Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACK. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to protect Tennessee workers and small manufacturing businesses from the EPA's latest overreach.

Last month, the EPA released its Phase 2 fuel-efficiency and emissions standards for new medium-and heavy-duty trucks.

While many in the trucking industry are not opposed to this rule as a whole, one section in the proposal wrongly applies these new standards to what is known as glider kits.

I recently toured a business in my district that manufactures these kits. For those who don't know, a glider kit is a group of truck parts that can include a brand-new frame, cab, or axles, but does not include an engine or transmission.

Since a glider kit is less expensive than buying a new truck and can extend the working life of a truck, businesses and drivers with damaged or older vehicles may choose to purchase one of these kits instead of buying a completely new vehicle.

Unfortunately, the EPA is proposing to apply the new Phase 2 standards to glider kits, even though the gliders are not really new vehicles.

Mr. Chairman, this directly impacts my district where we have glider kits being manufactured and purchased by companies in places like Byrdstown, Sparta, and Jamestown, communities that are already struggling with an above average unemployment and would see job opportunities put further out of reach if this misguided rule goes into effect.

It is also unclear whether the EPA even has the authority to regulate replacement parts like gliders in the first place.

Once more, while the EPA's stated goal with Phase 2 is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Agency has not studied the emissions impact of remanufactured engines and gliders compared to new vehicles.

Mr. Chairman, if the EPA is going to promulgate rules that raise costs and hurt jobs in districts like mine, the least they could do is to have a few facts prepared to back them up.

Under this ill-advised rule, businesses and drivers that wish to use glider kits would be effectively forced to buy a completely new vehicle instead. Reducing glider sales would also end up limiting consumer choice in the marketplace.

That is why my amendment protects businesses, jobs, and consumers by prohibiting the EPA from moving forward with this Phase 2 standard on glider kits.

To be clear, this amendment would not--would not--bar the EPA from implementing the whole Phase 2 rule for new medium- and heavy-duty trucks. It would simply clarify that glider kits and glider vehicles are not new trucks as the EPA wrongly claims.

I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment to help support American manufacturing and stop the EPA from attempting to shut down the glider industry.

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Mrs. BLACK. Mr. Chairman, I want to once again reiterate that this is a very narrow amendment. It does not apply to new trucks, as the EPA rule indicates.

I also want to reiterate one more time that they have not studied the emissions impact of these remanufactured engines and the gliders compared to new vehicles, so we would like to have that information as well.

I also want to add that the military also uses glider kits, and this rule would not apply to them. Once again, we are putting into place something where we say this is what the government can do, but this is what the private sector can do.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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