[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 68 (Thursday, April 18, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2838-S2846]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   PROHIBITING THE USE OF FUNDS TO IMPLEMENT, ADMINISTER, OR ENFORCE 
          CERTAIN RULES OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of March 22, 
2024, the Senate will now proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 
350, S. 4072, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 4072) to prohibit the use of funds to implement, 
     administer, or enforce certain rules of the Environmental 
     Protection Agency.


                           Order of Business

  Mr. SCHUMER. For the information of Senators, we expect to yield back 
time and vote on passage of the bill at about 2:30 p.m.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.


                                S. 4072

  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I am here today to defend the 
Environmental Protection Agency's vehicle emissions standards--
standards that will cut air pollution to tackle the climate crisis, 
protect public health, and save drivers money at the pump. These 
standards for passenger vehicles, cars, SUVs and light trucks will help 
us accelerate toward our climate targets and put the brakes on our 
dependence on fossil fuels.
  Last year, we imported 8.5 million barrels of oil every single day, 
of petroleum products, including gasoline, while simultaneously 
exporting more than 10 million barrels a day.
  But do you want to hear something? Do you know who we were importing 
oil from? Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman. And what does this proposal do that 
the Republicans want to propound here? It is to say: No, we are not 
going to move to an electric vehicle future. No, we don't want to, in 
any way, send a signal that we are a technological giant, as the United 
States, and we are going to back out that imported oil so that we are 
not contributing those petrodollars to those nations which are 
ultimately intent on undermining stability.
  So this dependence on fossil fuels, traded on the global market and 
imported into our country, puts drivers at the whim of OPEC. It puts 
them at the whim of those who are driven by profiteering. It allows Big 
Oil CEOs to turn drivers upside down at the pump and shake money out of 
their pockets.
  Why do we continue this? We are technological giants. We have an all-
electric vehicle future, a hybrid future for our Nation and for the 
world. Are we going to lead on that or retreat, because that is what is 
being proposed here?
  Gas guzzling cars aren't just bad for drivers; they are bad for all 
of us. According to the EPA, the transportation sector accounts for 29 
percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to global 
warming--actually, the largest single source of climate warming 
emissions in the United States. And the EPA has a legal, statutory 
responsibility to set strong clean power standards to help us put this 
crisis in the rearview mirror.
  The final clean car rules are estimated to avoid more than 7 billion 
metric tons of carbon pollution, equivalent to four times the emissions 
from the entire transportation sector. This is the single most 
significant rule we have ever seen in our fight to tackle the climate 
crisis--more than any other rule in the history of the United States. 
That is a big deal. That is something to be proud of, and that is 
something that is worth protecting from political attacks.
  In addition to building a livable future, this rule will also save 
lives right now, providing $13 billion in annual health benefits as a 
result of reduced air pollution. The clean cars rule isn't banning gas 
cars, but it is expected to help supercharge our already booming sales 
of hybrid and all-electric vehicles. These final rules are technically 
feasible, economically achievable, and technologically neutral, 
increasing vehicle choice for Americans. This means that families and 
individuals will still be able to choose from a wide range of vehicle 
options, including more than 100 different plug-in hybrid and battery 
electric vehicles here in the United States.

  Automakers are innovating and driving us closer toward a clean energy 
future. That is why Big Oil hates these

[[Page S2839]]

vehicle emissions standards. The oil industry is scared to death that 
$46 billion in reduced annual fuel costs will stay stranded in drivers' 
pockets instead of in the padded company profits of Big Oil companies.
  If you follow the money, it becomes pretty clear why Big Oil would 
want to attack these standards. All the Republicans have to do is wait 
outside and drive the getaway car.
  That is why I am urging my colleagues to vote no on Senator Crapo's 
legislation, S. 4072, which would block the EPA from carrying out the 
final clean cars rule. This bill is irresponsible because it undoes and 
it undermines future regulations that would protect public health.
  The clean cars rule will reduce particulate matter by 95 percent 
compared to current standards, prevent 2,500 premature deaths, and 
reduce heart attacks and respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses.
  This bill coming up for a vote would, instead, prevent working 
families from saving money on gas and maintenance repairs. Over the 
lifetime of the standards, drivers will save $62 billion in fuel and 
repair costs or $6,000 over the lifetime of a model year 2032 car.
  Rolling back these clean car standards is not an option. We have to 
protect this rule. We have to protect drivers' budgets. We have to 
protect public health. We have to protect our economy.
  That is why a ``no'' vote on this is so important, and I want to 
thank everyone who is in this fight. I see Chairman Carper and Senator 
Whitehouse here. This is an absolutely critical rule.
  I will say this. Every day, Donald Trump and Big Oil say: Drill, 
baby, drill.
  But the younger generation says: Plug in, baby, plug in.
  We are moving to the future. We are moving to an all-electric future, 
and that is what this vote is all about today. I urge a ``no'' vote on 
the floor of the Senate.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
  Mr. PADILLA. Madam President, I am inspired by Senator Markey's 
remarks, and I am pleased to join him in this debate in opposition to 
the measure.
  We are speaking today because the American people deserve to know 
what is at stake during today's vote. And, no, it is not the latest 
fabricated Republican electric vehicle horror story. No one is coming 
to slap a Biden bumper sticker on your car and take your gas-powered 
car off the road.
  Americans are smarter than that. Americans want reliable cars that 
can get them to work, to school, wherever they need to go, powered by 
fuel that doesn't break the bank. Americans also want a future where 
their kids, our kids, and our grandkids can breathe clean air. And we 
all want a planet that is not burning to the ground.
  Unfortunately, too many of our Republican colleagues will tell you 
that we can't have both, that we have to choose. It can be either the 
economy or the environment.
  So for everyone who is watching, everybody who is listening, please 
know that that is a false choice.
  Yes, the EPA rule will improve public health and protect our planet. 
It will also help create good jobs and strengthen the auto industry.
  It sets ambitious goals for reducing emissions while giving 
automakers the flexibility that they need and they have asked for to 
actually meet those goals through whatever combination of new electric, 
hydrogen fuel cell, or hybrid vehicles that they are best prepared to 
make and offer.
  So, to my Republican colleagues, I also have a question. How many 
times have we heard you say: Well, let's make it in America.
  Well, here is your chance. Would you welcome more good-paying jobs in 
Idaho or West Virginia? We do in California, because we would rather 
have it here and not overseas.
  I also hear some people argue: Well, our domestic supply chain and 
our targeted infrastructure isn't quite ready for this electric vehicle 
transition.
  Well, this rule actually reduces the risks for domestic manufacturers 
and gives them more certainty to make necessary long-term investments 
in domestic manufacturing and charging infrastructure that we all want 
to see.
  So, colleagues, we have a tremendous economic opportunity before us.
  I ask you all to just take a look at our home State of California, 
where we have proven that it is not an either-or between the economy 
and the environment. California has led the Nation not just with bold 
targets for clean and renewable sources of electricity but for 
transitioning to a zero-emission transportation sector. As a result, 
clean car sales are far outpacing even our expectations.
  In 2023, zero-emission vehicles made up a quarter of all light-duty 
sales in our State--the most popular State in the nation. If California 
was its own country, it would be fourth in the world in electric 
vehicle sales. So, not only can it happen, it is happening, and it is 
because of that type of economic potential that automakers across the 
country are fully committed to this electric vehicle transition. They 
know that this EPA final rule is ambitious, but it is also achievable.
  And labor unions, including but not limited to the UAW, are all in 
because they, too, reject the fearmongering that says tackling the 
climate crisis is going to come at the cost of so many union jobs. 
Environmental and community advocates are all in on this because this 
is what the climate crisis demands of us.
  But we are still hearing from Republicans that Americans are losing 
their ability to buy the vehicle of their choice.
  That is wrong. For all the fearmongering, for all the bad-faith 
arguments, let's be clear: Under the EPA's rule, not a single American 
will be forced to buy a car that they don't want, and not a single 
manufacturer will be given a quota for a specific type of vehicle to 
make.
  With all that said, I will acknowledge that Republicans are correct 
about one thing: These are big goals for our country. Colleagues, a 
century ago, it was American innovation and manufacturing that led to 
the automobile revolution, and you would be wrong to think that the 
American people can't do it again. So I urge my colleagues to stand 
with us in setting ambitious goals for our future to give the American 
people a choice to grow our economy, and we can do it by voting no.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I want to associate myself with the 
gentleman from California, and I thank him for his comments.
  I rise today in strong opposition to the measure before us. If 
enacted, this measure would block Federal funding for the EPA's new 
plan to limit tailpipe emissions from light- and medium-duty vehicles, 
such as cars and pickup trucks.
  Nearly every day, we see signs of a planet in crisis--wildfires 
ravaging our lands, polluted air filling our lungs, extreme heat 
gripping our communities, and much, much more. Scientists have 
repeatedly sounded the alarm. We are running out of time to reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions and slow climate change for the health of our 
planet--and there is no planet B. Instead of coming together to tackle 
this challenge head on and create jobs at the same time, some of our 
colleagues want to stop a rule to limit greenhouse gas emissions, which 
we know to have a substantial warming effect on our planet.
  So why is it important to tackle emissions from the transportation 
sector?
  To explain that, let's start with the age-old story about a guy named 
Willie Sutton--a notorious bank robber during the Great Depression. At 
his trial--he got arrested, and they dragged him before the court. At 
his trial, the judge famously asked him: Mr. Sutton, why do you rob 
banks? And he replied famously: Your Honor, that is where the money is.
  Colleagues, we need to continue reining in emissions from the 
transportation sector because that happens to be where the single 
largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. economy is--at 
28 percent. Let me say that again. The cars, trucks, and vans we drive 
each day make up the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions 
in our country. After that, 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in 
the United States comes from our powerplants, and another 23 percent 
comes from our manufacturing operations--think asphalt plants, think 
steel mills and so forth.

