Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, as I begin to talk about this amendment that Mr. Rokita and I have worked on and bring to you today, I want to pause and take just a moment and commend our appropriators and the chairman. He is accustomed to seeing me come down and try to cut 1 percent, 5 percent more out of the budget, but the appropriators this year have done that work for us.

This bill before us today totals $30.426 billion, which is $2.9 billion below last year's level, $700 billion below the sequester level, and $4 billion below the President's request. Indeed, it's below the pre-Pelosi budget, which was $31.5 billion.

As my former colleague in the Tennessee State Senate used to say--Tim Burchett, now mayor of Knoxville--he would quote Tennessee author Alex Haley, who said ``find the good, and praise it.'' So I praise them for doing these cuts on the front end, and I focus my attention on the issue we have with ceiling fans and this administration's interest in overregulating ceiling fans.

As many of my colleagues know, ceiling fans and ceiling fan light kits already face existing regulations set in place by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. These provisions burden ceiling fan manufacturers with ineffective mandates. However, despite the current mandates, the Department of Energy is looking to require additional mandates that will impact everything such as the angle of the blade, shape, airflow, light kits. They are determined to redesign the American fan and have issued a 101-page rulemaking framework document which evaluates the potential energy savings that new regulations would supposedly provide.

We've already seen the Federal Government stretch their regulatory tentacles into our homes and determine what kind of light bulbs we have to use. Now they're coming after our ceiling fans. It is a sad state of affairs when even our ceiling fans aren't safe from this administration. Enough is enough.

These new regulations being considered by DOE will significantly impair the ability of ceiling fan manufacturers like Hunter Fans in Memphis to produce reasonably priced, highly decorative fans. They will also force our constituents to use less energy-efficient mechanisms to cool their homes, using more energy. It is imperative that we join together and prohibit any funding in this bill from being used by DOE to finalize, implement, or enforce new regulations on ceiling fans.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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