Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOYCE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

There is truly nothing more American than the freedom of the open road. Americans have built their lives around reliable and affordable transportation, and now, government overreach is threatening to put the cars, trucks, and SUVs that hardworking Americans need out of reach.

At its core, the vote on H.R. 1435 asks a very simple question: Should consumers or the Federal Government decide what type of vehicles Americans can drive?

This legislation is designed to address an issue created by California's Advanced Clean Cars II regulations that seek to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles in the next decade by requiring 35 percent of new vehicle sales to be electric vehicles in 2026 and fully 100 percent of sales to be electric vehicles by 2035.

Because of the fact that 17 other States have adopted portions of California's Clean Air Act regulations, this decision could potentially impact over 40 percent of the American auto market, and if enacted, would create a de facto ban on all gas-powered vehicles in the United States.

As originally created, California's carve-out in the Clean Air Act of 1970 was designed to combat smog and pollution in and around Los Angeles, and it was never intended to be used as a tool to ban the vehicles that have transported Americans for over 100 years.

Currently, the only thing standing in the way of California's implementation of this policy is a required EPA waiver.

That is why I, along with Representatives Latta, Bilirakis, and Obernolte, introduced H.R. 1435, the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act. This bill would prevent the EPA Administrator from granting a waiver to any regulation that would limit the sale or use of new vehicles with internal combustion engines.

We cannot expect vehicle manufacturers to build one car for California and another one for Pennsylvania.

In areas like my district in central and western Pennsylvania, electric vehicles are unable to perform in the mountainous terrain and lose range in high heat and in extreme cold.

On a recent trip, Energy Secretary Granholm was unable to use a fleet of electric vehicles to travel across the State of Georgia without using a gas-powered vehicle to block a public charging station ahead of her arrival.

Mr. Speaker, not every family will have an advance staffer ready to reserve a charger for their vehicle. Even the Biden administration's EPA Administrator Michael Regan did not support the banning of internal combustion engines.

In May, when I asked Administrator Regan if he supported such a ban during an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing he responded: ``No, not at all.''

It is clear that more government interference cannot deliver innovation that Americans rely on.

There are fundamental issues of our Nation's infrastructure that would prevent us from transitioning to an all-electric model, including the state of our electric grid.

Under President Biden's Green New Deal agenda, we have seen coal- powered plants close, we have seen him stop the production of natural gas, and we have seen new drilling leases canceled from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico.

Instead of utilizing the power sources underneath the feet of my constituents, President Biden's administration has attempted to subsidize energy sources like wind turbines and solar panels that have been proven to be ineffective at providing our grid with the power necessary for charging electric vehicles en masse.

As we look towards the future of electric vehicles, the Chinese Communist Party is taking aggressive steps to position themselves as the leader in developing EV battery technology.

Through the CCP's control of the critical minerals and resources needed to make electric batteries, a full transition to these vehicles would be a boon for the Chinese economy while hurting Americans.

It has become clear that transitioning to a fully electric auto market would put China and not American autoworkers in the driver's seat.

Today, it is time for the House to pass the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act and allow American families and American consumers to choose the vehicles that they want and the vehicles that they can afford.

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Mr. JOYCE of Pennsylvania. The Governor of California does not have the right to determine what type of vehicle my constituents in Pennsylvania are able to buy. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

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