[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 50 (Thursday, March 21, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2492-S2495]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Electric Vehicles
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak about
the President's most recent attacks upon the freedoms of the American
people. This week, the Biden administration, the Environmental
Protection Agency, announced that it is going to put stringent new
limits on gas-powered cars.
In effect, this delusional new regulation is attempting to kill the
sale of gas-powered cars in America and, in doing so, try to force
every American to buy an electric car.
President Biden seems to want to regulate every room in the house of
the American people. He started in the kitchen with our stoves,
continued throughout the house, and now he is headed to the garage.
This is a coercive crusade, and it is a crusade against consumer
choice. It is a crusade against convenience and also against
affordability.
Last year, less than 1 in 10 of the vehicles sold in this country
were electric vehicles. Under this new rule, Biden is demanding that
the EVs make up two-thirds of all new car sales by the year 2032.
Apparently, the administration thinks it is smarter than everyone else.
They want to pick what you can drive and punish people who choose to
drive something different. Why? Well, it is all in the name of the smug
superiority of the coastal elites who think they ought to be running
the country.
Now, this is the crux of the new Biden car ban. Driven by this blind
faith in the climate religion regardless of the cost to our country in
terms of energy being affordable, available, or reliable. The costs are
real, and they
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are expensive. The benefits are theoretical, unproven, exaggerated, and
certainly burdensome. President Biden is pushing ahead anyway.
To Democrats, what kind of cars Americans drive isn't a practical
question; it is one based on theology. Their war against gas-powered
cars amounts to what I believe is foolishness at best and leftwing
lunacy at worst. Americans reject and continue to reject this
unwelcomed intrusion into our lives. They reject it for good reason.
They know that this Biden car ban will drive their lives into the
ditch.
Certainly, that is the case for the people of my home State in
Wyoming. It is bad for the families in my home State. It is bad for the
workers in my home State. It is bad for American national security.
Farmers and ranchers count on their vehicles. It can be a matter of
life and death. People know not to run out of fuel, not to run out of
gas. They know what it is like in the winters. They know to always be
fully prepared and fully loaded with gas before they head out on the
roads in Wyoming.
They want their vehicles to be reliable and affordable. We have, in
Wyoming, cold winters, vast distances. Electric cars are not meant to
benefit and survive in either. President Biden's push to force Wyoming
drivers to buy expensive vehicles they don't want, don't need, and most
families can't afford is ridiculous and an abuse of power.
Electric cars are a reasonable choice for some people. They aren't a
reasonable choice for everyone, and that is why these new
administrative rules are so unreasonable. Electric cars should never be
Americans' only option. And no one should be forced to buy a vehicle at
a time they can least afford it.
Because of what we have seen with Bidenomics, that time when people
can least afford things is turning out to be right now. People are
suffering from the costliest regulatory agenda in history and also for
increasingly higher interest rates for auto loans. Trying to force
families to buy expensive new vehicles they don't want and can't afford
is completely out of touch.
It has also become clear that Joe Biden's car ban is going to lead to
a steep loss of jobs in the auto industry, particularly union jobs. We
heard loud and clear from the unions about it. As the CEO of Ford Motor
Company, Jim Farley, said last year, electric vehicles will require 40
percent less labor to make than the typical traditional gas-powered
vehicle. According to one estimate, the transition to EV production
will kill about 117,000 auto jobs in the United States. Another
estimate puts that number much, much higher.
It is already hitting home for some automakers and autoworkers. The
owner of Chrysler laid off 1,200 employees at his Jeep plant in
Illinois. Ford cut 3,000 white-collar jobs last year. The reason for
the layoffs, both companies say, is the EV transition. By pushing ahead
with this Green New Deal fantasy, Joe Biden is pushing hundreds of
thousands of union workers off the assembly line and into the
unemployment line.
Plus, the Biden car ban puts activist demands ahead of America's
national security. I mean, that is what is happening. President Biden
is rejecting what is needed by American workers to try to appeal to a
group of voters influenced by a TikTok climate influencer who visited
the White House, met with John Podesta, and is now trying to drive the
administration's energy policy.
When we take a look at the electric batteries that are used to power
these vehicles, where are they coming from? Well, 80 percent of the
world's electric batteries right now are coming from communist China.
Communist China controls 60 percent of the critical minerals that are
used to make these batteries. When Joe Biden and the Democrats try to
force-feed electric vehicles to Americans, it is a recipe for more
dependence on the dictators and the despots, including the Chinese
Communist Party.
We need to change course. We want to stop Biden's mandate madness. We
are working to put American drivers, not Washington bureaucrats, back
in the driver's seat for when people make decisions in this country.
Americans should be able to make their own decisions about what type of
vehicle works best for them and be able to buy it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for 10
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CARPER. My colleague John Barrasso has just spoken. He and I used
to lead the Environment and Public Works Committee. We worked together
over the years on a lot of issues. He is good at finding the middle in
a bunch of those and I think I am, too, and so is our Presiding
Officer.
