Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. OBERNOLTE. Mr. Chair, last year the California Air Resources Board proposed a new regulation that would have disastrous consequences for my constituents, for the people of California, and for the people of the United States.

This so-called in-use locomotive rule would phase out the use of diesel-electric locomotives and require all locomotives entering the State of California to do so in a zero-emission configuration within just a few short years.

Mr. Chairman, there are several problems with this regulation. The first and most obvious is that there are currently no electric locomotives that can take the place of a diesel-electric freight locomotive. In fact, the best electric locomotives that exist currently are those so-called switch locomotives that are used to move cars back and forth between trains within freight switchyards. There are no locomotives that can take the place of a diesel-electric locomotive and haul millions of pounds of freight from place to place over hundreds of miles.

Mr. Chairman, the physics suggest there will be no locomotives that can accomplish this any time in the near future.

Requiring this regulation would raise prices for every consumer in California, a State, Mr. Chairman, which already suffers the worst poverty of any State in the country.

Mr. Chairman, this would also have a disastrous effect on my constituents. BNS Railways is currently constructing a $1.5 billion project in the city of Barstow within my district, an intermodal transfer facility that will allow freight from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to be shipped by rail to Barstow and then transshipped by rail or by truck to other places in the country. Currently, Mr. Chairman, that freight leaves those ports on trucks.

BNSF has said, quite reasonably, that if California will not let their locomotives enter the State, they will abandon their plans for that intermodal transfer facility.

Mr. Chairman, that will result in the loss of not just $1.5 billion of investment in my community but over 20,000 jobs in the region of California that I represent.

Mr. Chairman, the most nonsensical part of this legislation is that it actually will be much worse for the environment. It is three times more efficient to transfer freight by rail than it is by truck. That is one-third the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

If we force freight to be shipped by truck instead of by rail out of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, that will be far worse for the environment than allowing it to be transported on the efficient diesel- electric locomotives that we currently have.

That is why this amendment would deny the EPA the funding that they need to grant a waiver to the State of California to implement this nonsensical rule.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. OBERNOLTE. Mr. Chair, I am very glad my colleague from Maine brought up the Clean Air Act because the Clean Air Act explicitly says that the right to set emissions requirements for locomotives is preempted from the States.

Mr. Chairman, that makes complete sense because how on Earth can we operate a national railway system if we allow each of the 50 States to come up with their own rules about what locomotives can cross their State lines? Mr. Chairman, that is a complete impossibility.

Mr. Chairman, to remind my colleague from Maine, the most nonsensical part of this rule is that these replacement electric locomotives do not exist, and they are not likely to exist anytime in the near future.

The current best battery technology that we possess can store about 5 megawatts of energy in the form factor of a locomotive. Mr. Chairman, to replace an existing freight locomotive would require about 20 times that amount of energy, about 100 megawatts of energy.

Mr. Chairman, this is a nonsensical rule. It is bad for the people of California. It is bad for consumers in California. It is bad for the people of the United States because this rule would result in more greenhouse gas emissions, not less.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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