H.Res. 177

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 177 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I remind my Democratic colleague that the rule we are debating today provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 42 regarding a Department of Energy appliance rule, H.J. Res. 61 regarding an EPA National Emission Standards rule on rubber tire manufacturing, and S.J. Res. 11 regarding the EPA's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management rules requiring burdensome archaeological reports on energy producers.

There will be ample opportunities to debate, amend, and provide suggestions when the appropriate authorizing committees move forward when we begin our work on spending reforms in a budget reconciliation package. We should focus on the legislation before us this week.

I encourage my colleagues to engage in regular order as our authorizing

committees begin to work on our reconciliation and not prejudge their outcomes and make baseless assumptions.

My colleagues across the aisle have mentioned how they find these measures not worthy of our time. This certainly isn't the first time they have mocked House Republican efforts to curb regulations on appliances, from heating systems to dishwashers, refrigerators, and freezers.

If this were such an unserious endeavor as my colleagues across the aisle claim, then why did the administration they supported for 4 years issue at least 31 regulations covering a vast array of different appliances and other products out of the DOE and the EPA? Is $60 billion foisted on to our Nation's manufacturers and consumers in new regulatory and compliance costs not serious enough for Congress to thoroughly scrutinize?

Democrats seem to be confused about what it is that the American people voted for in November, and one of those items was lowering day- to-day costs that are hurting workers and families. Reversing these regulations is something that House Republicans are deeply committed to doing, and we are working with the administration to actually get this done.

I would also recommend that my colleagues across the aisle speak with the fellow Democrats in their Caucus about how harmful these regulations are and why CRAs to reverse Biden's anti-energy and economically harmful regulations are so important.

Last Congress, Democrats voted with Republicans to pass at least five measures to halt Biden administration green energy regulations, including the following:

A CRA to halt the Biden definition of the Waters of the United States. Nine Democrats voted ``yes.''

A CRA to halt draconian emissions standards on heavy-duty vehicles. Four Democrats voted ``yes.''

A CRA to halt draconian emission standards on light-and medium-duty vehicles. Eight Democrats voted ``yes.''

In this Congress, a whopping 11 Democrats voted just last week in support of a CRA on the Biden administration's rule on conservation standards for consumer gas-fired instantaneous water heaters, one of those appliance-related regulations that my colleagues here today claim is not worth our time in the House, but their colleagues voted ``yes.''

Finally, six Democrats voted ``yes'' on last week's CRA to halt the Biden-era implementation of a natural gas tax that would harm our Nation's energy producers and consumers.

The Democratic Party is busy pulling their hair out over President Trump, Elon Musk, DOGE, whatever else is their outrage of the day. However, they have lost sight of the kitchen-table issues affecting everyday Americans. They ignore the rising costs hurting workers and families in order to cater to their own extreme leftwing base. It is so bad that even Members in their own Caucus are breaking ranks to vote for commonsense reforms such as the rolling back of these radical anti- energy agenda items that the Biden administration foisted upon us in the eleventh hour of their administration.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we listen to calls from our Democratic colleagues for compassion and concern. I must ask the question, where was the compassion and concern while they watched prices skyrocket over our constituents over the 4 years of the Biden administration?

Where was the compassion and concern where the Biden regulatory environment smothered the U.S. economy with regulation after regulation, trillions of dollars in off-budget spending,

which soared inflation for the American people? Where was the compassion then?

Where was the outrage when House Republicans were calling for relief for the American people in the last Congress?

They said that we were following the wishes of only President Trump. They followed the Green New Deal playbook to a t, and that is what we are here to debate today are these important rollbacks of the Green New Deal agenda.

We sat idly by and watched our country get invaded by at least 10 million people that came across our country's borders with the direct will of the President to do it. President Trump has proven in just less than 2 short months the ability for a President to roll this all back with executive orders. Yet, the cost to New York alone was $7 billion in costs on New York taxpayers. Where was the outrage then?

For 8 years, this hysteria has cost them. While they persisted in their witch hunt of President Trump in 2022, Americans contended with 40-year high inflation, after Democrats and President Biden dumped trillions of dollars into a recovering post-COVID economy, which even one of their chief economists told us would create massive inflation. They ignored that guidance.

Did they seek to address everyday Americans' concerns about the direction of our economy? They did not. They doubled down on lawfare against President Trump, and it lost them the House in 2022. In 2024, when the world was on fire with our borders flung open to the invasion of millions of illegal aliens into this country that prompted a crisis in countless communities, including my own, Americans' top concerns coming back time and time again, poll after poll, were the economy and our border. Democrats did no work to address those concerns.

