run on gasoline blended with ethanol, yet just over 600 retailers across the nation sell the fuel.

Getting more gas stations to carry ethanol-based fuel -- known as E-85 -- is the goal of bipartisan federal legislation backed by Missouri and Kansas lawmakers.

"I already have consumers back home saying, 'I'd like to get it. Why don't we have stations that are pumping it?"' said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo.

Talent and Sens. John Thune, R-S.D. and Barack Obama, D-Ill., are sponsors of a bill introduced Wednesday that would reimburse gas station owners for 30 percent of the cost -- up to $30,000 -- of replacing regular gas tanks with tanks for alternative fuel, such as E-85 and biodiesel.

Talent said the latest proposal builds on legislation he and Obama inserted into the energy bill last year to add 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol or biodiesel to the country's fuel supply by 2012.