[[Page S2840]]

  Combating the climate crisis requires us to use every tool in our 
toolbox. It is simply not possible to meet the climate goals we set 
without addressing emissions from the transportation sector, and this 
rule helps us do just that. In fact, this rule is expected to avoid 
over 7 billion tons of CO2 emissions. That is the equivalent 
of taking every coal plant in America offline for over 6 years.
  In addition to planet-warming CO2, vehicle emissions also 
contain what is known as particulate matter. What is that? Well, 
particulate matter is commonly known as soot. We know this type of 
pollution is greatly threatening to human health. In fact, according to 
the EPA, this rule alone will provide $13 billion--billion with a B--in 
annual health benefits by preventing heart attacks, respiratory and 
cardiovascular illnesses, decreased lung function, and premature 
deaths. It will help 400,000 people with asthma to breathe easier. That 
is almost half the people in Delaware.
  So let's be clear: This rule not only helps us drive down greenhouse 
gas emissions and slow climate change, it also helps us clean up the 
air we breathe and protect public health.
  I also want to take a moment to address the myth that this rule is an 
EV mandate being thrust upon American consumers.
  This rule would actually bolster--bolster--consumer choices when it 
comes to purchasing new vehicles. By giving manufacturers the 
flexibility to use a mixture of technologies, this rule ensures that 
consumers will have a wider range of vehicle choices--from advanced 
gasoline vehicles to hybrids, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and a 
whole range of battery-powered vehicles.
  For years, I drove a 2001 Chrysler Town & Country minivan all over 
Delaware and around the country. It was lovingly known by a lot of 
folks in Delaware as the ``silver bullet.'' After 600,000 miles, we 
parted ways and I fell in love with my new vehicle, which happens to be 
an electric vehicle. Not only is it environmentally friendly, it is a 
hoot to drive. I was reminded of that just this morning on my drive in 
to the train station in Wilmington, DE. In fact, I have saved a lot on 
maintenance as well and fuel costs by switching to an EV.
  Unlike what some may want you to believe, this rule doesn't force 
anyone to make the same purchasing decisions that I did. Instead, it 
gives consumers a wider range of vehicle options that are cleaner, more 
affordable, and, hopefully, a whole lot of fun to drive.
  Let me close with this: A remarkably wide range of groups, including 
General Motors, Stellantis, Ford, United Auto Workers, the League of 
Conservation Voters, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and many 
more, support this rule. They support this rule. It is not every day 
that we see this kind of coalition formed. In fact, it is rare. When we 
do, though, we need to pay attention to it and learn from it.
  I am going to close by saying, supporting this bill and blocking the 
EPA's rule would be harmful to human health, to our planet, the 
economy, and consumers. That is why I oppose this measure, and I urge 
our colleagues to join me and others in opposing it as well.
  I yield to the Senator from Michigan.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I will be brief.
  I represent the Motor City--Detroit. I represent the men and women 
who put America on wheels; and we are very, very proud of that, and we 
continue to do that and to innovate. They are not asking for the repeal 
of this rule. Our American automobile companies are not asking for and 
do not support it. The United Auto Workers--the men and women who are 
out there doing the innovations and building the vehicles of today and 
tomorrow--are not asking for this. They do not want this.
  Do you know what they want? They want certainty, economic certainty. 
They want stability. They have worked with the administration to craft 
an approach that is rigorous but that works for them to get to the next 
level.
  So I am not sure who this is for and what this is all about, but it 
is certainly not for the automobile industry and the millions of men 
and women who work for that industry who have created the middle class 
of this country.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am delighted to join my colleagues 
here to support the EPA's new tailpipe emissions standards. Rhode 
Island has long ridden along with California on its emissions 
standards, and we are delighted to see the EPA following along with 
strong anti-pollution emissions standards.
  Among the many benefits of this is that we will start to head off the 
climate dangers that we are facing. There are enumerable reports about 
the economic threats that America faces as a result of unconstrained 
climate change.
  I ask unanimous consent that both articles from the recent ``The 
Economist'' magazine that open with a lead, sort of editorial-type 
article, and then have the solid full article, be printed in the Record 
at the end of my remarks.
  In talking about climate change--to use the article's words--it is 
shaking the foundations of the world's biggest asset class, and it is 
looking at, potentially, 25 trillion dollars' worth of global economic 
damage as homes become uninsurable because climate change makes them 
uninsurable.
  But the real thing is that this will come home for American 
consumers. The quicker we can get off fossil fuel, the safer Americans 
will be in their pocketbooks as well.
  This is the way gasoline prices have looked back since 1978. They 
have bounced all over the place. Why do they go all over the place? 
They go all over the place because the prices are not set by a market. 
The prices are set by an individual cartel--a cartel of international 
entities, most of whom are not friends of the United States--that can 
simply decide to stop production and juice prices, and you can see over 
and over again where prices have juiced. The last time was immediately 
after Putin went into Ukraine. On cue, the fossil fuel industry raised 
prices dramatically. American companies that were not directly affected 
rode along with the price increase. They just took the international 
price, and they made the biggest profits, I think, any company has ever 
seen. So consumers get gouged by an international cartel that 
manipulates our gasoline prices.
  We can get off of that with American-made renewable energy--from the 
Sun, from the wind, from batteries, from geothermal, from nuclear--you 
name it. We get off of the international cartel's fossil fuel roller 
coaster, which we do not control. We will never ever ever, as a 
country, have energy independence while our prices for a product depend 
on how an international cartel behaves. So this is a really, really 
important step.
  As Senator Stabenow said representing Michigan: The car companies 
support this; labor unions support this; consumers support this. It is 
expected to provide $99 billion in net benefits to consumers through 
2025, and that includes $46 billion in reduced annual fuel costs. So, 
if you want to know who this benefits and who is on the other side, it 
is the people who are going to lose $46 billion in polluting dirty 
fossil fuel because people have gone to clean, efficient electric 
vehicles as a matter of their own choice.
  Last of all, it helps people who breathe. It is estimated to save $13 
billion per year in public health benefits. It is hard to put a dollar 
number on a public health benefit; it is kind of an awkward way to talk 
about a public health benefit. But when a kid can go to school instead 
of having to stay home because their asthma has been fired up by the 
atmospheric ozone or when a mom doesn't have to call in to work and 
say: I can't make it today because I can't get my baby to daycare 
because asthma has kicked in because of the pollution-driven 
atmospheric ozone--the $13 billion, that is just the price of the care. 
The price in people's hearts and in people's harms is far, far worse.
  So the benefits of this wildly outsee any cost. This is a great rule 
that the EPA has done, and I support it fully.
  On the national security front, I also ask unanimous consent that an 
article that I wrote with Senator Graham in pointing out the danger to 
the world of

