[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 86 (Tuesday, May 18, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2553-S2554]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SENATE LEGISLATIVE AGENDA

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, a landmark report from the International 
Energy Agency says countries need to move faster and more aggressively 
to cut planet-warming pollution.
  That is from the New York Times this morning. The International 
Energy Agency, for the first time, is recommending specific steps to 
accomplish the drastic cuts in carbon emissions that nearly every 
developed country has pledged to achieve. One of the principal 
recommendations is ``the rapid phase-out of gasoline-powered 
vehicles.''

  It just so happens that this report lands on the same day that 
President Biden is in Michigan to celebrate the release of a new line 
of electric pickup trucks. As one of the best-selling cars in America, 
replacing gasoline pickups with electric pickups could save us huge 
amounts of carbon.
  But we shouldn't stop there. Transportation still accounts for 
roughly one-third of America's carbon output. There is no way the 
United States can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions without looking 
out how Americans drive.
  So I have put forward an ambitious, comprehensive proposal to 
accelerate our country's transition to zero-emission vehicles. We call 
it Clean Cars for America. The goal of that plan is that by 2040, all 
vehicles on the road should be clean. The International Energy Agency, 
by the way, recommends the world reach that target by 2050. So we beat 
them by 10 years, if this proposal goes into effect.
  My plan would help us get there 10 years ahead of time. It is one of 
the many reasons that President Biden put Clean Cars for America at the 
heart of his American Jobs Plan, something I hope and expect he will 
discuss today in Michigan.
  I want to thank the Biden administration. They have been open to many 
new ideas: the American Competitive Innovation Act that we will be 
debating today and Clean Cars for America, which they have more or less 
adopted in whole and put into their Build Back Better plan.
  The benefits would be far-reaching, far beyond the subject of climate 
change. For a long time, critics have been saying you can't help the 
environment without hurting the economy or costing jobs. Not so, it is 
actually the reverse.
  We negotiated the Clean Cars for America proposal with the unions, 
with the environmental groups, and with the auto companies, and all 
three are onboard. The good news is that Clean Cars for America would 
create tens of thousands of good-paying union jobs in battery 
manufacturing, construction, and auto making. Through targeted 
investments, it would put Americans to work all across the country 
building charging stations for a new fleet of electric cars. Right now, 
China leads the world in the electric vehicle market, overtaking us in 
2015. We need to take back the initiative and create thousands upon 
thousands of good-paying jobs as we do.
  I am very glad that the Biden administration has taken this proposal 
and adopted it. We worked, as I said, long and hard, for the first time 
on a major

[[Page S2554]]

environmental proposal to bring our friends in the union movement 
onboard so that workers saw that their future--a bright future, a 
prosperous future--was with clean energy, that we weren't excluding 
them but including them.
  That is why, unlike many proposals in the past, my Clean Cars for 
America proposal unites the environmental community, the labor 
movement, and major automakers. The Sierra Club, UAW, Ford, and GM are 
all supportive. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that great?
  When you want to get something done in Washington, you need to build 
a broad and powerful coalition for support. That is what we did with 
Clean Cars for America. The Senate and the country should prioritize it 
this year.

                          ____________________