Providing Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``California State Motor Vehicle and Engine Pollution Control Standards; Advanced Clean Cars Ii; Waiver of Preemption; Notice of Decision''
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 354, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 88) providing congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``California State Motor Vehicle and Engine Pollution Control Standards; Advanced Clean Cars II; Waiver of Preemption; Notice of Decision'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Res. 88.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in strong support of H.J. Res. 88, a resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``California State Motor Vehicle and Engine Pollution Control Standards; Advanced Clean Cars II; Waiver of Preemption; Notice of Decision,'' sponsored by the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania's resolution would repeal the EPA's decision to grant a Federal preemption waiver for this California Air Resources Board rule, the so-called Advanced Clean Cars II rule.
California had a strict vehicle emission standard before, but this rule right here is a mandate. It is a mandate, Mr. Speaker, for electric cars.
The requirement begins with 35 percent of the vehicles sold in 2026 being zero emissions and then scales up to 100 percent of vehicles sold by 2035.
This is an EV mandate, Mr. Speaker. Make no mistake about it.
Mr. Speaker, if you are shopping for a new car in 2035, then you are going to be forced to buy a zero-emission car. At present time, you will be paying more for that EV, about $14,000 more.
These are supposed to be tailpipe emissions standards, not emission standards that are so low or difficult to meet that electric cars are the only path to compliance.
I am not an anti-electric car person. I don't hate electric cars. If an electric car works for you and your family, Mr. Speaker, then so be it. That is fine, but what really gets me and a lot of my constituents stirred up about this is that we are mandating that these cars be the only ones sold.
Mr. Speaker, I represent a mountainous district where electric car batteries are not up to the challenge. When you factor in range problems and charging waiting times, it is not something that many in rural America can use.
I fear that we might find ourselves in situations like Cuba did after Fidel Castro took over. Because of the shortage of new cars in Cuba, people were doing everything they could to keep the pre-Castro cars on the road for decades and decades. In many districts like mine, we might have something similar with gas-burning cars if EVs are mandated.
Let me explain. My folks cannot afford to buy a new EV car. They can't really afford to buy a used car. Normally, what they do in a district like mine, which is economically stressed, is they will buy a used car. The problem is that with the batteries in the EV cars, if you buy a used car, Mr. Speaker, then you really don't have any idea how long it is going to be before that battery wears out.
As a result, Mr. Speaker, you buy the chassis and a battery hoping it works for you if you don't have any other choice. If the battery goes bad, then you are looking at $4,000, $5,000, maybe more, to replace the battery.
It is kind of like going to the roulette table and just throwing your money on the table and spinning the wheel, hoping that if you buy a used car, you might be able to make it work because the battery is so integral.
With gas-burning cars, a lot of them know how to fix the cars themselves, and they will make it work. They will continue using those gas cars as long as they can get any usage out of it whatsoever, no matter how bad of a shape it is in, because they can't afford to buy one of the leftwing's EV cars.
That is just not going to happen in my district by the timelines that they set up.
The technology is not available today, and when we are talking about 2035, the technology we are selling today is what my constituents are looking to buy used in the future. Many people drive cars more than 10 years old, and they are going to put our folks either without cars or still burning gas cars for many years, many decades, in the future.
There are some communities in my district that are more suburban and urban, and there an electric car may make sense for those folks. But some of my folks drive an hour or more to go to work or even go to school because it is cheaper for them to live at home and drive to the school. I am talking about the colleges and the law schools and the vet school and the pharmacy school in my district. Every day they drive back and forth to save money and they don't want to have to rely on an EV car that might not get them there and back.
When it is cold and you are going up a mountain, the EV doesn't get the mileage that is stated. It is kind of like your gas mileage. When you buy a car, it says a standard driver will get this much, but that doesn't work for everybody, particularly if you are climbing mountains. If you need to run errands before or after work, that adds to the time. It makes it so they have anxiety about recharging. That is a real issue for people being forced to drive EV cars.
I can't even get around my district in an EV car. I looked at it because I like the idea, but I sometimes drive 400 miles a day around my district. Oftentimes, there is no place to charge, or if there is, I am not stopping at any one place long enough to get a full charge on an EV battery.
Some might say this is just a California regulation. That is just not so. As we heard in the previous debate, and we will hear again in this debate, California is a dominant force in the economy. They will tell you that every day of the week.
Further, while California has a waiver, other States can opt into it. They can't modify it, but they can opt into the California standard. When they do, that pushes the manufacturers further and further in the direction of the California standard.
The States should either be equal or we should have a national policy. I am not so sure that we should give California a super-State status, imposing its preferences on the rest of the country.
