Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, I thank the good gentleman, Mr. Womack, for this opportunity to speak.

Madam Speaker, I have three amendments to this legislation. Amendment No. 180, this amendment strikes a provision allowing the HHS Secretary to use $7.8 million to hire and purchase electric vehicles and electric vehicle charging stations.

If bureaucrats at HHS want to own their own $80,000-plus Tesla, that is great, they should purchase it. But they shouldn't require the taxpayers to pay for that kind of thing. They could do the work that they need to do without an electric vehicle.

Amendment 121 strikes EVs from the GSA. Here again, the GSA want to purchase these vehicles with your money. Look, if they want do that on their own, that is fine. If you consider the post office, these vehicles are oftentimes heavier than your regular vehicle, but the post office has 200,000 of these vehicles and that is what they want to purchase with them.

And just keep in mind that these vehicles don't pay into the Highway Trust Fund, so they are heavier, more maintenance, but not paying anything.

Finally, amendment 124, which strikes the exemption for green vehicle purchases. The underlying text sets the limit at about $20,000. So if we are going to purchase a vehicle, that is great, you need to do your work. If you are working for government, you get $20,000 for a vehicle to do it. You don't need to ride in some kind of special luxury. But they set an exemption for these vehicles, because they want to buy an $80,000 vehicle and exempt the $20,000 that the rest of us have to deal with in the public.

So this amendment would just say, no, we are not going to make the exemption. You are going to spend the $20,000 on the best vehicle for the taxpayer and for the government. If it is an electric vehicle, so be it; if it is not, so be it. The market should dictate and the market can dictate.

The government shouldn't be picking winners and losers and forcing us taxpayers to pay for exorbitant electric vehicles because my friends on the left think that is the way to go.

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