Did Vice President Kamala Harris address them? No, she did not. She didn't make that sale to the American people when she was campaigning across this country. Instead, all we heard was about Kamala brat summer and the last-ditch jittery attempt at once again trying to convince Americans that Trump was somehow a threat to democracy. Democrats lost, historically, on November 5, 2024. They lost the electoral vote, the popular vote, and they lost every swing State on the table.

Did Democrats learn from this smarting defeat since President Trump took office? They clearly have not. Instead, they focus their time again defending USAID slush funds, flat-out government waste, and pretty much every problem, trying to lay it at President Trump's feet, including what he is doing every single day as well as DOGE and how they are trying to fix the crisis and the mess that was left behind by the Biden years.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have time and again responded to Democratic hair-pulling with, at best, disinterest. Yet, here we are today on the House floor with more of the same.

The rule before us considers legislation focused on ridding American consumers in an industry of harming regulations that are truly impacting their wallets and their financial well-being and our Nation's economic future. I urge my colleagues to quit the hysterics and for once listen to the voices of the American people after years of refusing to do so.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Are you yielding me your time?

Mr. Speaker, we have seen a lot of masterful theatrics out of the Democratic Party recently, and we are seeing nothing different from that today. It is amazing that people who are so concerned about burdensome regulations and costs on people offer no solutions.

We are here doing the work of that today. We are taking price concerns off of the back of industries. We are preserving jobs. We are creating a brighter future for our communities by getting rid of this eleventh hour rulemaking that was put forward by the Biden administration.

They had all the power to make this country move in the right direction when Democrats controlled all of Congress and the White House following the 2020 elections. They had the ability to make those changes, but they took the country in the wrong direction.

That is why the country, at the ballot box, made the changes that they made. They took the House out of Democratic hands and made Republicans lead the House of Representatives. Then, they did the same with the Senate and the White House in 2024.

That is the report card that the Democratic Party earned because they prioritized the things that the American people did not want prioritized. They haven't read the room. They answer to their woke and angry mobs that they are foisting on Members of Congress and people all over the country right now. It is a very coordinated effort. They deny it, but make no mistake, every U.S. Senator today released a video that has the exact same script. It is very clearly a theatrical performance that the American people are seeing out of Democrats in the U.S. Senate.

We are here with solutions to problems created by the last administration. We are putting them forward to get the job done. We have a timeline that we have to focus on, and that is why these CRAs are so important for us to tackle right now. We have limited legislative days in order to roll back these unnecessary, burdensome regulations that no one asked for and no one wanted. We are getting the job done that we were sent here to do.

Let's look again at the numbers. The Biden administration has issued at least 31 regulations for residential and commercial appliances and equipment, totaling $60 billion. If my friends on the other side of the aisle don't think that added regulatory costs filter into the price of new appliances, then we

have several bridges available for them to purchase.

Let's look further at some of the regulations that will reap financial savings for American consumers. In one example, under the Biden DOE's dishwasher efficiency standards, Americans are expected to save a whopping $1.12 under that regulation. Was that necessary to put out there? Of course, it wasn't.

These are savings that the left expected the American people to be excited about as they racked up more regulations and more restrictions that cost us jobs from the results of the Biden years.

Under the latest DOE rule that H.J. Res. 42 would fortunately curb, home appliance manufacturers have already outlined how the rule requires their industry to provide a myriad of unnecessary information and data that is meaningless when demonstrating efficiency but simply is required to meet compliance with the rules.

It is regulations for the sake of regulations, and the American people are left to pay higher prices and have fewer choices.

At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues simply refuse to acknowledge the natural dynamics of the marketplace. When left to their own devices, the American people will seek out the most efficient model of an appliance that they can afford.

I agree with my colleagues when they say that the American people want cost savings, both at sale and with efficiency over the lifecycle of an appliance. What they don't want is government intervention that limits their ability to make those choices themselves. They want to have more affordable options available to fit tighter budgets, not fewer, more expensive choices because unelected bureaucrats at Biden's DOE needed to micromanage what refrigerators, dishwashers, heaters, air-conditioners, you name it, were permissible under unrealistic efficiency standards.

H.J. Res. 42 will help curb these costly, limiting, and anti-natural gas standards from the final days of the gasping Biden administration that were finalized at the behest of his radical climate lobby.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the epiphany that those on the other side of the aisle now have--and they are so concerned about costs and economic concerns-- when they fought us tooth and nail on every single action that we tried to take to curb the Biden administration's uncontrollable regulatory environment is just laughable.

