If they can do it, why can't we?

Was listening to NPR this morning and they were asking people from other countries how the economy has hit them. A guy from Brazil called and said they are doing rather well for now. There the cars run on sugarcane ethanol and the trucks on natural gas -they pay $1 for the ethanol and $.50 for the natural gas. If they can do it, why can't we? I guess we could if it weren't for all the oil companies and big-business types running Washington. If they really wanted to we could do it.