Before acting on a whim in the wake of a misguided Associated Press investigation into the production of ethanol in rural America, President Barack Obama needs to come to the Corn Belt and visit corn growers and ethanol plants.

The Obama administration on Friday proposed reducing the amount of ethanol in the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard, which sets the ethanol amounts in the nation’s fuel supply.

Obama needs to know the AP investigation was flawed. For instance, wetlands in Minnesota are expanding, not shrinking. And ethanol, while not perfect, remains much more green than how conventional gasoline is made. Aren’t reducing greenhouse gases and providing domestic fuel sources the goals?

And what the AP reported in its investigation was nothing new here in corn country. It was as though the reporters were unfamiliar with agriculture. Imagine the opposite. Imagine a rural newspaper printing an investigation about the environmental destruction caused by suburban sprawl, congested freeways or contaminated water runoff. City folks would be charmed by the headlines. All across the American Midwest, that’s how rural families saw the AP stories. And then they were shocked that the Obama administration bought into the AP reports so quickly by proposing to cut back a renewable fuel source he once championed.

Frankly, Obama needs to lead, to stick by his guns. Instead, he flaps whichever way the wind blows. That’s the biggest thing hurting his credibility in the White House. His apparent turnaround on ethanol was yet another example.

In 2008, Iowa launched Obama into the lead of the race for Democratic presidential nominee, giving him legitimacy. Cutting the ethanol mandate would harm many rural economies that have blossomed thanks to the growth of ethanol. It would be mistreating the people who gave Obama a shot at the U.S. presidency.

We urge Obama to visit the Corn Belt and to change his administration’s view on the national ethanol mandate. When it comes to greenhouse gases, ethanol doesn’t pretend to be squeaky clean. It never did. But it always has been a far better alternative than Big Oil.

And Obama surely knows that.