Amendment No. 1 Offered By Mr. Massie

Floor Speech

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of our amendment. This is cosponsored by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy). I regret that we have to offer this amendment.

What I am going to describe will probably sound like a bad science fiction movie, but that is what is written into law. Right now, in law that is going to be implemented, it says, for 2026 and beyond--now, the reality is that technology doesn't exist, but that doesn't keep legislators from imagining things that they would like to do to infringe on civil liberties. However, there is a law that states that every vehicle manufactured is going to have to have a kill switch in it.

The car itself will monitor your driving, and if the car thinks that you are not doing a good job driving, it will disable itself, so the car dashboard becomes your judge, your jury, and your executioner.

Imagine this: We have a snowstorm coming. A mom takes her kids out to go to the grocery store. It is snowing, and they are trying to get some groceries before the big storm hits. She swerves for a pothole. The neighbor's pet gets in the way, and she swerves for that. A first responder goes by. She pulls over.

Her car says: You have one more swerve, and then we are going to ground you. There it is, the next thing she has to avoid, an icy patch in the road. The car has adjudicated her as unsuitable for driving. It disables the vehicle, and there she is stranded.

My question is, how do you appeal your sentence once the technology in your car has judged you to be incapable of driving? Once it has disabled you and your children at the side of the road, how do you appeal that? Do you press a button on the dashboard? Do you start talking to an AI?

What if it really was somebody who was drunk? Are you really going to send a police car after this disabled vehicle? Do we have the resources to do that? There are going to be so many false positives.

The technology is unworkable, which is why the DOT is still in the rulemaking process, asking for feedback on how this thing could even exist. It is just a bad idea, but it is in law, so our amendment would defund that.

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chairman, drunk driving is a serious problem, but 31 States already have the technology to keep drunk drivers off the road with ignition interlock devices that they can mandate. This technology that is in the law is not going to fix the drunk driving problem.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), my friend.

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.
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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I would inquire whether the gentleman is prepared to close.
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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, the last time we offered this amendment, it had bipartisan support.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment. It would defund an unconstitutional and unworkable mandate that has already missed the deadlines.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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