We watched, warned, and fought in the 118th Congress to stop an administration that created a regulatory environment that has added about $1.5 trillion in needless regulations that have stifled the growth of industry and jobs in this country. Now, we are seeing them all of a sudden change their tune.

As our new administration is less than a month and a half old, things are moving in the right direction. People have a new view of what the future is. We are fighting hard to preserve a predictable tax code in this country. We are extending the current tax code so that we can have regulatory certainty, tax certainty, so that businesses can thrive and grow and not fear the hammer of government that they did in the Biden years.

There was an explosion after election day of people ready, willing, and able to invest in America. We have seen unprecedented investment come in from overseas, bringing new jobs, new opportunities, and new future creation here to the United States since election day. That will continue because that is what President Trump campaigned on. That is what House Republicans fight for and what we will achieve together.

Mr. Speaker, this epiphany that we have had on the other side of the aisle, that they are now all of a sudden concerned with the costs of everyday Americans, was nowhere to be found for 2 years in the 118th Congress, as we fought every day about the costs of gas and groceries and how it was pinching away because of Biden's inflation and what it had done to the purchasing power of everyday Americans' accounts.

People in probably both of our districts said the same exact thing, that they were watching the American Dream slip away from our kids and grandkids because we couldn't necessarily be certain that the future would be brighter under the current trajectory of this country.

We have saddled the country with $36.5 trillion in debt. It is a debt service that is higher than what we spend on our national defense. It is an unacceptable legacy that we are leaving to our future generations. We are working every day toward our budget reconciliation to get that under control so that we can be the era that bent the curve on spending and got this country back on track.

Yet, we have other people on the other side of the aisle who want to keep spending levels at the COVID era. COVID fell upon us 5 years ago this week, yet they still want to spend like we are in the midst of an emergency.

It is time that we have a commonsense revolution in this country, commonsense like what we are doing here today: rolling back needless regulations that hurt jobs, hurt workers, and hurt consumers. That is what we were asked to do by our constituents.

These CRAs this week are important because they reinstitute choice in the marketplace. They take the bureaucrats that DOGE is fighting every single day out of the equation and put the

American consumer back in the driver's seat so that we can have choice in our consumer goods, not creating a standard just to justify someone's job in a cubicle somewhere. That is what this government has been about for far too long, but those days are over.

Mr. Speaker, we are now putting common sense in the driver's seat in this country. We are working toward a brighter future for our kids and grandkids.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

For 4 years, Democrats gaslit the American people in a vain attempt to convince them that costs weren't going up, inflation wasn't real, our economy wasn't in trouble, and there wasn't a crisis at our borders. The American people saw past that deception, and they voted for a President and a Congress that promised to put our country back on track.

Part of fulfilling that promise includes unwinding a slew of burdensome rules, prohibitions, restrictions, and other ticky-tacky attempts to micromanage everyday life for Americans. It also includes ensuring that the woke mob and their radical environmental NGOs can no longer call the shots at these Federal agencies at the expense of our manufacturers, our domestic energy producers, and good-paying jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the rule before us today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 177, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 61) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Rubber Tire Manufacturing'', and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 61.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of my bill, H.J. Res. 61, a resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Rubber Tire Manufacturing.''

My resolution will repeal this suspect rule that the Biden administration pushed out after the election but before President Trump's inauguration.

This rule was flawed to begin with. It was published on November 29, 2024, after the election of Mr. Trump but before his administration could take office.

Further, as required by the Clean Air Act, EPA performed a risk and technology review specifically on rubber tire plant emissions as recently as 2020. After the risk and technology review, the EPA concluded that the pollutant thresholds and emission regulations already in place were sufficient and protected public health with an ``ample margin of safety.''

Madam Speaker, under the Clean Air Act, this should have been the end of it, as the EPA is only required to review and revise the standards on emissions every 8 years. To make matters worse, the EPA basically said the only way to comply with the new regulation is to buy regenerative thermal oxidizers, which are essentially flares that burn off the smokestack exhaust at the specific tire plants.

These devices are expensive and likely will not be able to be installed within the 3-year Clean Air Act deadline. It is my understanding that the tire industry estimates that it will cost about $100 million to get the regenerative thermal oxidizers ordered, fabricated, and installed and then about $20 million more per year to operate the devices.

While this cost is across several affected plants, these figures are certainly much higher than the EPA's estimates.