[[Page S2841]]

the petrostates and how badly behaved they are and how they are propped 
up with fossil fuel dollars so they can go out and do things like wage 
war against Israel, invade Ukraine, and saw up correspondence that they 
don't like be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From the Economist, April 13, 2024.

                       The Next Housing Disaster

       Think about the places vulnerable to climate change, and 
     you might picture rice paddies in Bangladesh or low-lying 
     islands in the Pacific. But another, more surprising answer 
     ought to be your own house. About a tenth of the world's 
     residential property by value is under threat from global 
     warming--including many houses that are nowhere near the 
     coast. From tornadoes battering midwestern American suburbs 
     to tennis-ball-size hailstones smashing the roofs of Italian 
     villas, the severe weather brought about by greenhouse-gas 
     emissions is shaking the foundations of the world's most 
     important asset class.
       The potential costs stem from policies designed to reduce 
     the emissions of houses as well as from climate-related 
     damage. They are enormous. By one estimate, climate change 
     and the fight against it could wipe out 9% of the value of 
     the world's housing by 2050--which amounts to $25trn, not 
     much less than America's annual GDP. It is a huge bill 
     hanging over people's lives and the global financial system. 
     And it looks destined to trigger an almighty fight over who 
     should pay up.
       Homeowners are one candidate. But if you look at property 
     markets today, they do not seem to be bearing the costs. 
     House prices show little sign of adjusting to climate risk. 
     In Miami, the subject of much worrying about rising sea 
     levels, they have increased by four-fifths this decade, much 
     more than the American average. Moreover, because the impact 
     of climate change is still uncertain, many owners may not 
     have known how much of a risk they were taking when they 
     bought their homes.
       Yet if taxpayers cough up instead, they will bail out well-
     heeled owners and blunt helpful incentives to adapt to the 
     looming threat. Apportioning the costs will be hard for 
     governments, not least because they know voters care so much 
     about the value of their homes. The bill has three parts: 
     paying for repairs, investing in protection and modifying 
     houses to limit climate change.
       Insurers usually bear the costs of repairs after a storm 
     destroys a roof or a fire guts a property. As the climate 
     worsens and natural disasters become more frequent, home 
     insurance is therefore getting more expensive. In places, it 
     could become so dear as to cause house prices to fall; some 
     experts warn of a ``climate-insurance bubble'' affecting a 
     third of American homes. Governments must either tolerate the 
     losses that imposes on homeowners or underwrite the risks 
     themselves, as already happens in parts of wildfire-prone 
     California and hurricane-prone Florida. The combined exposure 
     of state-backed ``insurers of last resort'' in these two 
     states has exploded from $160bn in 2017 to $633bn. Local 
     politicians want to pass on the risk to the federal 
     government, which in effect runs flood insurance today.
       Physical damage might be forestalled by investing in 
     protection in properties themselves or in infrastructure. 
     Keeping houses habitable may call for air conditioning. Few 
     Indian homes have it, even though the country is suffering 
     worsening heatwaves. In the Netherlands a system of dykes, 
     ditches and pumps keeps the country dry; Tokyo has barriers 
     to hold back floodwaters. Funding this investment is the 
     second challenge. Should homeowners who had no idea they were 
     at risk have to pay for, say, concrete underpinning for a 
     subsiding house? Or is it right to protect them from such 
     unexpected, and unevenly distributed, costs? Densely 
     populated coastal cities, which are most in need of 
     protection from floods, are often the crown jewels of their 
     countries' economies and societies--just think of London, New 
     York or Shanghai.
       The last question is how to pay for domestic modifications 
     that prevent further climate change. Houses account for 18% 
     of global energy-related emissions. Many are likely to need 
     heat pumps, which work best with underfloor heating or bigger 
     radiators, and thick insulation. Unfortunately, retrofitting 
     homes is expensive. Asking homeowners to pay up can lead to a 
     backlash; last year Germany's ruling coalition tried to ban 
     gas boilers, only to change course when voters objected to 
     the costs. Italy followed an alternative approach, by 
     offering extraordinarily generous, and badly designed, 
     handouts to households who renovate. It has spent a 
     staggering =219bn ($238bn, or 10% of its GDP) on its 
     ``superbonus'' scheme.
       The full impact of climate change is still some way off. 
     But the sooner policymakers can resolve these questions, the 
     better. The evidence shows that house prices react to these 
     risks only after disaster has struck, when it is too late for 
     preventive investments. Inertia is therefore likely to lead 
     to nasty surprises. Housing is too important an asset to be 
     mispriced across the economy--not least because it is so 
     vital to the financial system.
       Governments will have to do their bit. Until the 18th 
     century much of the Netherlands followed the principle that 
     only nearby communities would maintain dykes--and the system 
     was plagued by underinvestment and needless flooding as a 
     result. Governments alone can solve such collective-action 
     problems by building infrastructure, and must do so 
     especially around high-productivity cities. Owners will need 
     inducements to spend big sums retrofitting their homes to 
     pollute less, which benefits everyone.


