Terminating the National Emergency Declared to Impose Global Tariffs

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I am here today to defend the standards for our appliances that save energy, that cut climate emissions. They reduce costs for American families and businesses. Yet Trump and his Republican allies are attacking these commonsense appliance efficiency standards.

This morning's vote overturned the Department of Energy's updated energy labeling rule that would have made it easier for appliance manufacturers to test, to certify, and to label their products in a way that consumers can understand.

Energy labels are like food nutrition labels but for your electricity bill. They empower consumers to choose cheaper, more efficient appliances. They drive competition. They create certainty. They help the American people make informed choices and avoid confusion.

The rule that Republicans overturned was not a ban. It was not a mandate. The rule didn't even change underlying efficiency standards. This vote comes after two additional votes earlier this month where Republicans repealed the Department of Energy's updated efficiency standards for gas-fired water heaters and walk-in coolers and freezers.

Let's be clear: These votes are not about appliance freedom. They are about fossil fuel fascism. This is about corporate lobbyists putting profits over people and destroying decades of bipartisan energy efficiency progress. Having the information to make an informed decision about your appliance that your family wants to buy is about choice--your choice. Not Big Oil's choice, not Big Gas's choice--your choice.

Here is the information. Make up your mind. Do you want one that is more efficient? There it is right in the middle of Best Buy, right there in the middle of the store. Pick that one.

Donald Trump's ridiculous culture war against energy-efficient appliances is a war against saving families money. The more efficient the appliance, the less money people pay in their electricity bill. The fact is that Federal appliance efficiency standards are one of the most successful climate and consumer savings programs in American history. And these standards have been around for decades.

Back in 1987, I wrote the law. I am the author of the law that gave the Department of Energy the authority to set binding energy standards for appliances in America, which are supposed to be updated every 6 years. That is my law. It was signed into law as the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act.

Now, I am going to be honest with you, Ronald Reagan vetoed it the first time because the oil and gas industry wanted him to veto it. And that law ultimately did pass, and it covered 13 major appliances-- kitchen refrigerators, dryers, air conditioners, and, yes, commercial refrigerators. And since then, the number of appliances has more than quadrupled.

Here is the way you should think about it. We need big electrical generating facilities all across the country. Everyone knows right now that AI is now going to be a huge drain on all of the electricity that we have in our country. So how do we handle that problem? Well, one of the ways of handling that problem is to say that refrigerators have to be more efficient in the amount of electricity which they consume. Light bulbs have to be more efficient. Air conditioning has to be more efficient.

For example, in Texas, in the summer, 80 percent of peak demand for electricity is air conditioning. So if you increase the efficiency by a third in air conditioners, you are dramatically reducing the need to have to build more electrical generating facilities in the country. Or maybe there is more electricity left over for the AI industry if you are working in a way that is trying to maximize American ingenuity. That is who we are. We make things that are smarter.

Now, a lot of people--I would say the natural gas and oil industry at the top of the list--they don't want there to be progress. Why is that? Because the less efficient something is, the more energy, the more electricity that has to be consumed. That is their profit. But what does it do? It says to the consumer: You have to pay more for more electricity. It says that you cannot have new options that make it possible for you to ensure that your family has the most modern, the most efficient air conditioning or lighting or refrigeration or stoves.

No, we are going to lock you into 10-years-ago technology. We are going to lock you into 20-years-ago technology. That is a dream for the oil and gas industry--a dream. But for the consumer, no, they are the big loser because what we are seeing over the years is after my law passed in 1987, the number of appliances which have been covered has quadrupled--four times as many are now covered.

Former President Biden updated more than two dozen standards that have been delayed under the first Trump administration on behalf of the oil and gas industry. These updates were estimated to save households nearly $1 trillion annually over 30 years and save the average family at least $100 per year in lower utility bills. They were also estimated to cut approximately 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon emissions over 30 years. That is the equivalent of taking over 18 million gasoline- powered automobiles off the road each year for 30 years.

