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Brooke Coleman dismissed this story as "propaganda on a page." An industry blog in Minnesota said the AP had succumbed "to Big Oil's deep pockets and powerful influence."
• To understand how America got to an environmental policy with such harmful environmental consequences, it's helpful to start in a field in Iowa.
• ___
• Leroy Perkins, a white-haired, 66-year-old farmer in denim overalls, stands surrounded by waist-high grass and clover. He owns 91 acres like this, all hilly and erodible, that he set aside for conservation years ago.
• Soon, he will have a decision to make: keep the land as it is or, like many of his neighbors, plow it down and plant corn or soybeans, the major sources of biofuel in the United States.
• "I'd like to keep it in," he said. "This is what southern Iowa's for: raising grass."
• For decades, the government's Conservation Reserve Program has paid farmers to stop farming environmentally sensitive land. Grassy fields naturally convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, which helps combat global warming. Plus, their deep root systems prevent topsoil from washing away.
• For Perkins and his farmer neighbors in Wayne County, keeping farmland in conservation wasn't just good stewardship. It made financial sense.
• A decade ago, Washington paid them about $70 an acre each year to leave their farmland idle. With corn selling for about $2 per bushel (56 pounds) back then, farming the hilly, inferior soil was bad business.
• Many opted into the conservation program. Others kept their grasslands for cow pastures.
• Lately, though, the math has changed.
• "I'm coming to the point where financially, it's not feasible," Perkins said.
• The change began in 2007, when Congress passed a law requiring oil companies to blend billions of gallons of ethanol into gasoline.
• Oil prices were high. Oil imports were rising quickly. The legislation had the strong backing of the presidential candidate who was the junior senator from neighboring Illinois, the nation's second-largest corn producer.
• "If we're going to get serious about investing in our energy future, we must give our family farmers and local ethanol producers a fair shot at success," Obama said then.
• The Democratic primary field was crowded, and if he didn't win the Iowa caucuses the road to the nomination would be difficult. His strong support for ethanol set him apart.
• "Any time we could talk about support for ethanol, we did," said Mitch Stewart,

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