I also note that this rule does not affect most of my constituents. I am sure some of my constituents drive from eastern Henry County to work at the Danville Goodyear plant located in the district of my neighbor, Congressman John McGuire, and that facility would be affected.

In the Rules Committee, I was erroneously under the assumption that this might affect my Yokohama Tire plant today. I still submit, Madam Speaker, that it could affect them because what happens at the EPA, if they do it now on the larger producers of tires, et cetera, at some point, they are going to look at doing it at the medium-sized producers.

The Yokohama plant that employs a lot of people in my district, in my hometown of Salem, Virginia, could be affected long term, but currently it affects Danville. Now, that is about 16 miles from the edge of my district. In my area, because it is a rural area, lots of people drive more than 16 or 17 or 18 miles, whatever the number is, to get to a good-paying job like these facilities have that make tires for the American market.

This rule wouldn't be the first time my constituents have seen an environmental rule from the government inflicting economic pain on our rural part of Virginia. Several years ago, an EPA rule ended up closing down a plant in a small town.

In the end, the Supreme Court struck down the rule just a few weeks after the coal-fired plant closed. It was in Glen Lyn, Virginia. A few weeks after the plant was closed by Appalachian Power, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA hadn't done it right. The rule was improper and it was invalidated by the Supreme Court, but they are not going to come back in and reopen the plant.

Those jobs are lost. The jobs of the people who worked there, who then ate lunch at the local lunch facilities, or who might have bought a car, or might have bought something else there in the very small town of Glen Lyn, no longer did so. As a result, the people there lost their livelihood, their economic resilience because of an erroneous EPA regulation.

The EPA's callous disregard for my peoples' jobs is not forgotten. What happened in Glen Lyn took about a decade. The population dropped, and last year, they turned in their charter to be a town. They are now an unincorporated census area inside of Giles County, and it all started with an EPA regulation that was misguided and improperly done.

I submit, Madam Speaker, that this regulation is probably not properly done, but that is for the courts to decide. We can fix it, though, here in Congress with this Congressional Review Act.

Some on the other side may say, if we repeal this regulation, we are letting tire manufacturers get away with unchecked pollution.

Madam Speaker, I say not so. That is not so. The EPA's National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants would still exist. All major sources would still have to abide by their Clean Air Act Title V permits and various other Federal and local controls and regulations.

Regardless, if Congress were to pass this joint resolution, rubber tire manufacturers will still be subjected to pollution regulations. The EPA can always come back with an updated hazardous air pollutant standard if they can ever get actual data indicating specific and significant pollution. They don't have that now.

Madam Speaker, I urge all Members to join me in voting in favor of H.J. Res. 61 because it is important for peoples' jobs and for the principle of not doing willy-nilly regulations at the end of an administration in order to pursue something that does not have verifiable data indicating specific and significant pollution.

Mr. Speaker, further, as alluded to in this New York Post article, titled, ``Jen Psaki mocks reporter when asked about Keystone pipeline job losses,'' so-called ``green jobs'' are not plentiful enough to make up for jobs lost because of EPA regulations.

[From the New York Post, Feb. 8, 2021]

Washington--White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday

mocked a reporter who asked when workers on the canceled

Keystone XL pipeline would get ``green jobs'' promised by

President Biden.

It's expected that up to 11,000 jobs will be lost following

Biden's day-one decision to immediately shut down

construction of the pipeline that was supposed to carry oil

from Canada to Texas--leaving South Dakotans reeling and

1,000 people immediately out of work.

``Where is it that they can go for their green job?'' Fox

News reporter Peter Doocy asked Psaki at her Monday afternoon

press briefing, referring to Biden's promise to create good-

paying union jobs in the green energy sector as his

administration attempts to end the nation's reliance on

fossil fuels.

``That is something the administration has promised and

there is now a gap so I'm just curious when that happens,

when those people can count on that?'' Doocy added.

``Well, I'd certainly welcome you to present your data of

all the thousands and thousands of people who won't be

getting a green job,'' Psaki snarked. ``Maybe next time

you're here you can present that.''

``But you said they will be getting green jobs. I'm just

asking when that happens?'' Doocy responded, noting a report

by the Laborers' International Union of North America that

found 1,000 union jobs on the Keystone project would

``immediately vanish.''

Another 10,000 construction jobs expected to be created by

the project have also been nixed by Biden's decision.

A prominent union leader and Biden ally, AFL-CIO president

Richard Trumka, lashed the decision in Axios on HBO interview

Sunday, saying Biden should have also announced where he

would replace those lost jobs.

