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

Floor Speech

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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 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.

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Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I ask that all time be yielded back.

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