The Environmental Protection Agency told Texas Gov. Rick Perry that they wouldn’t ease off on a federal requirement, mandated in last December’s energy bill, that Texas put 9 billion gallons of ethanol into the nation’s fuel supply. The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin reports that Perry had complained diverting ethanol to fuel was raising food prices and hurting farmers and ranchers.

A lot of people who don’t like each other– like oil companies and environmental groups– do agree in their dislike of ethanol. Oil folks are upset by the fed’s new ethanol binge, which may eventually cut into fossil fuel consumption. Environmentalists, meanwhile, say that the wildlife and cultivation costs of corn-based ethanol make it just as bad a polluter as oil.

But as the EPA decision shows, ethanol currently reigns supreme.-MB

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