[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 30 (Thursday, February 13, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1115
                         STOP FEDERAL OVERREACH

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, in one of the many eleventh-hour actions by 
the Biden administration, the EPA handed California unprecedented power 
to enforce extreme vehicle regulations, giving them the green light to 
ban new gas-powered cars by 2035 and impose crushing new emissions 
standards on heavy-duty trucks, and also using the ever-increasing 
price of fuel to price people out of being able to drive or into these 
vehicles they don't want to be in.
  This wasn't about cooperative federalism. It was about one State 
backed by Washington, D.C. bureaucrats forcing its agenda on the rest 
of the country.
  The EPA's waivers let California dictate the future of the auto and 
trucking industries, driving up costs for regular consumers, squeezing 
small businesses, and putting even more strain on an already struggling 
supply chain, at the same time that they are now trying to put in a 
high-speed rail system whose costs quadrupled what they told the 
taxpayers just 15 years ago.
  Instead of letting Congress weigh in, the Biden EPA let California 
call the shots for everyone across the country, bypassing the 
legislative process we hear so much complaining about here, and pushing 
policies that could force everyday Americans to pay more and get less 
for their hard-earned money.
  That is not how this country is supposed to work. We are about having 
choice, choice of automobiles, choice of trucks, and what have you.
  This Federal overreach needs to be stopped.

                          ____________________