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, Lugar was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976 and won a sixth term in 2006 with 87 percent of the vote.

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 7,500 nuclear warheads that were once aimed at the United States.

As chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Lugar built bipartisan support for 1996 federal farm program reforms, ending 1930’s 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 vulnerability to foreign terrorism and relationships with other countries, he has launched the Lugar Energy Initiative.

Lugar has received numerous awards and 41 honorary degrees. In 2006, Time magazine listed Lugar as one of the top 10 Senators. 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.