This Is How Gavin Newsom Is Leading The U.S. 'Down The Path Of Total Insanity': GOP Lawmaker

Forbes Breaking News

In House floor remarks on Wednesday, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) decried a California trucking rule, aiming his ire at Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA).

Transcript

00:01The gentleman from Virginia is recognized.

00:04Thank you, Madam Speaker.

00:05I now recognize the gentleman from California for three minutes.

00:10The gentleman is recognized.

00:12Thank you, Madam Speaker.

00:13Our governor in California, Gavin Newsom,

00:15likes to say that California leads the nation.

00:18And unfortunately, President Biden enabled him to do just that,

00:23to lead our nation down a path of total insanity in a way

00:27that puts us at war with common sense, with American consumers,

00:31and with our fantastic truckers.

00:34California has come after truckers in every way you can imagine,

00:39whether it's by far the highest diesel tax in the country,

00:42the regulation after regulation after regulation

00:45that makes more and more trucks unusable,

00:48or AB5 that went after the independent owner-operator model

00:52and threatened to put thousands of truckers out of work.

00:56But with this regulation, the state came after the whole wall of wax.

01:00They said, we're going to take your truck itself.

01:03With this regulation, the state said that by just the year 2035,

01:07but we're going to have for some classes of trucks,

01:1055% have to be zero emission vehicles, for others 75%, for others 40%.

01:16So what is the practical consequence of this going to be?

01:19Well, first, trucks are going to be a lot more expensive,

01:21thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars more expensive.

01:25Companies, they're either going to have to buy more trucks

01:28or they're going to have to carry less in their trucks

01:30because there's less capacity because of the weight of the battery.

01:34And by the way, they're going to have to rely on use infrastructure,

01:38charging infrastructure that doesn't even exist at this point in time.

01:42So American consumers, as we're seeing already in California,

01:47we'll see the cost of just about everything, certainly the cost of groceries go up,

01:54and this will only contribute to the fact that we have a shortage of truck drivers in our state and in this country.

02:01And yes, California is being allowed to create policy for the whole country

02:06because 11 states are tied to California's actions here

02:09and because it puts manufacturers in a dilemma if they have to manufacture one truck for one state

02:14and another truck for another state.

02:15So today, we are restoring common sense.

02:18We are restoring uniformity when it comes to interstate commerce.

02:23We are restoring support for our truckers, and we are lowering costs for consumers.

02:29And by the way, we believe fully in innovation, and we believe in a clean energy future for this country.

02:38We believe in clean air.

02:40But it is through innovation that we will get to clean air.

02:43It is not by government fiat.

02:45Indeed, it is an odd approach to innovation that says we are going to somehow magically fiat innovation

02:52by banning any and all available alternatives.

02:55That is not the way it works.

02:57And finally, to the notion from the gentleman from New Jersey that this sets a dangerous precedent.

03:02I will note that no California legislator ever voted on this or the car ban.

03:07No member of this house has voted on it.

03:09No individual citizen has voted on it.

03:11There has been no vote whatsoever on a policy of profound personal consequence

03:16to 40 million Californians and tens of millions other Americans.

03:20I think that is precisely the precedent actually putting this to a vote of the people's representatives that we need to set today.

03:26The time has expired.

03:27I yield back.

03:28I reserve.

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