Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, today I am urging support for the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act, which will prevent California from banning gas-powered vehicles.

I am as strong a supporter as anyone of clean energy, and I could not be more excited about the future of clean energy that awaits us, but the way to move rapidly towards that future is through innovation. It is not through regulation. No State has gone further down the road of overreaching, overbearing, inattentive regulation to the needs of its citizens than California has.

This particular measure that California is now attempting is more radical than any that came before it. Specifically, the California Air Resources Board approved a plan in August and is now asking the Environmental Protection Agency to approve a waiver under the Clean Air Act to implement its new rules that set yearly rising zero-emission vehicle rules starting in 2026 and would end the sale of vehicles only powered by gasoline by 2035.

This is no trivial matter. The majority of vehicles on the road today in the United States, 95 percent, run on internal combustion engines.

What is the consequence of this going to be?

First and foremost, there is the cost. The price of an electric vehicle is $17,000 higher than a gas-powered car. This is going to make life even harder for people in California where we already have the highest energy prices, the highest gas prices, the highest cost of living, the highest poverty rate, and far too many people having to leave our State because it is simply too hard to get by.

Make our State more affordable. This bill will save Californians from this burden and help many of my constituents.

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