``I wish he hadn't done that on the first day, because the

Laborers International was right. It did and will cost us

jobs in the process,'' Trumka told Jonathan Swan.

``I wish he had paired that more carefully with the thing

that he did second by saying, `Here's where we're creating

jobs,' '' he went on, saying he believed Biden knows his

announcement was a ``mistake.''

Trumka, a former coal miner, also signaled his skepticism

at Biden's plan to transition coal, gas and oil workers to

clean energy jobs, saying he was subject to a similar failed

policy.

``You know, when they laid off at the mines back in

Pennsylvania, they told us they were going to train us to be

computer programmers,'' Trumka said.

``And I said, `Where are the computer programmer job at?'

`Uh, they're in, Oklahoma and they're in Vegas and they're

here.' And I said, `So, in other words, what we're going to

be is unemployed miners and unemployed computer programmers

as well' '' he recounted.

But Psaki swatted away the criticism and made a vague

promise that Biden would put a jobs plan forward in the

coming weeks.

``He has every plan to share more details on that plan in

the weeks ahead,'' she said when asked how Biden would

support workers left jobless by the decision.

Biden's climate czar John Kerry was also condemned by

Republicans last month as ``out of touch'' when he suggested

that energy and coal workers impacted by climate change

efforts could ``go to work to make the solar panels.''

Last month, the Biden administration unveiled its $2

trillion Green New Deal-fueled environmental plan, which

includes eliminating coal, oil and natural gas as electricity

sources by 2035.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, let me assure you that those of us on this side of the aisle have no desire to make people sick.

The number one test in a community as to whether or not there is a likelihood of being sick or healthy is whether or not the people have a good, strong economy and have a job. What this regulation would do is to take that away.

As I talked about with Glen Lyn, if you start shutting down factories, you shut down towns, and people don't have jobs. Then you will have people who are clearly going to have more issues with their health than they currently have.

Further, in regard to the various things that my colleague said, I have seen it before where the EPA goes out and they create a maximum achievable control technology and they claim, oh, it is out there or it will be soon, and industry tells me it doesn't exist.

Now, in this case, it does exist. It is just very expensive and it would take longer than the Clean Air Act gives them in order to install it. This is where I think we should take care of it instead of letting the executive branch do all of our work for us. They used proxy data and used total hydrocarbons instead of looking at what the EPA is charged with doing, which is the actual hazardous air pollutant. They don't have that data, and when they last checked for that data, they said there was an ample margin of safety.

November 29, they suddenly throw this regulation on the books as a final rule without referencing how the ample margin of safety that was found in 2020 somehow disappeared in a 4-year time period, how it went away. They don't have any data to show actual hazardous air pollutants. They used proxy data. That is not good enough for regulations that could cause the curtailment of tire manufacturing in the United States.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Rouzer), my colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Obviously, when, in 2020, the EPA found there was an ample margin of safety, there was no reason for the Energy and Commerce Oversight Committee, which at the time I chaired, to do an oversight hearing on something that appeared to be a matter which on its face would not require new regulation.

The EPA, of course, does things that sometimes are perplexing to many of us. I would submit as well that one would have anticipated they would have used, as they are supposed to, an actual hazardous air pollutant study or standard. Instead, they used a proxy study of total hydrocarbons.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Kelly), my friend.

Reclaiming my time, I would like to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Kelly).

Is the gentleman trying to tell the American people that it is only a minor rule, as one of our colleagues said, it is only a minor rule if it doesn't apply to you?

I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Kelly) for a response.

Also, if it doesn't take your job?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Crenshaw).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie), the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize none of us wants the world polluted. The gentlewoman indicated that somehow this was going to affect arsenic and lead. I suppose, in a theoretical world, perhaps it could, but there are other regulations on tire manufacturing that may deal with that.

That is not what this Congressional Review Act is about. It is about a regulation that was put into effect because, instead of looking for things like arsenic and lead or actual hazardous air pollutants, the EPA used a proxy measurement and measured carbon dioxide. They didn't use a test to come up with this rule based on arsenic or lead. It was a proxy using carbon.

Further, somebody said earlier, Mr. Speaker, that we were stripping away critical regulations. I would say, Mr. Speaker, if it was so critical, why did the Biden administration wait until November 29 with less than 2 months left in their term? If it was so critical, why did the EPA in 2020 find that there was an ample margin of safety in the regulations that already existed?

