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Floor Speech

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Mr. RICKETTS. Madam President, over the last week, my home State of Nebraska has been hit by bitter winter storms. We have had subzero temperatures, snow, and high winds that have closed many roads across the State of Nebraska.

As always, in times like these, Nebraskans step up to help. I want to thank all of our first responders, whether they were snowplow drivers, law enforcement, firefighters, EMTs, other emergency personnel--all the folks who demonstrated their grit and service this last week to be able to help people out. And I especially want to thank Nebraska State Patrol for the over 1,400 drivers they assisted during this crippling winter weather.

Hospitals saw a number of frostbite injuries. Our farmers and ranchers continued to work to ensure our food supply here at home.

I want to thank my Federal delegation as well and will work with them to provide any support that is needed. I appreciate that Governor Jim Pillen declared a state of emergency and will also assist with any Federal assistance that may be needed for this emergency. As we recover from these storms, I stand ready to work with my colleagues.

It is also an opportunity for us to be able to think about how government can do better. Many times a storm like this will create situations where we need to tease out what we should do better for the next time. However, in this case, one of the lessons has become clear right away.

As we all know, the EPA has a mandate that they want all new cars and trucks sold by the year 2032--I shouldn't say all; two-thirds of all cars and trucks sold by the year 2032--to be electric vehicles. This weekend we saw why this is just a dumb idea. These EV mandates are burdensome and do not work in places like the upper Midwest, where we can see these bitter cold temperatures. We saw that EVs don't work well when the temperature drops so precipitously. It turns out they are just not reliable when the weather turns this cold.

FOX 32 in Chicago has a story which I am going to quote from here. They reported that ``public charging stations have turned into car graveyards over the past couple of days.''

The story goes on to describe ``dozens of [EV] owners trying desperately to power up their cars at the . . . supercharging station in Oak Brook. It was a scene mirrored with long lines and abandoned cars at scores of other charging stations around the Chicago area.''

Also in the story there was a driver who referred to all these stalled electric vehicles as ``dead robots.''

``Car graveyards'' and ``dead robots''--is that the future we want? I don't think so.

And this happened in Chicago, where there are a lot of EV charging stations. What about my home State of Nebraska, where we don't have as many?

President Biden's own Department of Energy map shows no EV chargers on a 244-mile stretch of highway from Broken Bow to Scotts Bluff. There is not a charging station within 65 miles of Mullen, NE. Many rural communities are more than an hour's drive away from a charging station in towns like Hyannis, Cody, Merriman, Kilgore, and Thedford.

Nebraska is the ``Beef State.'' I can guarantee you that electric trucks are not practical when you are hauling livestock. One cannot afford just to pull over and start charging for 2 hours or even longer when the temperature is below zero--cattle cannot tolerate it.

And the thing about not being able to charge at all--imagine EV ambulances that break down trying to get to a rural hospital or EV buses breaking down trying to connect people to their jobs.

These are very real considerations in States like mine. Nebraskans tell me over and over again: The east coast Washington bureaucrats have no idea what their policies will do in the Midwest of the United States.

Guess what. They are right because, as it turns out, EVs don't work in cold weather.

These bureaucrats on the east coast have no idea of the implications of what their policies are to people in the Midwest. These major winter storms are a reminder that, right now, EV's don't have the performance or the reliance or the range in cold weather to be able to work in the Midwest.

Imposing an EV mandate on Midwestern States like Nebraska is foolish, unworkable, and it is wrong. I urge President Biden to reconsider this terrible policy. Until he does, I will continue to fight here in the U.S. Senate with every tool at my disposal.

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