[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.
____________________