                          Wie het water deert

       At the same time, however, policymakers must be careful not 
     to subsidise folly by offering large implicit guarantees and 
     explicit state-backed insurance schemes. These not only pose 
     an unacceptable risk to taxpayers, but they also weaken the 
     incentive for people to invest in making their properties 
     more resilient. And by suppressing insurance premiums, they 
     do nothing to discourage people from moving to areas that are 
     already known to be high-risk today. The omens are not good, 
     even though the stakes are so high. For decades governments 
     have failed to disincentivise building on floodplains.
       The $25trn bill will pose problems around the world. But 
     doing nothing today will only make tomorrow more painful. For 
     both governments and homeowners, the worst response to the 
     housing conundrum would be to ignore it.
                                  ____


 Risk of Subsidence--Homeowners Face a $25trn Bill From Global Warming

       Miami.--The residents of northern Italy had never seen 
     anything like the thunderstorm that mauled their region last 
     summer. Hailstones as big as 19cm across pummelled Milan, 
     Parma, Turin and Venice. Windows were broken, solar panels 
     smashed, tiles cracked and cars dented. The episode cost the 
     insurance industry $4.8bn, making it the most expensive 
     natural disaster in the world from July to September (the 
     figures exclude America, which collates such data 
     separately).
       Yet insurance executives, although smarting, were not 
     surprised. Climate change is making such incidents much more 
     common. In the decade from 2000 to 2009 only three 
     thunderstorms cost the industry more than $1bn at current 
     prices. From 2010 to 2019 there were ten. Since 2020 there 
     have already been six. Such storms now account for more than 
     a quarter of the costs to the insurance industry from natural 
     disasters, according to Swiss Re, a reinsurance firm. In 
     Europe, not known for extreme weather, losses have topped 
     $5bn a year for the past three years.
       Climate change is doing vast damage to property all around 
     the world, and not always in the places or the ways that 
     people imagine. Hurricanes, wildfires and floods are becoming 
     more common and more severe--but so are more mundane banes. 
     In London, for instance, the drying of the clay on which most 
     of the city stands during summer heatwaves is causing 
     unexpected subsidence, landing homeowners with big bills. A 
     similar problem afflicts Amsterdam, where many older 
     buildings are built on wooden piles inserted into the boggy 
     soil in lieu of conventional foundations. Extended dry spells 
     in summer are lowering the water table, drying out the piles 
     and exposing them to the air. This allows the piles to rot, 
     prompting the buildings above to sag. Unlucky homeowners can 
     be saddled with bills of =100,000 ($108,000) or more for 
     remedial work. And on top of the expensive repairs climate 
     change is foisting on homeowners comes the likelihood that 
     governments will oblige them to install low-carbon heating 
     and cooling, or improve their homes' energy efficiency, 
     adding yet more to their costs.


                               MONEY PIT

       The upshot is an enormous bill for property-owners. 
     Estimates are necessarily vague, given the uncertainties not 
     just of the climate but of government policy. But MSCI, which 
     compiles financial indices, thinks that over the next 25 
     years the costs of climate change, in terms both of damage to 
     property and of investments to reduce emissions, may amount 
     to almost a tenth of the value of the housing in 
     institutional investors' portfolios. If the same holds true 
     of housing in general, the world is facing roughly a $25trn 
     hit.
       The impending bill is so huge, in fact, that it will have 
     grim implications not just for personal prosperity, but also 
     for the financial system. Property is the world's most 
     important asset class, accounting for an estimated two-
     thirds of global wealth. Homes are at the heart of many of 
     the world's most important financial markets, with 
     mortgages serving as collateral in money markets and 
     shoring up the balance-sheets of banks. If the size of the 
     risk suddenly sinks in, and borrowers and lenders alike 
     realise the collateral underpinning so many transactions 
     is not worth as much as they thought, a wave of re-pricing 
     will reverberate through financial markets. Government 
     finances, too, will be affected, as homeowners clamour for 
     expensive bail-outs. Climate change, in short, could 
     prompt the next global property crash.
       At present the risks of climate change are not properly 
     reflected in house prices. A study in Nature, a journal, 
     finds that if the expected losses from increased flooding 
     alone were taken into account, the value of American homes 
     would fall by $121bn-237bn. Many buyers and sellers are 
     simply unaware of the risks. When these are brought home, 
     prices change. A study published in 2018 in the Journal of 
     Urban Economics found a persistent 8% drop in the price of 
     homes built on flood plains in New York following Hurricane 
     Sandy, which caused widespread flooding in 2012. Properties 
     just inside zones in

[[Page S2842]]

     California where sellers are required to disclose the risk of 
     wildfires cost about 4% less than houses just outside such 
     zones.
       In many cases, the risks climate change poses to property 
     are only slowly becoming apparent--as with London's geology. 
     The distinctive yellowish bricks with which many houses in 
     the city are built are made from the clay on which the houses 
     stand. It is good to build with, but recently has proved not 
     so good to build on. During the now-milder winters, there is 
     higher rainfall, since warmer air can hold more moisture. As 
     the clay absorbs the rain, it expands. Warmer summers then 
     dry it out again, causing the ground to contract. That would 
     not be a problem if the expansion and contraction were 
     uniform, says Owen Brooker, a structural engineer. But they 
     are not, owing to trees, which suck up moisture in their 
     vicinity. The resulting variation in the accordion effect 
     causes the ground to buckle and twist in places, and the 
     houses above to list and crack.
       Two-fifths of London's housing stock, 1.8m homes, will be 
     susceptible to subsidence by 2030, according to the British 
     Geological Survey. Other nearby cities, such as Oxford and 
     Cambridge, are also at risk (see map). Remediation. often by 
     installing concrete underpinning, typically costs around 
     10,000 ($12,500) but can be much more. PwC, a 
     consultancy, estimates that British home insurers will be 
     paying out 1.9bn a year on subsidence claims by 
     2030. ``To be honest the insurance companies would do 
     themselves a good service by making people aware,'' says Mr 
     Brooker.
       Analysts call the direct impacts of climate change, such as 
     this ``shrink-swell'' effect, physical risks. Some, like 
     shrink-swell, are chronic. Others are acute, such as 
     hurricanes, floods and wildfires. In either case, not only 
     can a house be completely destroyed, but the ongoing risk of 
     further such calamities can make it hazardous to rebuild in 
     the same place. Even the simplest of changes in the weather 
     can make houses uninhabitable: only a small minority of 
     Indian homes have air conditioning, so if the temperature 
     rises much, many become unbearably hot.
       Physical risks are growing everywhere (see chart 1 on next 
     page). The problem is not limited to dry, thundery summers in 
     Europe. According to the National Centres for Environmental 
     Information, a government agency, America suffered 28 natural 
     disasters that did more than $1bn of damage last year, 
     exceeding the previous record of 22 in 2020. Meanwhile 
     Typhoon Doksuri, which hit the Philippines and then China 
     last year, was the most costly typhoon in history.
       The risks are not spread evenly, however. Research 
     conducted by the Bank of England in 2022 found that just 10% 
     of postcode districts, each roughly the size of a small town, 
     would account for 45% of the mortgages that would be impaired 
     if average global temperatures reached 3.3 deg.C above pre-
     industrial levels, largely because of the increased risk of 
     flooding in those places. For similar reasons, a back-of-the-
     envelope calculation suggests that roughly 40% of the value 
     of property in Amsterdam could be wiped out by physical risks 
     compared with just 7% for Tokyo.
       Data are scarcest for the impact on poorer countries, but 
     many of the world's most populated cities are coastal. A 
     study published in 2017 by Christian Aid, a charity, suggests 
     that in terms of population Kolkata and Mumbai in India and 
     Dhaka in Bangladesh are the most exposed to rising sea 
     levels. In terms of the value of property at risk, the most 
     vulnerable are Miami, Guangzhou and New York.


