First it was Texas Governor Rick Perry last week asking for a waiver to reduce the required blending of ethanol in gasoline by 50%. Now Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell is jumping on the bandwagon claiming the ethanol blending mandate is the cause of higher food prices.

Congress passed legislation last year that requires the use of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022 and that more than 9 billion be blended with gasoline in 2008.

During a joint hearing in Congress last week, USDA Chief Economist Joe Glauber told members that while the use of corn and soybean oil for production of manufacturing fuels may have a small role in the rise in the retail price of food, other factors such as oil prices of more than $120 a barrel, drought in Australia and increased global demand have much more to do with it.