Prohibiting the Use of Funds to Implement, Administer, or Enforce Certain Rules of the Environmental Protection Agency

Floor Speech

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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 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.

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