                               TOKYO ROSE

       But the risks are not fixed. They can be reduced, most 
     obviously through private and public efforts to improve 
     preparedness. Part of the reason that the risks to Tokyo are 
     low is that it dramatically improved drainage and flood 
     defences after Typhoon Kit hit in 1966, flooding 42,000 
     buildings. When Typhoon Lan brought similar amounts of rain 
     in 2017, only 35 buildings were swamped.
       In theory, house and insurance prices should provide a 
     clear market signal about the risks of climate-related harm 
     to any given property. But even in places obviously in harm's 
     way, such as Miami, the signal is often distorted. For one 
     thing, it was only in March that Florida's legislature 
     approved a bill requiring those selling a property to 
     disclose if it had previously flooded. Worse, there is 
     good reason to think that home insurance in Florida is 
     underpriced. Most Floridians would gasp at such a notion: 
     according to Insurify, an insurance company, the average 
     annual premium for a typical single-family home in the 
     state is likely to hit $11,759 this year. Yet even with 
     such swingeing rates, several private home insurers have 
     gone bust or withdrawn from Florida in recent years.
       The state government, however, shields homeowners from the 
     market through a state-owned insurer of last resort, which 
     provides policies to homes that private insurers will not 
     cover. Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has become 
     Florida's largest home insurer (see chart 2). Its exposure is 
     now $423bn, much more than the state's public debt--and all 
     on houses that, by definition, other insurers deem too risky 
     to cover. This suggests that Citizens has been providing a 
     big subsidy to homeowners from taxpayers. Flood insurance 
     underwritten by the federal government suffers from similar 
     flaws. First Street Foundation, which aims to track the 
     threats to American property from climate change, calculates 
     that home values in West Palm Beach, a glitzy city up the 
     coast from Miami, would fall by 40% if owners had to pay the 
     true cost of insuring against hurricanes and floods. That 
     would wipe out many homeowners' equity and leave lots of 
     mortgages without adequate collateral.
       Yet Miami's property market is booming. A forest of 
     apartment buildings is rising around city. Over the past five 
     years house prices have leapt by 79%, according to the Case-
     Shiller index. If the market is sending any signal about the 
     risks of climate change to property, it is to relax.
       To make matters even worse, physical risks are not the only 
     peril climate change presents to property-owners. There is 
     also ``transition risk'', which refers to the possibility 
     that governments may oblige homeowners to renovate in ways 
     that reduce the carbon footprint of their properties. Such 
     policies can lead to substantial costs. Germany's coalition 
     government, for example, had planned to ban new gas boilers 
     from the beginning of this year, which would have landed lots 
     of homeowners with costs of =15,000 or more, even after 
     subsides. (The policy caused such an uproar that the changes 
     were watered down and delayed last year.)
       If governments stick to their emissions targets, costly 
     mandates will return. Buildings account for 18% of the 
     world's energy related emissions largely through heating in 
     winter and Cooling in summer, The International Energy 
     Agency, a watchdog, estimates that annual investment of 
     $574bn will be needed for energy efficiency and clean 
     technologies in building by 2030, more than double the $250bn 
     invested in 2023. Environmental policies can also raise 
     electricity bills, increasing homeowner's costs in a 
     different way.
       Quantifying transition risks is tricky. It is hard to know 
     how much residential property there is in the world, says 
     Bryan Reid of MSCI, let alone how green policies may affect 
     its value. His firm's modeling suggests that, if governments 
     imposed policies intended to limit the rise in temperatures 
     above the long-term average to 1.5 deg.C, the costs would 
     amount to 3.4% of the value of housing held in investment 
     portfolios. That is lower than the 6% toll that MSCI's 
     modeling suggests physical risks will take, but still 
     substantial.
       The more serious governments become about curbing 
     emissions, the greater the transition risks (although in the 
     long run, such policies should reduce physical risks). At the 
     climate summit in Dubai last year Emmanuel Macron, France's 
     president, called for the European Central Bank to introduce 
     two separate interest rates, one for ``brown lending'' for 
     investments in fossil fuels and one for ``green lending''. 
     Banks that have committed to reducing the emissions 
     associated with their lending will need to ensure that their 
     portfolio of mortgages aligns with their targets. Draughty, 
     natural-gas-guzzling homes could face a higher cost of 
     finance than greener one and consequently sell for a 
     discount.
       In the long run there is a good chance that both physical 
     and transition risks will land with governments. Carolyn 
     Sousky, of the Environmental Defense Fund, a pressure group, 
     imagines scenario in which multiple natural disaster strike 
     different parts of America at the same time. That could lead 
     to a sudden increase in insurance prices across much of the 
     country and a slide in property values. Homeowners unwilling 
     to pay a fortune to keep living in a disaster zone might 
     simply hand the keys to their houses back to their mortgage-
     providers, which could in turn face losses owing to the fall 
     in prices.
       America's state-backed mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and 
     Freddie Mac, require borrowers to have home insurance. If 
     their customers cannot afford it, the pair could suffer a 
     wave of defaults. ``We're acutely aware of it,'' says Dan 
     Coates, the acting chief of staff at the Federal Housing 
     Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie. ``There 
     are plenty of stopgaps in place to keep that cascade of bad 
     events from having the consequence that we all worry about,'' 
     he adds, pointing to federal disaster-relief payments and a 
     potential repeat of the forbearance that Fannie and Freddie 
     offered homeowners during the covid-19 pandemic. But such 
     measures would in effect transfer risks from homeowners to 
     the federal government.


                         Mortgaging the future

       In democracies where most voters own their homes, 
     politicians have an incentive to shield homeowners from the 
     bill from climate change for as long as possible. Germany's 
     coalition government, which has struggled to recover from the 
     row over gas boilers, is considered a cautionary tale. 
     Procrastination is also a reflection of the global logic of 
     climate change: even if a government introduces stringent 
     measures to cut emissions in its own country, that does not 
     necessarily reduce global emissions and therefore physical 
     risks. No amount of investment in energy efficiency in German 
     homes, for instance, would have prevented the floods in 2021 
     that caused more than $40bn of damage.
       Yet the longer governments protect homeowners from the 
     risks the larger they become. Vulnerable places like Miami 
     grow even as climate change intensifies, with new arrivals 
     assuming that taxpayers will defray the ballooning future 
     costs. At some point, that assumption will become untenable, 
     with unpredictable consequences. Climate change is often cast 
     as something happening to other people, in faraway places and 
     in desperate circumstances. But for much of the

[[Page S2843]]

     rich world, the costs are starting to come home.
                                  ____


A World Without Fossil Fuels Funding Our Enemies Would Be a Safer World 
                              for America

               (By Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse)

