Kiley Demands An End To The California Gas-Powered Car Ban: ‘It Should Be The Consumers' Choice’

4 months ago

During remarks on the House Floor, made on Thursday, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) discussed California's ban on gas-powered cars.

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Transcript

00:00Recordings to the public.

00:19Madam Speaker, following the testimony before our committee,

00:23the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee yesterday by Secretary of

00:27Transportation Pete Buttigieg, I am again calling for the Senate to pass legislation

00:34that has already passed this House to stop California from banning gas-powered vehicles.

00:41California has announced this ban, and now some 18 other states are going along with it,

00:46states that have linked their emissions policies to California. And the ban is set to go into effect

00:53by 2035. This was done, by the way, simply by regulation, not even by a vote of the legislature.

01:00Now, I am all for electronic vehicles. I have many constituents who drive them.

01:06However, I think that it should be a matter of choice, that folks should have the chance to,

01:11the opportunity to select what vehicle they want to drive.

01:15Now, the interesting thing about yesterday's testimony by Secretary Buttigieg

01:20is that he actually agreed with me. He testified several times and confirmed,

01:25in response to my questioning, that he does not favor a ban on gas-powered vehicles.

01:31He said that this should be a matter for consumers to choose. So, supposedly,

01:36that would appear to be the same position that I have, that this should be a matter of consumer

01:41choice. But then I asked him whether he is against California's attempt to ban gas-powered vehicles.

01:49And the Secretary responded, well, no, this is a matter of states' rights. The state should be

01:53able to do whatever it wants. Here's the problem. The federal government, the Biden administration,

02:00is actually enabling California to do this. California would not have the ability to ban

02:07gas-powered cars if it were not for the Biden administration giving it special authority to do

02:13so, giving California a waiver under the Clean Air Act. This is something that California asked

02:20the Biden administration for and the Biden administration granted. So, saying that they're

02:26just deferring to what the state is doing, that argument has no merit. In fact, it is precisely

02:33the actions of the Biden administration that is allowing California to take this completely

02:40overreaching action of saying we are going to ban all gas-powered vehicles within about a decade.

02:47So, I was very happy that legislation that I'm supporting, the Preserving Choice in Vehicles Act,

02:56passed the House of Representatives. This would simply rescind the authority that the Biden

03:03administration gave California to ban gas-powered cars. It passed the House of Representatives,

03:09but it has been languishing in the Senate. And I think it is incredibly important

03:14that the Senate take action so that we restore the confidence on the part of consumers in California

03:21and now in many other parts of the country that their right to choose which vehicle to buy

03:27will not be taken away.

03:36Madam Speaker, following yesterday's testimony by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg,

03:43I am again calling for oversight and, ideally, the end of the high-speed rail project in California.

03:55The Biden administration recently awarded California high-speed rail $3.1 billion,

04:04and Secretary Buttigieg stood behind the project in his testimony yesterday.

04:11However, this project has now been going on for 16 years. Its cost has multiplied many times over.

04:21Estimates are it's now around $128 billion, and the L.A. Times reported that there is a $100

04:28billion funding shortfall, even with the $3.1 billion that the Biden administration provided.

04:36Yet, nevertheless, despite this enormous increase in cost, and despite the fact that essentially

04:42nothing has been built for 16 years, the Biden administration is giving life support for the

04:48project in a way that will cause Californians to have to keep paying taxes to support it going

04:55forward, and a way as well that takes money away, funding a way that could have gone towards

05:00maintaining our roads and providing the transportation services that California so

05:06desperately needs. So, I asked Secretary Buttigieg about a report from the New York Times that the

05:14bullet train actually is not even on track to be finished this century, not on track to be finished

05:21this century, and the Secretary disagreed with the New York Times. He said it will be finished this

05:27century. In fact, he said it will be finished by 2050, by mid-century, although he would not provide

05:35any further estimate, other than to say that it should be completed within the next 26 years.

05:42However, if you look at people who have been directly involved in the project, they say

05:49it's not going to be finished at all. Michael Tenenbaum, who was the first leader of the

05:54High-Speed Rail Authority, said this. He said, I realized the system didn't work.

05:58I don't know how they can build it now. Dan Richard, who was also chairman of the High-Speed

06:03Rail Authority, in fact, the longest-serving chairman, says, I don't think it is an existing

06:08project. It is a loser. Rich Talmach, who is head of the non-profit California Rail Foundation,

06:16says it will never be operable. So why is the Biden administration giving it $3.1 billion,

06:24and why is a project that has a $100 billion funding shortfall allowed to continue?

06:31The reality is that high-speed trains have been built in many parts of the world, and folks who

06:38travel abroad in America, they see it work. Indeed, one of the first operators of the High-Speed Rail

06:45Authority worked on it here in California for several years, and then said we're out. Enough

06:50is enough. They left. They said it's too politically dysfunctional here, so they decided to go to North

06:55Africa, where they said it was less politically dysfunctional, and they indeed did bring a high-

07:00speed rail train online in Morocco in 2018. So this project has failed not because of the limits

07:09of the technology, or even necessarily because of a lack of demand. It has failed because of

07:16political failures, and at this point, our state would be much better served if we stopped throwing

07:22good money after bad. And so I'm fortunate, I'm glad to see that the Transportation Committee,

07:29led by Chairman Graves, has opened up an investigation into the High-Speed Rail Authority,

07:35and I believe it is about time there was finally some accountability

07:40for what might be one of the biggest boondoggles in the history of the United States.

Kiley Demands An End To The California Gas-Powered Car Ban: ‘It Should Be The Consumers' Choice’

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