True that lawmakers’ allegiance or opposition to the Renewable Fuel Standard — one of the many EPA-administered “green energy” mandates that requires refiners to blend an ever-increasing volume of regulators’ favored biofuels with the nation’s fuel supply, or else purchase credits — often correlates more closely with their geographical loyalties over their party identification, but the apologetics of the economically- and environmentally-damaging practice definitely skew Democratic. The “Environmental Protection” Agency plays major defense for the Big Ethanol lobby largely because the White House wants to have as many types of alternative-energy programs in their arsenal as possible, the better to cushion their “all of the above,” “less foreign oil,” “climate change mitigation” recitations, and plenty of Congressional Democrats are content to follow suit.

Ergo, this is notable and most welcome development, via The Hill:

The federal requirement for gas refiners to mix biofuel in with conventional gasoline is a “flop,” according to Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and should be eliminated.

Welch said that the renewable fuel standard, administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), drives up the cost of corn, which ends up raising prices for dairy farmers in his state as well as other livestock producers.

Plus, he said, the amount of energy required to produce the biofuel ends up hurting the environment.

“It’s been a flop, and the amount of energy that goes into producing a gallon of ethanol is a lot. Twenty-eight gallons of water to produce a gallon of gas, 170 gallons, I guess, to produce a gallon of ethanol,” he said.

“There’s not been an environment benefit; there’s actually been an environmental detriment and there’s been an economic detriment to many sectors of the economy, even though there’s been a significant benefit to the Corn Belt,” Welch said.

Both the idea and the actual legislation for repealing this expensive and market-defying boondoggle of a mandate have already garnered bipartisan support, but if we are ever going to rid ourselves of the food-and-gasoline price-spiking consequences of this particularly insidious bit of central planning, it’s going to need a lot more political momentum — and it is way past time to do away with this thing once and for all.