It gets even worse. This started in 1966, and then it made some sense. Today, it doesn't make sense. Right now, we have 11 States opting in to this California standard: Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Colorado, New Jersey, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Mexico, and Maryland. With those States, even though they represent a minority of the population and a minority of the market and a minority of the States, they are dictating much of what is going to happen in the rest of the market.
Now, those markets add up to about 35 percent of the total new car market, and this has a cascading effect on manufacturers who are forced by the policy of a minority of States not to do what the market dictates but to do what the States have dictated and to make unprofitable investments that won't work for the poor, rural areas, particularly mountainous ones, in the United States.
The situation we now find ourselves in is different than the one that was contemplated by the 90th Congress. In 1967, when the body passed the Air Quality Act, which later became the Clean Air Act after extensive amendments in later years, in that act California was allowed to have a waiver for stricter tailpipe pollution regulations. One of the big reasons this carve-out was made was because of the terrible smog that enveloped Los Angeles at the time.
I remember that. I can remember that being talked about in the news. We have all seen the old pictures. You have got the ocean on one side and the mountains inland. It causes an inversion where pollution just sits over the cities there. California was granted this exemption because it already had the capabilities to formulate and enforce stricter standards. That is not true for everywhere else, nor was it anticipated that they would continue to ratchet up to the point where they made many cars in the United States illegal.
The intent of the waiver was to allow California to have more stringent vehicle standards, not a way to have a backdoor ban on gasoline- and diesel-powered cars for the rest of the country.
I urge all Members to join me in voting in favor of H.J. Res. 88, to roll back the State of California's EV-only agenda.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, referencing my previous comments related to the GAO, et cetera, I will not yield to the GAO on what the responsibilities of the United States Congress are.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley).
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Balderson), my swimming partner.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. GRIFFITH. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I was saying to the team over here that I was getting a little tired of hearing myself speak, and I suspect that my colleague and good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey, is probably getting to that same point, too, because our job is to reiterate the same points over and over because we have three bills of a similar nature.
Notwithstanding the fact that I am tired of hearing myself speak, I will proceed nonetheless.
I will say that States can opt in and out, but they only have the choice of the national standard or the California standard. Why is that?
Madam Speaker, that is because back in 1966, California started moving in this direction. In 1967, Congress passed its first national rules. It recognized that California was already moving in a slightly different direction, and it gave them the ability to have a waiver. Other States could opt in to that, but in 1966, the world was greatly different than it is today.
In fairness, a big part of the air pollution in the Western part of the United States comes because of previous bad rules by the EPA that force so much of American manufacturing to Asia, particularly to China.
China was not a major economic power in 1966. They were going through all kinds of problems, and I don't remember now if they were in the Cultural Revolution or about to start it, but it was about that time.
Today, they are a major manufacturer but they don't have the regulations that we have and they produce a lot of air pollution. According to a NASA study, it takes 10 days for the air to get from the middle of the Gobi Desert to the eastern shore of Virginia, and a lot of that pollution is falling on California.
If we really want to solve California's air pollution problems, we need to bring manufacturing back to the United States where we can do it more efficiently and cleaner than what they are doing currently in China. Further, regulations like this only play into the hands of manufacturing being done in China instead of being done in California or in Michigan or in Virginia or in Kentucky.
Now, the gentleman raised the issue about nobody is talking about clean air. There is your clean air talk, Mr. Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, my good friend from New Jersey, because if we really want to clean things up, we will stop regulations like this that make it harder on American businesses.
The gentleman correctly points out that this is only for California and other States can opt in. What happens is, manufacturers respond to California and they respond to a few other States, even though it is not a majority, Madam Speaker; even though it is not a majority of the States or a majority of the population that has opted in to any of these three regulations that we are doing today or intends to. Some States have opted in to the California rule on this one and then opted out, including my State of Virginia.
It becomes a mishmash and very difficult for manufacturers to know what they are supposed to be doing. The regulations that were anticipated--was it a tailpipe emission regulation--were never intended that the regulation by California and other States, perhaps, would be so low as to outlaw gas and diesel vehicles. That is why we need to pass this CRA.
We have the authority in Congress to do so notwithstanding bureaucrats that work for us, not the other way around, and notwithstanding whatever the Senate might say.
If I have additional time, Madam Speaker, you know how I feel about this. We were directed in Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice and Procedure not to discuss and debate what the Senate was going to do or not going do. If we wanted a unicameral body, we should have had a unicameral body. We have a bicameral body, and this House must make its own decisions and not worry about what the Senate does or whatever the heck the Senate Parliamentarian may think.
It is the United States House of Representatives, and we should not take a back seat to any institution, particularly the unelected ones here in Washington, D.C.
Madam Speaker, I ask everyone to vote for this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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