Mr. Speaker, this is not about stripping away all regulations on tire manufacturing. It is one specific ill-advised, ill-timed, expensive regulation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the EPA was under no obligation to do this regulation. They may have been under an obligation to look at unregulated hazardous air pollutants, but nowhere in the statute does it allow for proxy carbon studies.

Hydrocarbons are not listed as a hazardous air pollutant. The plain language, I repeat, does not authorize proxy or surrogate studies to say: Well, we looked at it, and there is a lot of carbon. Therefore, we are going to make specific regulations that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and may or may not cost jobs.

That is not their job. That is the purpose of the Congressional Review Act. It is to rein in unreasonable, improper, or irrational regulations done at the last minute by an outgoing administration or by an incoming team.

This is not something that needs to be on the books to protect health. They did a proxy study. They don't have actual data that shows that this would do any good at all. It will perhaps cause significant curtailment in production at certain facilities of tires made in the United States. It is our job as Members of Congress to prevent this travesty.

Mr. Speaker, I think that the arguments that we have made have now worn out. We have used up the mileage on these arguments. Now, we get to vote ``yes,'' and voting ``yes'' is where the rubber meets the road and gives us a more sound regulatory scheme related to tire manufacturing.

Mr. Speaker, I ask everyone to vote ``yes,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy) for the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I will try to clarify for the American people, those who may be tuning in, certainly the individuals who have joined us in the gallery today, what this debate is all about.

Just by way of context, let's consider what is happening in the world today. I don't know if my colleague from New York has checked his phone, but the stock market is plummeting. The 401(k)'s of residents in New York and residents in Colorado are wiped out. The massive tariffs that the President of the United States applied to our neighbors at midnight we know will increase the price of everything: groceries, fuel, energy, you name it.

There were mass layoffs of Federal workers, mass purges of veterans at different Federal agencies, mass terminations of Forest Service employees in my district working on wildfire mitigation, scientists at NOAA, individuals doing cancer research, all of that is happening as we speak. Yet, here we are in this august body debating what? Labeling requirements for appliances.

That is what the Republicans have decided to spend today debating, labeling requirements for pool heaters. I don't know if the gentleman from New York has a pool. I don't have a pool. I don't understand why we are wasting time in the House of Representatives debating regulatory requirements for pool heaters or labeling requirements for coolers and air-conditioners. Seriously.

The stock market is crashing, and this is how House Republicans choose to spend their time. Government funding is about to dry out 10 days from now and we want to spend our time talking about pool heaters.

Give me a break, Mr. Speaker. Let's get serious. This isn't what the people of the United States elected us to do. I implore my Republican colleagues to come to the table, work with us in good faith, and stand up to the Trump administration that is dismantling Federal agencies in your own districts.

Social Security offices are being shut down. There are constituents who can't get services from the Federal Government because this President has decided to dismantle these agencies piece by piece.

It is time to get our priorities right, Mr. Speaker. I can assure you that the priorities that the House Republicans are pursuing today and have been pursuing for the better part of the last 2\1/2\ months are grossly out of step with the values of the American people.

It is why I would hope every Member of this body would oppose the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it feels like I am living in the twilight zone again. I understand the gentleman from New York very much wants to spend a half hour debating labeling requirements for pool heaters. I get it. We all get it. It is important to you. It is not important to me and not important to the people who I represent. In the 5 minutes that you just spent describing the reasons for this bill in your view, the stock market has continued to go down. More corporations have announced that they will be increasing prices later this week because of President Trump's tariffs. I don't understand how you believe that that is lowering costs.

Again, I would implore my colleagues, let's get serious. There are plenty of substantive challenges facing this country that merit and warrant the attention of lawmakers here in Washington. For the record, House Democrats are not scared to debate any single one of them.

Apparently, reports this morning indicate that in the Republican Conference meeting, a member of Republican leadership stood up in the meeting and supposedly told his Conference a simple instruction: Not a single one of you should attend or participate in a townhall.

Why? It is because they are scared of their own constituents, Mr. Speaker. They understand that if they hold a townhall with their community, they will hear outrage from everyday American citizens who are pissed off, who are angry that the prices for everything are going up because of this reckless Trump administration's policies.

Again, you want to spend a half hour, an hour, 8 hours debating labeling requirements for pool heaters? Be my guest. However, don't expect House Democrats to participate in it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Tran), a veteran who served our country honorably who can speak to the reasons why this amendment is so important.

If we defeat the previous question, I will be offering an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 1637, the Protect Veteran Jobs Act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the gentleman from New York. We have a lot of folks who come to Washington, D.C., to observe these proceedings. I suspect it might seem a little rote to them. I would love to have an actual debate. Maybe there are some folks here from New York, some folks from Colorado who would like to see us engage in some substantive debate.

