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U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar
U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-Indiana) is the Ranking Republican of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a well-known leader in international security issues. A proponent of free trade and economic growth, Senator Lugar was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976 and won a sixth term in 2006 with 87 percent of the vote, his fourth consecutive victory by a two-thirds majority.
Senator Lugar has been instrumental in Senate ratification of treaties that reduce the world's use, production and stockpiling of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In 1991, he forged a bipartisan partnership with then-Senate Armed Services Chairman Sam Nunn to create a cooperative program to destroy weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. To date, the Nunn-Lugar program has deactivated more than 7,000 nuclear warheads that were once aimed at the United States.
As chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Lugar built bipartisan support for 1996 federal farm program reforms, ending 1930s-era federal production controls. He initiated a biofuels research program to help decrease U.S. dependency on foreign oil and led initiatives to streamline the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reform the food stamp program and preserve the federal school lunch program.
Combining his experiences on the Foreign Relations and Agriculture Committees and recognizing that energy security impacts every aspect of life in the United States, from the cars we drive and how much we pay at the gas pump to our vulnerability to foreign terrorism and our relationships with other countries, Senator Lugar has launched the Lugar Energy Initiative.
Senator Lugar has received numerous awards including Guardian of Small Business, the Spirit of Enterprise, Watchdog of the Treasury and 40 honorary degrees. In 2006, Time magazine listed Lugar at one of the top 10 Senators and dubbed him the "Wise Man" of the Senate. He manages his family's 604-acre Marion County corn, soybean and tree farm. Before entering public life, he helped run the family's food machinery manufacturing business in Indianapolis.
