[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 30 (Thursday, February 12, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H2215-H2216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       LEGISLATIVE CALENDAR DAYS

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Kiley 
of California was recognized for 30 minutes.)
  Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to discuss two votes 
that occurred this week that have been broadly characterized as 
relating to tariffs. However, the issues are a little more nuanced than 
they have generally been portrayed.
  Let's start with the vote that occurred on Wednesday. It is always 
good to look at the actual text because that, at the end of the day, is 
the only thing that matters. This was a vote on a rule which is a kind 
of arcane procedural mechanism that we have here in the House for 
bringing bills to the floor for consideration and setting the terms of 
debate.
  When you vote on the rule, Mr. Speaker, you are not voting on the 
bills themselves, you are just bringing them to the floor where they 
will eventually be voted on.
  There is this norm of voting in favor of rules, which I have always 
done, because if you don't do that, Mr. Speaker, then the business of 
the House grinds to a halt.
  The only times in which I haven't done that are when the form of a 
rule, the mechanism of a rule, is abused for some purpose that actually 
impacts policy.
  That is what we had in this particular rule. At the end of it, which 
was a normal rule for most purposes, but at the very end, Mr. Speaker, 
you had tacked on this peculiar provision which starts by saying that 
each day during the period from February 10, 2026, through July 31, 
2026, shall not constitute a calendar day.
  So that is a little odd on the face of it, simply fiating that 
somehow these days of the months in the calendar year, February 11, 
February 12, February 13, and so on all the way to July 31 are somehow 
now by legislative decree not days.
  Now, I had actually voted against this very same provision in 
November when the only thing that was different were the dates. As a 
matter of fact, there were enough votes to stop that rule from taking 
effect when we originally voted on it in November, but then there was a 
huddle among House leadership and some of those who were opposed to it. 
I won't get into the nature of what was discussed, but you can sort of 
connect the dots because after this rule passed, there was then another 
one that changed the end date, in that case, from March 31 to January 
30.
  January 30 was set to be the agreed upon end day for this accounting 
trick. So I was pretty surprised when January 30 comes and goes, and 
then we get this new provision saying: No we are actually now going to 
extend this all the way out to July 31.
  Let's go out further in the text here. It says that these months 
shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the 
National Emergencies Act with respect to various resolutions declaring 
a national emergency. The National Emergencies Act is a statute that 
gives the President the power to declare a state of emergency. It also 
gives Congress not just the power but the obligation to evaluate every 
6 months whether we are still in a state of emergency. Congress shall 
consider it, is what it says.
  For example, a few years ago this is how we terminated the COVID 
state of emergency. I was the cosponsor of that resolution actually, 
and it got so much bipartisan support in the House that President 
Biden, even though he was initially opposed, signed it into law. That 
is how the COVID emergency was brought to an end.
  In this case, Mr. Speaker, we were being asked with this language 
here to say that you are not allowed to do that, Congress will be cut 
out of its statutory role in evaluating whether we still have an 
emergency for these designated emergencies and for this designated 
period of time.