That is bad, by the way. That is bad for the oil and gas industry, with fewer greenhouse gases going up, and less oil and gas being consumed. All of that is part of a very bad equation for the oil and gas industry, but it is catastrophic for families. It is catastrophic for our planet that the industries are allowed to dictate policies here on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

These appliance standards have also driven progress in States like Massachusetts, where strong State-level appliance efficiency programs are projected to cut energy costs by $13 million each year by 2044 for families and small businesses, while fighting climate change. Let's not forget that these rules have support from industry, but now they are the target of political theater out here on the Senate floor.

It is not too late to act. We have one more appliance efficiency Congressional Review Act vote ahead of us. This is why I am urging my colleagues to vote no to overturn the Department of Energy's efficiency standards for commercial refrigerators and freezers.

These standards update the minimum efficiency levels for new refrigerators and freezers at restaurants, grocery stores, and convenience stores that run 24/7, 365 days a year. This rule alone--the one we are going to vote on--would save businesses up to $4.6 billion over 30 years. These are savings that restaurants and grocery stores could pass on to their customers. And if you have ever worked in a kitchen, you know the importance of reliability and cost savings.

Eliminating this rule would only inject further uncertainty into the market, punish forward-thinking manufacturers, and raise prices on the very businesses--especially small businesses--we say that we want to support. Energy efficiency isn't just an environmental solution; it is an economic one. It cuts costs for renters, for seniors, for small businesses, for schools, and municipal buildings.

Make no mistake about it. Eliminating these standards is climate sabotage. Overturning even a few of them jeopardizes that future. It locks in dirty fossil fuel use. It worsens pollution in frontline communities that are already burdened by asthma, heat, and high energy bills. We cannot slam the brakes on progress just for fossil fuel profits.

A vote on this next resolution to overturn the updated standards for refrigerators and freezers is a vote against lower bills, against climate progress, and against consumer choice. We need to be investing in the future, not resurrecting the past.

When my mother got disappointed in me when I was a boy--when I was 10 years old--my mother would just say: Eddy, you have to learn how to work smarter, not harder. Otherwise, your father and I are going to donate your brain to Harvard Medical School as a completely unused human organ.

Ah, and what did she mean? She meant that you just had to be smarter and think the problem through.

That is what energy efficiency is. It is working smarter, not harder. It is making the refrigerator, it is making the air conditioner, and it is making everything that we use more efficient so we need less electricity, because that is all our nuclear powerplants, our coal- burning plants, and wind and solar are. They are just ways of providing electricity for the air-conditioning, for the lighting, and for the heating. That is all it is. If we make it 25 percent more efficient, then, all of a sudden, we need 25 percent less electricity which is being generated and 25 percent less pollution that goes up into the air and into the lungs of the children in our Nation. That is what we are debating here today.

Once again, the Republicans are going to side with the oil and gas industry, and they are going to say: America can't figure out how to improve the efficiency of appliances in our Nation.

That is what they are saying, but they are also saying the same thing about our automobiles: No, we can't figure out how to make them more efficient.

That is what they are saying about wind and solar: No, we can't figure out how to deploy it in our country as an alternative to oil and gas.

By the way, the story always comes back to that one issue--oil and gas and their money inside of this system--but the price is being paid by consumers who have to pay higher bills, and it is going to be a price that is paid by our planet, as it gets more and more dangerously hotter.

My mother would always say that the planet is running a fever, and there are no emergency rooms for planets. That is where we are. It is the young generation who is leading us. It is the young generation who is saying: You must do something about climate change.

It is the young generation who is saying: We must figure out a way of reducing this pollution that we are sending up into the atmosphere.

Once again, the Republicans are bringing up another bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate that is going to dramatically increase pollution, and that is going into the lungs of every child, of every pregnant mother in our country, and it is absolutely irresponsible and absolutely unnecessary, except for the role that the oil and gas industry plays in the politics of the Republican Party.

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