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Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Madam President, my colleagues are here today to shine a light on the Biden administration's obsession with unhelpful and unnecessary regulations. We know that excessive redtape devastates our economy, and it harms communities. That is why the President's agenda needs to be stopped, and we can do it right here in the U.S. Senate.

I have introduced legislation this Congress to push back against the administration's misguided rule intensifying emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles.

In my home State of Nebraska, 1 in 12 people are employed by the trucking industry, making it the third largest industry in our State. In the United States as a whole, over 3 million people work as commercial truckers, and American truckers transported almost 11 billion tons of freight in the year 2021. Consumers all across the country rely on trucking to bring goods to markets quickly and affordably.

Truckers play an essential role in our communities and our economy, but the Biden administration doesn't seem to agree with that fact. Instead, our President routinely chooses to prioritize excessive environmental regulations over people's livelihoods.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Environmental Protection Agency's recent rule establishing stricter emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles. The Biden administration--well, they want to saddle hard- working drivers with an onerous regulation that is going to increase vehicle costs and is going to deal a serious blow to good-paying jobs. This aggressive EPA rule will hit mom-and-pop truck operations the hardest. For trucks to be compliant with the new overregulation, it will be cost prohibitive for small business owners.

Don't get me wrong. Nebraskans--over a quarter of whom work jobs related to agriculture--care deeply about environmental stewardship, but the EPA's emissions rule wouldn't actually accomplish its stated purpose of cleaning up our environment. The EPA itself estimates that the technology required to meet this new rule's standards will cost between approximately $2,500 and $8,500 per vehicle. This means that many truckers will choose to keep their old heavy-duty vehicles, which do have higher rates of emissions, instead of buying vehicles that are both affordable and more climate-conscious.

During a period of high inflation and supply chain disruptions, the last thing this country needs is more expensive freight costs and fewer truckers. Congress needs to vote to overturn this excessive rule--one that will hurt both the transportation sector and consumers at large.

The bottom line is that we have an obligation to stand up and push back against out-of-touch, far-left policies. I appreciate the work so many of my colleagues are doing toward this goal.

Senator Braun is leading the charge to overturn the President's new environmental, social, and corporate governance rule on retirement funds. The Biden administration should not be playing games with Americans' hard-earned money like this.

My friend Senator Tuberville is pushing back on the administration's Veterans Affairs rule that would funnel taxpayer dollars toward abortions.

As Senator Capito shared earlier, she is leading us in resisting the Obama-era WOTUS rule implemented late last year. The WOTUS rule, which I have been fighting since my first term here in the U.S. Senate, is the Federal Government at its worst. It encroaches on families, on communities, and on businesses by its brazen intrusion into States' precious water resources.

The Biden administration has a track record of prioritizing politically charged regulations over the financial and economic well- being of Americans. My colleagues and I are here to stop these rules from taking effect on more and more Americans' lives before they damage the livelihoods of even more Nebraskans and more Americans across this country.

As long as I have the honor of working in the U.S. Senate, I will continue to oppose radical, far-left rules and promote commonsense solutions instead. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle should join me.

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