       We are a conservative Republican and a progressive Democrat 
     who disagree on a great many things. We write today, however, 
     to highlight an area of strong agreement: a global transition 
     to renewable energy would greatly assist in our nation's 
     fight against the world's most corrupt and illicit regimes. 
     If you could wave a magic wand, and transition the world away 
     from fossil fuels, Americans would instantly be safer.
       Oil and gas development has often been associated with 
     autocracy and corruption. Governments in countries such as 
     Russia and Iran have used oil and gas to threaten neighbors 
     and fund terrorism. Corruption, autocracy, and terrorism are 
     a persistent threat to nations that stand on the rule of law, 
     and America has long been the exemplar of the rule-of-law 
     nation. A world in which oil and gas money has less power is 
     a world that will likely have less corruption, autocracy, and 
     terror. That world will be a safer world for America.
       Let's be more specific. Iran is the most dangerous enemy we 
     have in the Middle East. Iran is the largest state sponsor of 
     global terrorism today, and a serial human rights abuser at 
     home. It is the implacable enemy of our ally and friend, 
     Israel. It is developing nuclear weapons, which would create 
     a nightmare arms race in the already unstable Middle East. 
     And Iran keeps itself afloat on tens of billions of dollars 
     of export revenues from its oil and gas industry. It has vast 
     oil and gas reserves, with one field estimated to have a 
     trillion dollars in production capacity. Deprive Iran of that 
     revenue, and it becomes a less dangerous nation. Without the 
     potential for future fossil fuel revenue, Iran would have a 
     strong incentive to engage in the world economy in ways that 
     would force it to stand down from its worst behavior, and, 
     hopefully, even join the community of nations. The Middle 
     East becomes a safer place.
       Look at Russia. Russia is the most dangerous enemy we have 
     in Europe, and poses a threat to our interests around the 
     world. Russia is the primary sponsor of autocracy, 
     corruption, and discord in Europe. Russia's agents commit 
     murders in London; Russia's army occupies Eastern Ukraine, 
     Crimea, and parts of the Republic of Georgia. Vladimir 
     Putin's petro-politics leverages Russian gas supplies to put 
     constant hostile pressure on its Western neighbors. Russia 
     was memorably described by our departed friend Senator John 
     McCain as ``a gas station run by a mafia . . . masquerading 
     as a country.'' Take away the gas in the gas station, and the 
     gangsters have nothing to run their gang. Without that source 
     of money and power, Russia's ability to bully and corrupt its 
     neighbors diminishes, its gangster oligarchs have less to 
     steal, and its economy shrinks from the size of Italy's to 
     the size of Switzerland's. All of Europe becomes a safer 
     place.
       Look at Saudi Arabia. Nominally our strategic partner, 
     Saudi Arabia has a history of funding madrassas that spawned 
     and nurtured anti-Western hatred and recruited terrorist 
     fighters. The Saudi government was responsible for the 
     disgusting murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. permanent 
     resident who was dismembered at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. 
     His remains have still not been recovered. Only recently have 
     Saudis allowed women to get behind the wheel of a car in 
     their country. Sunni extremism would dramatically diminish if 
     its Saudi oil financing expired.
       Our point today is not about climate change. That has its 
     own set of national security concerns. This is about who our 
     friends are and who our foes are; and what the stabilizing 
     and destabilizing forces in our world are. This is about 
     where our foes, and the forces they employ like terror and 
     corruption, get their resources. All too often, it's from 
     extractive industries like oil and gas. Some see this as a 
     ``resource curse'' in which countries with wealth to extract 
     fail to develop healthy models of governance. One need not 
     agree on the reasons to observe the fact, and we cannot leave 
     the damage unaddressed.
       The fact is simple: a world without fossil fuel resources 
     funding foreign adversaries would be a safer world for 
     America.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, it is good to be here with my friend 
and colleague who just addressed the body on this legislation. I 
remember he said: Who is going to be on the other side of the position 
that he has taken? Well, I am the face of the person who is on the 
other side.
  I am here with students from Wyoming, 4-H kids, who understand from 
an agricultural standpoint what kind of vehicles families in Wyoming 
want and need and the freedom to choose the kind of vehicles that they 
drive, the practicality of what they can afford and of what they know 
will work for them. They are from Sheridan and they are from Gillette, 
WY, and they are here because they support the freedom to choose what 
kind of vehicles people want to drive in America. It is not just 
Wyoming; it is all across the country.
  I want to thank the Senator from Idaho who wrote this legislation, 
because he is the driving force behind this very important bill, which 
I am here to support.
  This legislation that we are talking about today would prohibit any 
government money from going to fund Joe Biden's obscene attacks against 
American cars and American trucks. Every day, people in Wyoming rely on 
their cars and their trucks to get to work, to get to school, and to do 
the daily work of our economy: agriculture, ranching, farming. There 
are great distances that people travel in Wyoming, and they need 
reliability. They need vehicles that they can trust, that they can 
count on. This bill today is about defending their freedom, and it is 
against those who want to take away that freedom.
  What President Biden and the Democrats are trying to do is to force 
Americans to switch to electric vehicles--vehicles that many people 
don't want, can't afford, and that aren't practical for them in their 
daily lives. The actions by the Democrats and the EPA aren't driven by 
facts. They are driven by that party's blind faith in their climate 
religion, a faith that says we need to prioritize--as the President has 
told the EPA--climate over energy for our country that is affordable, 
available, or reliable.
  How is that way out? How do people feel about that? Which do you 
want? Do you want energy that is affordable, available, and reliable? 
Well then, you are going to be for this piece of legislation that we 
are talking about today.
  But for the climate alarmists who continue to come to this floor and 
harp about the issues, let me point out to them the inconvenient truth. 
The inconvenient truth is that the American people do not want to buy 
EVs, and they actually are voting with their feet. They aren't buying 
electric vehicles. They simply aren't interested in that car or the 
truck that they know is too expensive, too unreliable, and, for them, 
too inconvenient. That is what it is about.

  The public has absolute legitimate concerns about the lack of 
charging stations around the country and the time it takes to recharge.
  But EV batteries, they lose their charge in the cold of winter. Well, 
we have longer winters in Wyoming. We also have longer roads to drive 
to get from work or school to home. EVs certainly do not inspire 
confidence. They don't inspire confidence for those of us who live and 
drive in States like Wyoming or the West, with our cold winters and our 
long distances.
  So the President of the United States wants to force the people of 
Wyoming and across the country to buy EVs anyway. He doesn't care about 
this. He is from a small State, Delaware. I don't think he has any 
clear understanding of the vastness of the Rocky Mountain West. I have 
heard him in a number of his comments, and it is clear that he doesn't 
understand the people who live in the Rocky Mountain West.
  But Joe Biden does understand that he has had and placed a heavy hand 
on the EPA so that they can tell us what to buy, what to drive. I am 
against all of these sorts of obligations and mandates.
  The EPA wants to dictate that 7 of 10 vehicles, new cars, sold need 
to be electric. By comparison, EVs make up less than 1 in 10 cars being 
sold today--and what has happened now, late Friday afternoon on Good 
Friday, right before Easter, new mandates on trucks as well that 
clearly aren't practical, expensive mandates, unaffordable. They talk 
about the benefits. The benefits are highly exaggerated.
  This self-righteous Biden administration imposes punishing, 
political, and penalizing fines on the carmakers who don't comply with 
their mandates. This isn't right.
  This Biden car ban, it is bad for consumers; it is bad for the 
economy; and it is bad for American jobs.
  Look, if this regulation goes into full effect, the impacts are going 
to be devastating. Republicans reject all of these unjustified, 
unnecessary restrictions.
  Democrats are the party of regulating every room in your home, and 
now they want to move to the garage after banning gas stoves and 
natural

