Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) launched a full-fledged attack on corn ethanol over the weekend with nine posts on his X account, calling on President Trump to “end the tyranny of the Cornography Caucus” and saying all Republicans should categorically reject federal “ethanol mandates” that “let government pick winners and losers in the economy.”

Starting with a link to a Washington Post opinion piece written by Heritage Foundation Executive Vice President Derrick Morgan calling for reducing biofuel standards in gasoline, Sen. Lee went scorched earth on the ethanol industry and corn growers on August 29, including a post saying “Americans are getting screwed at the gas pump by Big Corn, which profits enormously from federal mandates requiring us to use corn to fuel our cars.”

Lee also put up an X polling question, which received over 5200 votes saying no to, “Should the government force us to drive corn-burning cars—knowing that it adds significantly to what Americans pay at the gas pump—just so we can make a few rich agricultural giants even richer?”

As chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. Lee is a longtime opponent of the the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and is also against year-round E15, which is included in the Senate version of the Farm Bill the agriculture committee is expected to revisit after the August recess. His attacks come as the Trump administration is poised to approve small refinery exemptions as soon as today covering more than 1.8 billion RINs (renewable identification numbers), well above the roughly 1 billion RINs the EPA had previously projected. Applicants include plants owned by Marathon Petroleum and Chevron. President Trump is scheduled to host refining executives at the White House tomorrow.

Ag groups and biofuel producers have pushed back, arguing the extra waivers would undercut the record-high 2026 RFS volumes finalized in March. The administration is reportedly considering an offset by adding at least 500 million RINS to the 2027 quotas.