Not your mistake at all. The EERE site has conflicting information. The link I posted is from the same web site. I did email them along with comments and links showing them the conflicting information.
Their reply:
Dear Mr. Hackney,
I forwarded your question on to Dr. Michael Wang at Argonne National Laboratory, who conducted the research supporting the information in the brochure at http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/program/ethanol_brochure_color.pdf. Here is his response:
"The answer is that energy balance is based on fossil energy input vs.the energy in fuel output.
The chart in the brochure has total energy input, fossil energy input,and petroleum energy input. The purpose was to show the arbitrary natureof energy balance calculation."
I hope this answers your question. Thank you for your interest.
Suzanne Williams, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Program web team