[[Page S2844]]

gas. They want to control our lives. It is coercive.
  To me, what they are doing is a crusade against consumer choice, 
convenience, and affordability. The focus in Washington should be on 
lowering prices, producing more American energy, focusing on energy 
that is available, affordable, and reliable.
  The people of Wyoming, across the West, we are America's energy, 
powerhouse, bread basket for American energy. We do it with the kind of 
respect for the environment that one would expect and want and demand, 
and we do it that way.
  We understand what Americans want. The Senator from Idaho's 
legislation is what we need to do to put Americans not in the back seat 
but in the front seat. That is why we are here today talking about 
this.
  It is so interesting, when the EPA, with their truck mandate, they 
talked about how much carbon they would avoid putting in the atmosphere 
over the next 30 years. Now, I think their numbers are exaggerated. But 
the amount that they are talking about saving from putting into the 
atmosphere in 30 years is what China and India combined put, added, in 
the atmosphere every single year.
  So the Democrats say: OK, China and India, OK, drill 30 holes in the 
bottom of the boat. And the U.S. in that time, we are going to patch 
one of them up. Aren't we great. Well, we are not, and it is wrong to 
take away the choice of the American people from what they want, what 
they can afford, and what is practical in their lives.
  I think it is just time to put a stop to Democrats' mandate madness.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I rise today because I truly want to 
depoliticize this.
  I want to give you the facts because I was the one who negotiated the 
bill with the President. I negotiated the bill with the Speaker of the 
House. I negotiated this bill with the majority leader. So let me give 
you the facts and depoliticize it, take the Republican-Democrat 
equation out of this.
  This rule should have never happened. It wasn't our intent, and it 
wasn't what we agreed upon. We shouldn't even be voting down or up on 
this rule today because it should have never been here. I will tell you 
the reason why.
  The IRA was designed truly--and we all agreed--on energy security and 
manufacturing in America. That was it: energy security and 
manufacturing.
  We are producing more energy today than ever in the history of the 
world. We produce more energy today than anybody else in the world, and 
they are having a hard time grabbing that. But that was the way we 
designed the bill, to be an all-in. We are going to do fossil cleaner 
and better than anywhere in the world and more of it, and we are going 
to do investments in clean technology energy for the future. And we 
have done that.
  When we put this bill out, the administration knew exactly the 
timetables. I am giving you the timetables here, and I can show you how 
they have accelerated everything because it did not meet their 
timetable.
  The deadlines are 2024, 2023. They are going with the temporary 
rules, 2026 and 2027. The reason they are going to temporary rules is 
you can't sue on temporary rules. You can sue on permanent rules if you 
have been damaged--absolutely negating everything that we had an 
agreement on.
  So I said this: We tried to basically persuade or bribe the American 
public to buy an EV. They are a great vehicle. I don't contest that. 
Only 1.1 percent of West Virginians want them. We are a market-driven 
society. We are capitalists. You can't force with government 
regulations to do things that we have always been trained not to do. 
Buy what you want. Buy how you want. That is what they are trying to 
do.
  What happened on top of that, then they changed how we basically--the 
regulations we all agreed on--the President, the Speaker, and the 
majority leader. We said the first year in 2023, at least 40 percent--
40 percent--of extracted minerals that we need for critical minerals to 
build these batteries had to come from the United States or our allies, 
our trading partners.
  Our whole goal was basically to eliminate being dependent upon China, 
Russia, Iran, and North Korea. This is the first time--and the lady 
spoke from Michigan. I love Michigan. I love the vehicles that Michigan 
has produced. I can't tell you that every Michigander is enthralled 
with what they are trying to do because they are saying by 2032, 
basically, 70 percent of the vehicles have to be electric. You can't do 
it.
  There are two reasons why you can't do it: First of all, we don't 
have the infrastructure to do it. Next of all, we don't have the 
minerals to make the batteries. So the only way they can get around 
that is to change.
  You tell me in the bill where it says you can go from 40 percent to 
20 percent the first year. You tell me, when the bill was written, 
where it says by 2031, you can go from 80 percent that you should be 
doing here in America to 40 percent.
  You are not going to be beholden to China. We have never been 
beholden to another country or a foreign supply chain, especially an 
unreliable foreign supply chain, for our modes of transportation.
  I remember in 1974, we were dependent on oil. We weren't producing 
the oil we should have been producing. We were depending on Saudi 
Arabia, and OPEC basically put an embargo on us. I waited in line to 
buy gasoline to go to work. I remember that day very well. It was a 
horrible time.

  I sure as heck don't want to have to wait on a battery to come from 
China to drive my vehicle to work. That is all we are talking about. So 
this rule should never be here.
  When you go through the things, the compromise that we made, only EVs 
that were made in North America and with the batteries that were made 
and the minerals sourced there, would they get the full $7,500 credit. 
That was the whole purpose of bringing manufacturing here.
  There was not a quibble. They weren't saying: Oh, I am not sure we 
can do that. Everybody agreed--again, the President of the United 
States, the Speaker of the House, and the majority leader here in the 
Senate, totally agreeable. It was wonderful.
  Now, you tell me if it was so wonderful, why they have to cut 
everything in half and basically usurp the intentions of the bill that 
we passed? That is the reason that I am standing up today to support 
getting rid of the rule because the rule shouldn't even be here. It 
wasn't something that we agreed on. It wasn't something that we talked 
about.
  Then, on top of that, they want to make sure that you can't sue with 
the timelines because they have temporary rules. They want to put the 
temporary rules out because you can't sue.
  So we are in a catch-22 here, gang. Forget about being a Democrat or 
a Republican, be an American. Do the right thing. Let the market do 
what it does best. The market will decide. The market will--basically, 
if you have a better mouse trap, I will buy it. But we shouldn't be 
buying it when we have to be totally reliant on a foreign country of 
concern.
  Again, if what we saw that Putin did in weaponizing energy for our 
allies overseas, I tell you that Xi Jinping from China will do the same 
thing with the critical minerals that we are depending on. And if our 
transportation mode for our economy, our work, our getting our goods to 
market is dependent upon him giving us what we need, it ain't going to 
happen, gang. Why are we going down this path?
  So to the Senator from Idaho Senator Crapo, my dear friend, thank you 
for working with us together on this thing to try to bring common sense 
to it. It is exactly what we talked about.
  These charts are telling you exactly what happened. I am telling you 
exactly how it happened. And if the President were standing here and if 
the Speaker of the House were standing here and if the majority leader 
were standing here, they all would have to agree because they were with 
me when we made the deal. That was the deal; that, I can tell you. 
Those are the facts, and there is nothing else that we can talk about. 
Why we are even having to vote down a rule that should never be before 
us makes no sense to me at all.
  So, yes, just do what we said we would do: Bring manufacturing back 
to America. Bring, basically, the reliable things that we do and do 
best here and

