BRAWLING FOR BIOFUELS: The Renewable Fuel Standard will get a fresh hearing this morning before the Senate EPW Committee, just as the Biden administration works to finalize its biofuel blending mandates under the program that has long divided the corn and oil industries.

Emily Skor, CEO of the biofuels trade group Growth Energy, will tout the environmental advantages from home-grown fuel to lawmakers, and she’ll posit that the full potential of the RFS as a climate solution remains untapped. But Taxpayers for Common Sense argued in a letter to the committee that the RFS has failed to achieve its climate goals “and federal bioenergy subsidies have resulted in more harm than good for taxpayers.”

The hearing lands on the heels of a new report published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences that found that the carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the RFS is likely at least 24 percent higher than gasoline. The biofuels industry has disputed the study, with Geoff Cooper, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, calling it “a completely fictional and erroneous account of the environmental impacts of the Renewable Fuel Standard.”

The committee members could also generate some heat: Ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), for one, has pressed EPA to reconsider its proposed blanket denial of small refinery exemptions, while committee members Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) have introduced legislation, S. 3380, to prohibit EPA from retroactively reducing any blending requirements under the program. Chair Tom Carper (D-Del.) represents a refining industry in his state that has previously called for relief under the program.

Also on tap: The committee will consider the nominations of David Uhlmann for assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance at EPA and Carlton Waterhouse for assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Solid Waste.