Providing Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``California State Motor Vehicle and Engine Pollution Control Standards; Heavy-Duty Vehicle and Engine Emission Warranty and Maintenance Provisions; Advanced Clean Trucks; Zero Emission Airport Shuttle; Zero-Emission Power Train Certification; Waiver of Preemption; Notice of Decision''

Floor Speech

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Mr. KILEY of California. Madam Speaker, our Governor in California, Gavin Newsom, likes to say that California leads the Nation and, unfortunately, President Biden enabled him to do just that. He has led our Nation down a path of total insanity in a way that puts us at war with common sense, with American consumers, and with our fantastic truckers.

California has come after truckers in every way you can imagine, whether it is by far the highest diesel tax in the country, the regulation after regulation after regulation that makes more and more trucks unusable, or AB5 that went after the independent owner-operator model and threatened to put thousands of truckers out of work. However, with this regulation, the State came after the whole ball of wax. They said we are going to take your truck itself.

With this regulation, the State has said that by just the year 2035, we are going to have for some classes of trucks, 55 percent have to be zero-emission vehicles; for others, 75 percent; for others, 40 percent.

What is the practical consequence of this going to be? First, trucks are going to be a lot more expensive, tens of thousands of dollars more expensive. Companies will either have to buy more trucks or they will have to carry less in their trucks because there is less capacity because of the weight of the battery.

By the way, they are going to have to use charging infrastructure that doesn't even exist at this point in time.

American consumers, as we are seeing already in California, will see the cost of just about everything, certainly the cost of groceries, go up, and this will only contribute to the fact that we have a shortage of truck drivers in our State and in this country.

California is being allowed to create policy for the whole country because 11 States are tied to California's actions here and because it puts manufacturers in a dilemma if they have to manufacture one truck for one State and another truck for another State.

Today, we are restoring common sense. We are restoring uniformity when it comes to interstate commerce. We are restoring support for our truckers and we are lowering costs for consumers.

By the way, we believe fully in innovation and we believe in a clean energy future for this country. We believe in clean air, but it is through innovation that we will get to clean air. It is not by government fiat. Indeed, it is an odd approach to innovation that says we are going to somehow magically fiat innovation by banning any and all available alternatives. That is not the way it works.

Finally, to the notion of the gentleman from New Jersey that this sets a dangerous precedent, I will note that no California legislator ever voted on this or the car ban, no Member of this House has voted on it, no individual citizen has voted on it. There has been no vote whatsoever on a policy of profound personal consequence to 40 million Californians and tens of millions other Americans. I think that is precisely the precedent, actually putting this to a vote of the people's Representatives.

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