I want to follow up on the issue of electric vehicles. The reason why
there is a strong interest in this country and around the world in
electric vehicles is because they don't put greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere. The reason why we are concerned about greenhouse gases
coming out of fossil fuel vehicles--it is something like 30 percent of
the greenhouse gases in this country being produced by our mobile
fleet, our cars, our trucks, our vans--almost all of them are gas- and
diesel-driven.
We are seeing a real tick up in the last 3 or 4 years in electric
vehicles. There is a lot of interest right now in a combination--
hybrids--where you run for a while--vehicles run for a while on battery
and for a while some of these on other sources of fuel. I think we need
both of those.
The reason, again, why it is important for us to do something real
with respect to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, about 30 percent of
our greenhouse gas emissions come from the cars, trucks, and vans we
drive--about 30 percent. About another 25 percent comes from the
powerplants--coal-fired plants, natural gas-fired plants. That creates
the electricity we use in our businesses and our homes. Maybe another
20 percent of our greenhouse gases in this country come from
manufacturing plants--steel mills, asphalt plants, that kind of thing.
Should we be concerned about this? Yes. Last year was the hottest
year on record on our planet--hottest year. It was the hottest year in
the United States, and the expectation is that it is going to continue
to worsen as time goes by.
For those of us who live in the coastal communities, there is a great
concern in Delaware and all up and down the east coast, gulf coast, and
Pacific coast about sea level rise. We see threats to people's homes,
their businesses, their jobs. So there is a real incentive to do
something about that as well.
One of the things Senator Barrasso and I and John Neely Kennedy, the
Senator from Louisiana, have worked on before is one of the major
sources of carbon emissions, which, as I mentioned, is our mobile
fleet. But another one comes from, believe it or not, refrigerants that
are in the air-conditioners, the freezers--the coolants that we have
used--something called HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons. There is a need to
actually phase those down.
We have new substances that can be used as a refrigerant to address
the concerns that we have with HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons.
The two colleagues I just mentioned, we all worked together toward
legislation--a treaty called Kigali--the last couple of years to adopt
a stepdown plan over 15 years so we reduce about 85 percent of our use
of those HFCs.
Why am I interested in HFCs? In terms of the threat they pose to us
with respect to climate change, they are 1,000 times more potent than
carbon dioxide. Think about that. HFCs are 1,000 times more potent.
That is why we are concerned about doing something, and we are.
Methane. We have way too much methane in our air. And I worked a
couple of years ago with my colleague Joe Manchin from West Virginia
and others from EPA to come up with a methane emissions reduction
program, which is now being implemented.
Why do we care about methane emissions? They are about 85, 90 times
more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to climate change.
There used to be, oh gosh, a criminal. I am trying to think of what
his name was. He was up in New York State back during the Depression.
He used to rob banks. He used to rob banks. The Presiding Officer may
remember this story. He used to rob banks--a lot of them. He finally
got caught and was
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arrested, put on trial. He came before the judge and the judge said to
him: Why do you rob banks? He said: Your honor, that is where the money
is.
The reason why we go after hydrofluorocarbons, the reason we go after
methane and auto emissions is that is where the emissions are. They
pose a great threat to our planet.
The young people sitting down here to the right of our Presiding
Officer today, they look young, and they are probably all about 15, 16,
17 years old. They are pages. They are from all over the planet. I want
to make sure, at the end of the day, they have a planet to grow up on.
I want to make sure they will have families of their own and their
children and grandchildren will have a planet to grow up on and grow
old on. I also want to make sure they have jobs to support themselves
and their families.
One of the untold stories about the work that we are doing to reduce
these greenhouse gas emissions is we can create jobs while doing that.
We can create a lot of jobs in terms of building vehicles, cars,
trucks, and vans. We put people to work, believe it or not, using
hydrogen. This is something that is especially a bright future in our
country.
People are going to hear a lot in the days to come--weeks to come--
something called hydrogen hubs. We could actually use hydrogen to fuel
airplanes. We could use hydrogen to fuel buses. We put out a lot of
emissions. We could use hydrogen to fuel large trucks--all of that. We
could use hydrogen to create electricity in powerplants.
The question is, Are we doing that? We are. We are doing it in a way
that creates jobs--a whole lot of jobs. The idea that if we want to
reduce emissions, harmful emissions, we will cripple the economy--that
is not really true. We can have both. It is like having your cake and
eating it too; in this case, having the benefit of reducing greenhouse
gas emissions and creating a whole lot of jobs and putting people to
work.
One more word on hydrogen hubs. The Presiding Officer and I and
others have worked on this for a while. The administration has put out
some guidance from the Treasury Department on the use of hydrogen to
help reduce emissions. As it turns out, I studied economics in school.
