Regulations Stifling American Economy
Floor Speech
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Mr. KELLY. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
I come from a family that in 1953 started in the automobile business. My father came from being a parts picker in a warehouse for General Motors, surviving World War II and then coming back home and starting his own dealership in 1953. So, not only can I talk the talk, but I've actually walked the walk.
When we sit back and when we see what this administration is doing, while they say on one side they're very concerned with jobs and that they're very concerned with the recovery of the automobile industry, they propose legislation that will take 7 million buyers out of the market. That is a staggering number of cars that we will not be able to build. If we can't build them, we don't need folks there in the factories. We don't want to mess with the fragile recovery that the automobile industry has right now. Again, as I said, in having walked that walk and in understanding the cost of these vehicles as they go up, it is a terrible thing that this administration is considering. It does not surprise me because we are talking about people who have never in their lives actually had their own skin in the game. So, when they talk about these measures that they're taking, when they talk about all these well-intentioned ideas, they forget that the ultimate sacrifice made is by the buyers, by the American consumer. We are going to raise the average cost of these vehicles by $3,200. As I said earlier, 7 million prospective buyers will not be in the market. We have jumped the standards that we had by 3 years.
I was there in the early seventies when the CAFE standards came into existence. The corporate average fuel economy had nothing to do with green energy; it had nothing to do with a carbon footprint. What it had to do with was our reliance on foreign oil. We are making great strides to that effect. Now, I do know that my friends in the automobile manufacturing business have agreed to these new standards. I also know that there are so many resets in this new standard that they opted to go along with this administration's directions and that they bought into this idea knowing that each electric car that they build, which is subsidized by $7,500 in taxpayer funds--hardworking American families who have paid their taxes will not have the same benefit that people buying these electric cars--the metrics on that is $175,000. That is their average income.
Now, who are we appealing to?
We give the industry a double count on those. That's how they get to the 54.5 miles per gallon, and they understand with the resets that it's much easier to go along with this administration than to try to fight them up front. I will tell you, of my friends in the automobile dealer business, who are the folks who go to work every day, who have to put bread on the table, in my dealership there are 110 folks who come in there every day to solve the transportation needs of the people in our community.
The other side of this is safety. When my wife and my four children get in their cars--and keep in mind there are five grandchildren involved now--we're going to start asking those folks to start driving lighter cars, cars that will not be as safe as the cars we have on the road right now. And why? Because we are catering to an administration that puts its agenda ahead of the American public's safety.
So I appreciate what the gentleman from Texas is doing. I understand the unintended consequences of this, so it's time for us to blow the whistle on an administration that refuses to acquiesce to what the public needs and continues to drive its own agenda. I appreciate what you've done.
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