Therefore, I might ask the gentleman from New York because he ended his last remarks by appealing to the voices of the American people and that he and his Conference, in his view, are standing up for the voices of the American people.

I wonder if the gentleman might answer a question. Mr. Langworthy, have you held a townhall this year? It is not a rhetorical question. I am just asking.

Mr. Speaker, if I might ask the gentleman from New York, I believe colloquies are permitted in this Chamber.

I am not. I am asking, rather, through the Speaker to the gentleman from New York if he has held an in-person townhall with the people of New York that he represents this year. I am just curious.

He doesn't have to answer if he doesn't want to answer. It is a yes or no question. It is not a complicated question.

Okay, I will take it as a ``no.''

Clearly, he has not held a townhall in 2025. I would think he would be jumping up to clarify the record that he, in fact, had met with his constituents, Mr. Speaker, if that were the case. He clearly has not held a townhall. I understand why. I get it, because at this juncture, if House Republicans held townhalls, as their constituents express their outrage and indignation at the mass layoffs of Federal workers, of civil servants and at the tariffs that are increasing prices and at the stock market crashing, if their only response is: We took up a really important bill this week on labeling requirements for pool heaters, I could understand why one would have some trepidation about hosting a townhall under those circumstances.

Again, let us be serious about the work that we are called to do in this body. We are here to lower costs for working families, to build safer communities, to ultimately ensure that the American people, the American taxpayers, the Constitution is vindicated. It is unfortunate that my colleagues don't feel the same way.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about so-called theatrical performances. I didn't realize that asking the simple question of whether or not the gentleman had held a townhall this year counts as theater. I understand it is a forbidden question in the House Republican Conference now as to whether or not one has held a townhall, for obvious reasons.

My constituents certainly don't find that to be an offensive question. We have held five townhalls in the last 2 months. We look forward to holding more because we are going to be responsive to the American people. I wish my colleagues would do the same.

What I won't do, and I think what the American people won't do, is be lectured by Republicans about rising costs when literally, as we speak, Trump's tariffs are taking hold and beginning the process of increasing prices, which already started 30 days ago, and putting it into overdrive.

These are just a couple of headlines from the last 8 hours. ``New England, New York grid operators prepare to collect millions in tariffs on Canadian electricity.'' The New York Post says that car prices could potentially surge by $12,000 because of these tariffs.

House Republicans have the audacity to lecture us about increased costs when they are increasing the costs of everything?

By the way, this is not some foreign debate. I represent Colorado. I am proud to represent the great State of Colorado. I have never been to the gentleman's district in upstate New York, but my understanding is that it is pretty close to the Canadian border. There are billions of dollars of economic development in New York and commerce that is transacted between Canada and the United States a mere few miles from the gentleman's district. He describes this as theater?

I am not so sure that the folks in his district and that the people of New York will feel that way as these tariffs begin to kick in. I am sure that the farmers and the ranchers in Colorado that I represent, I can assure you, won't call it theater.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to spend every second of every minute of every day talking about the prior President. It has been a half hour now of my colleague on the other side of the aisle starting and ending every sentence with Joe Biden. Donald Trump is the President of the United States.

My colleague reminds us, yes, Republicans have a majority in the House and in the Senate. All I am suggesting is that maybe they should use that majority to do better things than waste everyone's time on labeling requirements for pool heaters. That is it. Maybe we ought to be a little bit more concerned with the 401(k)'s of our constituents, of working families in Buffalo and in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think that is too much to ask, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, as expected, we have a rebuttal replete with references to the 118th Congress, what Democrats did in the last Congress, assigning blame, and all the rest. I remind my colleague that the Republicans are in charge. They have the majority. They have the ability to shape events. They have a Republican President and a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.

I can certainly assure my colleague that my constituents, who are seeing their 401(k) balances vanish in real time, would not describe these policies as common sense. The stock market tanking, prices of fuel going up, prices of food going up, prices of cars and vehicles going up, car insurance, home insurance, you name it, under Trump's economy, everything goes up.

By the way, he is unabashed about it. I watched some of his press conference yesterday. He is not hiding it. He has acknowledged it. He has said outright that he knows these tariffs will increase prices in the short term, according to him, and he expects the Republican Conference to defend him tooth and nail as these prices go up.

