[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 87 (Thursday, May 22, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3136-S3137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW ACT

  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, colleagues, using the Congressional 
Review Act to overturn waivers puts polluters in charge of government 
policy.
  In 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act. The law explicitly states 
that individual States like California can enact stricter emission 
standards to protect the environment if they receive from the 
Environmental Protection Agency a waiver. And States like Oregon can 
adopt those standards if they so choose.
  Since then, California has applied for, well, about 100 waivers. They 
have made vehicle emissions 99 percent cleaner than they were in 1970.
  I remember going down to Southern California in the early eighties 
and seeing how incredibly polluted the air was near L.A., and I 
thought, How can anyone live here?
  It hurt your eyes; it hurt your lungs. People don't have that 
impression today, despite the amount of vehicle miles going way up, 
because of the incredible efforts California made to clean up their air 
from auto emissions.
  You know, in the last 50 years, California has never had a waiver 
revoked. That tells me they put together very competent proposals and 
that the Nation supported their effort to clean up their air.

[[Page S3137]]

  But something different is happening right now. Senate Republicans 
are using the Congressional Review Act in ways that Congress never 
intended. Of course, the Congressional Review Act says if a rule is 
implemented and you are within 60 legislative days, it can be brought 
to the floor and it can be overturned by the House and the Senate and 
that if it is vetoed, well, then the House and Senate can overturn the 
veto, if they have enough votes--but all about rules; no mention of 
waivers.
  Both the Government Accountability Office and the Senate 
Parliamentarian said the Congressional Review Act cannot be used to 
overturn waivers because, quite simply, they are not rules.
  You know, here is the thing, words have meanings, and you can only 
trust the law if those words are honored. And to magically say a waiver 
is a rule is a real travesty of lawmaking, but that is where we are at 
now.
  So what is this really all about--this Republican decision to invent 
new meanings to existing words when every bit of common sense and every 
bit of legal knowledge knows that that is a lie. Why did my colleagues 
engage in this massive deception? It is an end-run around the 
policymaking process.
  They could have easily said: We want to expand the Congressional 
Review Act to cover waivers. And then you simply craft a bill. 
Republicans being in charge of the Senate and the House, they bring it 
to the floor; we debate it; it either passes or it doesn't pass.
  It has the advantage of going through committee and being considered 
and having people weigh in on whether it is a good idea or not. But to 
simply reinvent and pretend, if you will, that the color black is the 
color white or an orange is an apple--because everyone understands a 
waiver is not a rule.
  So it is unfortunate that the colleagues in charge of the legislative 
process have so corrupted it yesterday and today, not even trying to 
actually enact the law to accomplish what they want but instead saying: 
Let's use an expedited process that doesn't go through committee, where 
there is very limited debate, where there are no amendments allowed, in 
order to do a favor for a powerful special interest.
  What does that tell us about government in the United States? My 
colleagues are choosing to be the agents for the powerful by inventing 
new meanings to words that don't exist, meanings that are not supported 
by the Parliamentarian; they are not supported by the Government 
Accountability Office, GAO, because they are so dedicated to pulling 
the strings of government on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. That 
is corruption plain and simple, on full display before the American 
public. That is what has happened.
  Think about what this means for the future of this Nation. You can't 
count on a waiver staying in place so how do you make decisions based 
on getting that waiver?
  Well, you get a license from the government. But the license, maybe 
that looks a lot like a rule. It is an act of government. It is a 
decision. How is that different from a waiver? You can't count on that 
license not being taken away by this body.
  What about a grant? A grant is a government decision. Kind of like a 
waiver, except it has money coming in. So now a grant can be brought 
here to the floor and wiped out.
  What about a permit? A permit is very close to being a waiver, 
saying: Hey, you can undertake this process. We are giving you 
permission. Well, that is what a waiver does. It says: Yes, you can 
undertake that process.
  So now no one has a foundation for pursuing projects because they 
know that if the majority wants to play favors for a powerful special 
interest, they can wipe you out with no foundation of law.
  That is what happened here, and that is a travesty. It is a travesty 
that none of my colleagues, I would hope--if they reflected on it 
outside the pressure of having their arms twisted--would engage in.
  And I know they would be highly critical if the parties were 
reversed.
  In addition, once that waiver is struck down, it is suggested under 
the rules of the CRA that a similar waiver might not be able to be 
granted in the future.
  So now you have two laws in conflict with each other. One law says 
you can grant the waiver, and the other law says if something was 
struck down through the CRA, nothing similar can be done.
  How are we to resolve this? My colleagues have no answer. They have 
taken us down a path where words have no meaning and where sheer power 
by one of the richest enterprises in America--the fossil fuel 
industry--is all that matters. They are the puppet masters of my 
Republican colleagues. They have pulled the strings, and now we are in 
deep trouble to have an honest foundation for legislative action.
  This one waiver was something that the fossil fuel industry really 
hated because when cars became more efficient, they used less oil, and 
therefore the oil companies made less money. When these waivers were 
enacted, people were incentivized to buy cars that didn't even burn 
gasoline, and the oil companies were like: Oh, my goodness, we are not 
going to make as much money. Help us. Help us, dear Republicans. Help 
us out here. Invent something. Change the meaning of some words. Find 
some way to go past the normal legislative process to somehow deliver 
what we want.
  And my colleagues obliged.
  The damage is done. It is going to be extremely difficult to fix it. 
It has eviscerated half a century of California's clean air 
protections.
  It was the wrong thing to do to blow up the good work of a State 
seeking to solve its air pollution problem. It was absolutely the wrong 
thing to do to blow up the integrity of this body by deciding that a 
waiver is a rule and undermining the ability of any group to act with 
confidence based on decisions made by the Government of the United 
States because whether you have a waiver or you have a permit or you 
have a license, now you don't know whether some powerful interest is 
going to have this body rip it away from you.
  Let's work together to reestablish integrity in this Chamber, 
integrity in our legislative process that was so badly damaged 
yesterday and last night.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The Senator from Oklahoma.

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