European Union legislators said last week that targets for using crop-based biofuels should be diminished dramatically, according to the International Herald Tribune. The initial EU goal was to increase the use of biofuels in cars and trucks to 10 percent by 2020. This week a European Parliament committee stuck by the general goal, but sharply reduced the amount of biofuel produced from food crops. Half of all biofuels should come from waste, algae or other nonfood vegetation, the EU committee decided.

The committee's decision has troubled the European biofuels industry, which has already built substantial capacity based on the earlier goal. The biofuels industry is asking for more stability, so it can grow. Environmental groups praise the reduction in reliance on crop-based biofuels.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has rejected Texas Gov. Rick Perry's request that the amount of ethanol that must be used in gasoline be reduced. The EPA found no compelling evidence that ethanol mandates were causing economic harm.

Perry, a Republican, said that "Good intentions and laudable goals are small compensation to the families, farmers and ranchers who are being hurt by the federal government's effort to trade food for fuel." Meanwhile, in Iowa, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin supported the EPA. Grassley said the EPA's ruling was a "victory for clean energy, rural America, and national security, and a blow to those who have used ethanol as a scapegoat for rising fuel and food prices."

The ethanol debate has divided rural interest groups. Farm groups has supported the ethanol mandate while meat producers and ranchers have opposed it.

The days of building large houses in what once were soybean fields is over, according to one North Carolina developer. What once were lifestyle assets — the SUV, a big lawn, a huge house — are liabilities in the age of much higher energy costs.

The Washington Post weighs in this morning with its analysis of how higher gas prices will cut short exurban development. More than half of all Americans live in the suburbs and growth rates there have exceeded 90 percent in the last decade. That trend is slowing. "When people bought homes, they punched the numbers and said can we afford the mortgage payment and taxes," said Bruce Katz, with the Brookings Institution. "This new paradigm is going to have families being more deliberate about the cost of transportation spending and energy costs. That's a new phenomenon in the United States. That will be the change that will change development patterns."

So, more people will want to live closer in to the city. But what happens to those who live and work in rural America -- producing the stuff urban Americans need to maintain their city lifestyles? The story doesn't go that far.