Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act--

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, here we are, the moment that we have been warning about, the moment the majority and its Members used to say, under their leadership, would never come. And yet here we are, the week our colleagues may push to go nuclear and override the Parliamentarian, killing the filibuster, and going against their word to unwind 60 years of precedent and policy.

And no matter what anyone says, that is what is happening. Our colleagues will be overturning the Parliamentarian to end California's right to cleaner air. The majority promised:

We can't go there.

I am old enough to remember just when it was they said it because it was their majority leader just 19 weeks ago--19 weeks ago.

But not to worry, the majority says, this is not what this is about, they claim. Instead, we have heard the majority try to dress this up as an attack on the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, saying that their unprecedented action was preceded, almost warranted, by the GAO's actions.

Yes, my colleagues Senator Whitehouse, Senator Padilla, and myself went to the GAO to ask for their guidance on whether this expedited measure, called the CRA, could be used to target California's waiver, California's right to establish stronger clean air standards.

And, yes, the GAO responded, affirming that this expedited process, this CRA, does not apply, that these are not rules; that if they want to strike down California's clean air rules, they can do so but not in this summary fashion, not without 60 votes.

That is the ruling that the Parliamentarian has reaffirmed and which the majority now wants to strike down.

But let's be clear. Going to the GAO was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it was exactly what both parties have done when adjudicating this issue for decades. There are Senators serving in this Chamber, Republicans and Democrats, who have made use of the exact same process by going to the GAO. There have been more than 20 different opinions delivered by the GAO at the request of Republican Senators and Members of Congress in the last three decades, more than 20 times.

And in the cases where the GAO found that the CRA may not apply, this expedited process may not apply, that decision has stood. They did not move forward and respected the rulings of the GAO and the Parliamentarian until now.

So what does all of this mean? What it means is, California has established clean air standards. It was given a waiver under the Clean Air Act to do so. It has done so for decades. Those standards have been adopted voluntarily by other States and, as a result, in California and many other States, we have cleaner air to breathe--until now--until now when the majority has decided to abolish the filibuster so that they could eradicate California's clean air standards so that they could use a summary process that doesn't apply here to get over the hurdle that they require 60 votes in order to do this.

And I urge my colleagues and the American people not to be distracted by suggestions that nothing is going on here, nothing new is going on here, no precedent is being set here because it is; and that is to eliminate the filibuster in the service of the oil industry--in the service of the oil industry.

Whether it is an attack on the GAO or the Parliamentarian, the new ground we find ourselves in today is dangerous, both in the effects it will have on California and on this body--in California, in particular, because it means that this Congress is abolishing the filibuster so that Californians will have to breathe dirtier air. That is what this is about. They want to abolish the filibuster so that polluters can pollute more and Californians have to breathe dirtier air because they know they don't have the votes for it otherwise.

And taken together, my colleagues are embarking on a path that will forever change the Senate. It will not just mean dirtier air for California and dirtier air for all the other States that have adopted California's higher standard; it will also mean that the filibuster is gone for a whole range of things.

Now, I represent a State that makes up 1 out of every 10 Americans. It is the fourth largest economy in the world. So 1 out of every 10 Americans is going to be deeply impacted, and, of course, if you add all of the other States that have adopted this higher standard for their citizens, it may be more like 1 out of every 5.

But it is more than that as well because what we have at stake is also a State's ability, its right to make its own laws and to protect its own citizens without having this body overturn that right.

This week's vote is shortsighted because it is going to have devastating impacts for our Nation's health, but it is more than that. And it should send a chill down the spine of legislators in every State and communities across the country, regardless of their political affiliation, because the Senate is now setting a new standard and one that will haunt us in the future, and it will haunt those States whose Senators vote to go down this path.

Make no mistake, today it is California and our ability to set our own air quality standards, but tomorrow it can be your own State's priorities made into a target by this vote to open the Pandora's box of the Congressional Review Act.

That oil drilling lease that one of your States got approved? That can be on the chopping block with the simple majority now if the filibuster is eliminated. That license for a new energy hub? Gone with a simple vote of this body. That new community grant? Gone with a simple vote of this body. That is fair game now if the majority adopts this tact. This vote to expand the power of this expedited process called the Congressional Review Act will be used to target Democratic and Republican priorities alike.

I moved to Los Angeles in 1985. I remember what it was like to breathe the air in Los Angeles in the 1980s. I have seen images of what the air was like in Los Angeles in the 1970s and the 1960s and the 1950s. We are a basin. And with all of that automobile traffic and all of that congestion and our geography and topography, it means that exhaust gets trapped, that smog gets trapped. There are times when you can't see the hills in front of you. There are times when you can't see down the street--at least there used to be.

There is a reason why California got this waiver decades ago because there were unique challenges facing places like Los Angeles, and so California acted to protect its own citizens.

But if your State acts to protect your citizens--whether it is from dirty air that can give you lung cancer or whether it is pollutants in the water that can give you all other kinds of cancer--do we really want this body, on a simple majority vote, to be able to eviscerate what the States are doing to protect their own citizens?

I urge my colleagues again not to abandon States' rights in the Senate this week because this may be a policy that you agree with today, but the thing is about a slippery slope, you can be the one who starts down the slope, but you don't get to be the one who decides where it stops.

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