                              {time}  1240

  As such, it was limiting the power of our Members to weigh in on 
these very important questions. This runs contrary to everything I have 
ever believed when it comes to states of emergency.
  When I was in the legislature in California, and even in the early 
days of COVID, I was very much opposed to the legislature having no 
role in determining whether we were in a state of emergency. I 
introduced a resolution many times on whether or not the state of 
emergency should continue. Therefore, of course, I would not support 
cutting Congress out of that process entirely here.
  In effect, what we were being asked to do with this very peculiar 
provision was to abuse the procedural vehicle known as a rule to 
legislate a fiction that a day is not a day, to countenance endless 
emergencies, endless states of emergency without congressional 
oversight in defiance of every principle I have ever fought for and to 
surrender our own power as Members of the House in relation both to our 
own leadership and the executive branch. That is something I was not 
going to do. There was bipartisan support that this was not a good 
idea.
  The rule did not pass, meaning that this accounting trick of a day is 
not a day is no longer in effect. As such, a resolution has now ripened 
regarding one particular state of emergency. This is to say, Congress 
playing the role that is in law that every 6 months it should evaluate 
whether an emergency still exists. This is what we voted on yesterday. 
This was Congress exercising its statutory responsibility to determine 
whether an emergency declared by the President is still in effect.
  Now, because we have had these delays in terms of Congress doing 
this, it has actually been a year since this particular emergency was 
declared by the President, on February 1, 2025.
  If you look at the language of this--this is the entire resolution--
it simply says that the national emergency declared by finding of the 
President is hereby terminated.
  The question on its face is not about whether tariffs are good or 
bad. It is not even about whether tariffs are a valid emergency power. 
That is the question that the Supreme Court is considering. Rather, it 
was about this particular executive order a year ago, which was titled 
as follows: ``Imposing Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs 
Across Our Northern Border.''
  The national emergency declared by the President was about fentanyl 
coming into the United States from Canada. We can debate whether or not 
that was truly an emergency at the time that it was declared, given 
that a tiny fraction of the fentanyl that comes into our country--maybe 
1 percent or so--does come from Canada. Fentanyl itself, of course, is 
the most severe of emergencies for our country, but the specific 
question is whether the fentanyl coming from Canada is.
  Let's assume for the sake of argument that it was an emergency at 
that time. After all, the President does have broad discretion in terms 
of declaring an emergency. The question for us in Congress 1 year later 
in exercising our statutory responsibility to evaluate this question is 
whether there is still an emergency.
  I listened to the debate on this issue with an open mind. I listened 
to the comments of our very capable chair of the Homeland Security 
Committee here in the House saying that actually Canada has taken 
significant efforts to crack down on fentanyl ever since this executive 
order was issued. They have devoted $1.2 billion to it. They have 
stepped up internal enforcement. They have appointed a fentanyl czar. 
They have cracked down on precursor chemicals coming in.
  There is way more fentanyl being seized at their border now. By some 
estimates, there has been a 97 percent reduction in fentanyl going over 
the border. It would appear that if the tariffs were designed to 
encourage Canada to take this issue of fentanyl crossing the border 
more seriously, they have been very effective in that respect. As such, 
the basis for the emergency that was declared does not appear to me to 
exist at this time.
  Of course, it is also appropriate to consider the actual effect of 
the emergency power being asserted, which in

[[Page H2216]]

this case is, of course, the tariffs. I would argue that with respect 
to Canada, there are unique considerations at play: for example, the 
fact that we have a pretty recently signed free trade agreement, the 
fact that this is our neighbor, and the fact that there are unique 
impacts both in terms of tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs when it 
comes to cars, construction, and energy.
  That is to say, if there are any other such votes on other declared 
emergencies that have been used to impose tariffs, I will evaluate the 
facts of each case individually in deciding how to vote.
  Of course, the Supreme Court will be weighing in on a related issue 
very shortly, which is whether tariffs are a valid emergency power that 
Congress has legitimately delegated to the executive branch when a 
national emergency has been declared.
  However that case might turn out, I do believe that it is in the 
national interest for important matters of economic and national 
security policy to be considered and debated by the House of 
Representatives. That is what we are here for. The view of our 
leadership that such matters should not even be allowed to be debated 
on this floor was, I believe, the wrong thing for our institution.


                       National Cap on Gas Taxes

  Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to address one more 
topic today.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce I am introducing the gas price 
reduction act or the gas tax reduction act, I should say, which will 
lower the price of gas for California residents.
  The reality of life in California is this: We have the highest cost 
of living of any State in the country. We are the most unaffordable 
State. A big reason for that is because our gas prices are so much 
higher than anywhere else in the country.
  There are various reasons why they are so much higher. In fact, they 
are going to get even higher with refinery closures that are happening, 
but a big part of the equation is that we have a much higher gas tax 
than anywhere else in the United States--71 cents per gallon.
  All of this money, by the way, is supposed to be going toward 
transportation, so you would think we would have these beautiful roads 
throughout California, but quite the contrary, our roads are routinely 
rated as among the very worst in the country. When you pay the highest 
gas tax while driving over the deepest potholes, something is very 
wrong.
  I have introduced a simple bill that puts a national cap on State gas 
taxes. There are only a few States right now that have over 50 cent gas 
taxes, so I figured that that is a good maximum, that no State should 
be able to force its citizens to pay taxes of more than 50 cents a 
gallon for gasoline. This will immediately save California drivers 21 
cents a gallon and will prevent the tax from continuing to be raised by 
State politicians.
  The way we are doing this has several precedents and is actually 
fairly routine, where we have Federal highway funds that come with a 
number of strings attached, a number of conditions. For example, States 
have to abide by the 21-year-old minimum age for alcohol, various drunk 
driving laws, and various vehicle weight laws, all of which are a 
condition of receiving Federal highway funds.
  The mechanism here is exactly the same, that States, as a condition 
of receiving their Federal highway funds, shall not impose a gas tax 
higher than 50 cents on their residents. I think this will give our 
drivers, especially those who have to commute a long way to work, who 
live in rural areas some much-needed relief and be a much-needed check-
and-balance against the politicians in Sacramento who continue to 
demand of citizens more and more of their tax dollars while delivering 
less and less in return.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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