[[Page S2845]]

make sure that we have the energy and we can produce it. At the rate 
they are going now, if you electrify what they want to, we would not 
have the energy or the grid or the capacity to handle everything. And 
then you are going to have people, basically, having rolling brownouts 
or blackouts or paying exorbitantly high prices for energy that is 
absolutely driven by the mistakes that are being made today.
  I urge everybody in this body--Democrat and Republican alike--to vote 
yes on the overturning of this rule that is not part of America, not 
part of what we do.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. RICKETTS. Madam President, I am joining my colleagues today in 
resisting the EV mandate and commend them for attempting to defund this 
EV mandate.
  This mandate would require two-thirds of all new vehicles being sold 
in the United States in 2032 to be electric vehicles. It is going to be 
incredibly harmful to our American families, especially low-income 
families.
  The cost to consumers is going to be great. The average low-income 
family spends about $12,000 on a used vehicle to be able to get around. 
Frankly, for many families, especially families in States like mine of 
Nebraska, this is the pathway out of poverty: getting that vehicle, 
spending that $12,000, being able to get to a job, being able to 
increase your income. That is how American families get to work in 
States like mine. We are going to be robbing those families of that 
opportunity with this EV mandate, harming those low-income families.
  It is also going to be harmful for families in rural areas. In States 
like Nebraska, people drive long distances in rural areas to get to 
work. Right now, for example, you see that 99 of our 147 cities don't 
have a charger. If you are in some of our cities like Bloomfield or 
Alliance or Valentine, you are 45 minutes from the nearest charging 
station. That is not practical.
  Oh, and by the way, guess what. It gets cold in Nebraska. When the 
temperature drops below 20 degrees, you lose 40 percent of your charge 
on an EV. So not only will you not be able to find a charging station, 
you won't have very much charge to be able to get there.
  It is harmful for agriculture because you are not going to be able 
just to pull over on the side of the road if you have got a truck that 
is hauling cattle and stopped in 95-degree heat for 2 or 3 hours.
  This EV mandate makes no sense. It does not work for vast stretch of 
this country.
  Again, I think EVs are cool. They have fast acceleration, and they 
work in urban areas, like perhaps here on the east coast. But in States 
like mine, they are impractical.
  My esteemed colleague from West Virginia was talking about how the 
Biden administration has not thought this through. I sit on the 
Environment and Public Works Committee. I have had the chance to 
question officials who support this, and let me tell you, they have no 
plan for the power generation. They have no plan for the transmission. 
And by the way, just so the American public knows, they are assuming 
that every EV is charged with 100 percent renewable energy. Folks, that 
is a lie. That does not exist anywhere in this country where you can 
find a State that 100 percent of their energy comes from renewable 
energy.
  The highest State for it is South Dakota at 50 percent. States on the 
East Coast are generally single digits as far as the percent of their 
electricity generated from renewable energy. So they are also selling 
you a lie. It is not true.
  So for those reasons, I also urge my colleagues to support this 
Congressional Review Act.
  I want to compliment the senior Senators from Idaho and from West 
Virginia for bringing this attempt to defund this EV mandate. Now that 
this EV mandate has been published in the Federal Register, the Senator 
from Alaska and I will be bringing another CRA to stop the 
implementation of this rule as well.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I rise today in support of S. 4072. I 
introduced this legislation and pushed for this vote to ensure that no 
fiscal year 2024 funds can be used to implement, administer, or enforce 
the Environmental Protection Agency's tailpipe emissions rule.
  I deeply appreciate the support of the Senators who have spoken 
today. Senator Manchin, a Democrat, made it very clear that this is a 
bipartisan piece of legislation basically based on the fact that it 
violates the very deal that was made earlier to help us look at 
transitioning away from emissions that are harmful to the environment.
  If you listened to Senator Manchin, he made it very clear that we 
don't have the capacity to do this right now. He talked about some 
critical points. Senator Ricketts just pointed out that we don't even 
have the capacity today to provide the necessary electricity.
  Let me explain this. I was talking--and have talked to a lot of 
experts--to an expert recently in global warming issues. This person 
told me that we can have all the electric vehicle mandates we want, but 
if the road is not clean, then the solution will not be clean. What did 
that mean? That means that if the electricity that we rely on is not 
made by renewable sources, the mandate will be ineffective.
  That is a critical point to be made because today, as has been 
indicated, our major source of the load is natural gas. The very 
electricity that is created in this country to utilize on the roads if 
this mandate goes into place is not going to be the sort of clean load 
that is necessary for this massive effort to transition to a completely 
electric vehicle economy.
  The damage will be suffered by the American people in many different 
ways, but one of the critical ways that damage will be suffered is that 
whether it is with regard to the critical minerals that are needed--
which this administration is not assisting us in helping to improve in 
the United States and strengthen in the United States--or whether it is 
based on other aspects of developing that load they need, the American 
people will see the problem in our economy, and China will be the 
beneficiary.
  It will be China who is the one who can economically accomplish these 
objectives and send these electric vehicles to us or the batteries that 
these electric vehicles require. China is not working with clean load 
either. As my colleague from Wyoming talked about, they are putting out 
unclean load, in the terms of this debate, every single day, at massive 
amounts higher than ours.
  So what are we going to do? We are going to make the United States 
vehicle industry dependent on China. We are going to make the United 
States citizens, who drive cars and trucks, dependent on China and 
reduce our economic independence from China's anticompetitive 
pressures. That is what this debate really is about. The EPA's rule is 
the most aggressive form of tailpipe emissions standards ever crafted 
and imposes a de facto electric vehicle mandate on the American people.
  Under the rule, automakers must decrease their average fleetwide 
emissions by more than 50 percent--down from the current 192 grams of 
CO2 per mile to just 85 grams per mile--in less than 10 
years in order to be compliant.
  The only way these standards could possibly be met is through the 
mass production and adoption of electric vehicles--a fact of which the 
Biden administration and the Biden EPA is well aware--once again, 
increasing our reliance on China.
  The rule effectively regulates gas-powered vehicles--cars and 
trucks--out of the marketplace, which, make no mistake, is the goal of 
this administration. As a result of the rule, internal combustion 
engine--or ICE--vehicles, which still represent the overwhelming 
majority of new car sales in the United States, can make up no more 
than 30 percent of new sales by 2032, if automakers are even able to be 
compliant with these standards.
  The rule represents yet another attempt by the Biden administration 
to use the rulemaking process to force its costly climate agenda on 
Americans and pick winners and losers in our free market. These 
emissions standards go too far and will restrict affordable vehicle 
choices for families, harm U.S. businesses, degrade our energy and 
national security, and hand the keys of our automotive industry over to 
China,

[[Page S2846]]

which currently dominates the entire electric vehicle supply chain and 
has no intention of reducing the carbon intensity of its economy 
anytime soon.
  The personal decision of what a consumer chooses to drive should not 
be made by Washington, let alone by circumventing Congress.
  I urge my Republican colleagues and my Democrat colleagues to join me 
in voting yes on this legislation to prevent American taxpayer dollars 
from being used to implement, administer, or enforce this disastrous 
EPA rule.
  I yield back my time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I ask that all time be yielded back.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Under the previous order, the bill is considered read a third time.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading and was read 
the third time.


                            Vote on S. 4072

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The bill having been read the third 
time, the question is, Shall the bill pass?
  Mr. CRAPO. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Oklahoma (Mr. Mullin).
  The result was announced--yeas 52, nays 46, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 142 Leg.]

                                YEAS--52

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Boozman
     Braun
     Britt
     Brown
     Budd
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Manchin
     Marshall
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Ricketts
     Risch
     Romney
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Schmitt
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Sinema
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Tuberville
     Vance
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--46

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Butler
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Fetterman
     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lujan
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Mullin
     Warnock
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). On this vote, the yeas are 52, 
the nays are 46.
  Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the passage of the 
bill, the bill is not passed.
  The bill (S. 4072) was rejected.

                          ____________________