I got here later on. I spent a lot of time in the Navy, and I know a
thing or two about nuclear power. You hear a lot about nuclear
power. There is a process called electrolysis where we can use
electricity created by nuclear power, which puts out no emissions--no
harmful emissions. And there is electricity created by hydro. In Maine,
where the Presiding Officer is from, they have a fair amount of
electricity that is produced by hydroelectric power. I learned just
several years ago that there is a process called electrolysis that uses
electricity that comes from nuclear powerplants and electricity that
comes from hydroelectric plants and puts out no emissions. And we can
use that electricity in conjunction with water, H2O, in a
way that separates the ``H''--the hydrogen--from the oxygen, and we can
harness that hydrogen and use it in a lot of ways that would enable us,
as I have just spoken, to reduce harmful, harmful emissions. And we
have got to be smart enough to do that.
Janet Yellen, the Secretary of the Treasury, was before our committee
today, before the Finance Committee. I found it a good exchange, with
respect to the Treasury Department. They are in the process of writing
guidance. Sort of like when we pass a law, the Federal Agency writes a
rule or regulation to say what the law is all about now. The folks over
at the Treasury Department are trying to write the guidance, if you
will. They help guide us as we move to adopt hydrogen more completely.
And through the process of electrolysis, we can create it.
So it is acknowledged that we sort of have our differences. Those of
us in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, are anxious to make sure
we don't leave the opportunity to create hydrogen through electrolysis,
using nuclear energy and using the hydropower. And we had a very good
exchange, and she did express an openness and a willingness to hear us
out and maybe try to find the middle in ways that create jobs, in ways
that help preserve this planet so that someday these young pages, when
they are old pages and they have children of their own, they will have
a planet that they can be proud of and they can live on.
One of my favorite international leaders is the President of France,
a guy named Macron. A couple weeks ago, our President gave the State of
the Union Address. I thought he gave a really good one. But about 2, 3,
maybe 4 years ago, we had another leader who spoke to a joint session
of the House and Senate in the House Chamber, and it was the President
of France, a fellow named Macron, who was actually a leader--I think a
global leader--on climate change and how to deal with that.
And one of the reasons he is interested in this is, the last time I
saw and I noticed when they had the Tour de France--I don't know if any
of our young people ride bicycles, but the Tour de France is a great
bicycle race. About a year or 2 years ago, when they had the Tour de
France, they had to call it off in different parts. They couldn't
complete the race because the pavement that they were riding their
bikes on was melting. It was melting.
This stuff is real. We are not making it up. And the question is:
What are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it in
ways that put people to work, keep people working? We can do that.
I drive an EV. For many, many years, I drove a 2001 Chrysler Town and
Country minivan for, like, 20 years, and I had 600,000 miles on it. And
my wife says I am cheap, and I wouldn't buy a new car. Finally, I did,
and I bought an electric vehicle, and I have had it for a couple of
years now. And not only do I feel good about it--just recharge this in
our garage. We have a place to charge it. And there are other places,
these Wawa convenience stores all up and down the east coast. Wawas
have charging stations all over the Atlantic coast. Sometimes we use
those.
But the thing that is especially attractive about the vehicle that we
drive--that I drive--is frankly the maintenance costs are de minimis.
It is amazing. We have had it 2 years and spent almost nothing on
maintenance costs.
The other thing is they are fun. And I remember when I was a kid, the
age of these guys, how much fun it was to get my learner's permit and
later on a driver's license and to be able to drive and be on my own.
And I feel the same sense of joy in driving today because of what we
have with the EV.
So with that having been said, I will close with comments about John
Barrasso. I think the world of John; he knows that. And I always look
for ways to work with him. He is a strong advocate for nuclear energy,
and my hope is that, although there are some things we are going to
disagree on, we can agree on something called the ADVANCE Act.
The ADVANCE Act, which has come out of the Environment and Public
Works Committee, is sort of the next generation of nuclear powerplants,
and nuclear power can be used for a lot of good use, good purposes. We
always have to do it in a way that is safe. You always want to make
sure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has the resources that they
need to do their jobs, to keep us safe so we can have safe nuclear
power.
I am a Navy guy. I spent a lot of years in the Navy in Alaska, before
serving in the U.S. Senate, and I used to fly P-3 aircraft missions. We
used to fly in and out of the Brunswick Naval Air Station, up in Maine,
when the Presiding Officer was Governor of Maine.
But one of the things that Senator Barrasso and I agree on is the
need for more nuclear, and we have an opportunity to move forward on
small nuclear reactors. And they are safe and provide the electricity
that we need in a lot of different ways. And my hope is that we cannot
just talk about it to the folks that agree to disagree, but always look
for ways to agree to help save our planet and help create a lot of jobs
for those who live here.
With that, I yield back. I see our colleague from Texas, Senator
Cornyn, has come to the floor, who is the ranking member of the Trade
Subcommittee of the Finance Committee, which I am privileged to chair.
I am going to pause for a moment and see if he is ready to take the
floor before I yield.
I yield the floor.
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The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.