The gentleman talks about economic growth. The Federal Reserve, the Atlanta branch, just yesterday forecasted negative GDP growth for this quarter. That is the first time in a long time there has been negative GDP growth under President Trump. This is the commonsense agenda that my colleague from New York sells to farmers and ranchers in Colorado? We are not buying it. The American people aren't buying it.

It is why I implore every Member of this body to oppose this rule.

Mr. Speaker, it is also why I would implore everyone to support the amendment to the rule that we would like to pursue by bringing up H.R. 1637, the Protect Veteran Jobs Act, which was brought up previously.

I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker, to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I will direct my comments to the Chair, to you, Mr. Speaker, to express my frustration, which is the frustration felt by so many of the hardworking people of the great State of Colorado that I have the privilege of representing in the House of Representatives. It is a frustration borne from the realities that they are facing each and every day.

As I mentioned, we have an economy that is in free fall, a stock market that is tanking. They are seeing their neighbors, their friends, public servants, being purged from Federal agencies, hardworking civil servants who do wildfire mitigation work in Colorado and across the Rocky Mountain West, unceremoniously fired.

There are scientists at the NOAA and NWS facilities in Boulder and elsewhere being subject to these mass terminations by a Federal executive who seems intent on dismantling agency after agency. We have a House Republican caucus that is walking with him in lockstep every step of the way as they prepare to slash Medicaid to the tunes of hundreds of billions of dollars.

The frustration that my constituents feel is justified, because notwithstanding every single one of those transgressions, every single one of those challenges, those obstacles that Republicans have manufactured and created in their daily lives, if they tune in to this debate, they will see that the focus is on none of that and instead on the matters that we have discussed today.

My constituents, Mr. Speaker, do not want to see me debating labeling requirements for pool heaters. They don't. I won't speak for what the people of New York have to say about their Representatives. I will just say for Colorado and Coloradans, they expect me to be here pursuing policies that will make their lives easier, that will promote economic growth and a better quality of life. They are not getting it from this House under Republican control. I can assure you of that.

I understand House Republicans, I am sure, will pass the rule and they will get their bill on water heaters and pool heaters and air conditioners passed through the House. They will have a big fancy signing ceremony at the White House where they will celebrate the fact that they repealed a labeling requirement rule that was promulgated a year ago.

I fear for what the broader economic trends will be when they have that signing ceremony. Who knows. But if past is prologue, I am reasonably confident that the economy will continue the free fall unless Republicans work with us, Democrats, in good faith, to pursue policies that would advance opportunity in our country.

That is my humble request, Mr. Speaker. The best way to get started is by opposing the previous question, opposing the rule, opposing the underlying bills, and getting back to the business of this House.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we are just 2 months into this Congress, yet we have already seen one favor after another to Big Oil from our friends across the aisle.

Republicans just can't get enough, and so we are back here once again giving another favor to Big Oil. One gets the feeling that the majority is just warming up and that this is going to be a recurring theme in this Congress.

Meanwhile, we are 1 week away from a government shutdown. We are on the heels of what we know is a Republican plan to gut Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Today, are my colleagues across the aisle talking about any of those things? No.

Republican Members have brought us here to talk about repealing a minor rule that simply protects marine archeological resources. If that sounds ridiculous to my colleagues, that is because it is.

This bill targets a rule from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is the agency that regulates offshore energy development in Federal waters. The rule says that underwater surveys, which these companies already conduct before they drill, simply have to meet some basic, consistent standards. Wow, the heavy hand of government.

Republicans have argued that this is simply too burdensome for their friends in Big Oil. Yet, the rule doesn't even require companies to conduct any new surveys. Companies already do these surveys.

The rule simply states that future surveys need to adhere to minimum standards to be used for archeological reports. No matter how my colleagues slice it, this rule will not cause a substantial financial burden to operators. It just ensures that the data that companies collect can be used to look for things like shipwrecks and other historically important objects.

Mr. Speaker, the chairman said in his opening remarks that he doesn't like the fact that they need to look for these things in areas where they are not known to exist.

That is kind of the whole point. If you are not going to look for them while already there doing a survey, we may never know that things actually exist in some areas. Without these surveys, operators might not discover these archeological resources until they go to drill.

Here is what happens when they find out at that point: It forces costly delays for their friends in the oil industry because, regardless of whether this survey work is completed beforehand, companies still have to comply with laws that protect shipwrecks and mitigate impacts to sites that were once above water and home to indigenous peoples.

The rule actually promotes efficiency, something Republicans say that the majority cares a lot about. It prevents delays and extra costs for good actors who report unexpected finds, as they are required to do under the law. It keeps bad actors from just quietly working and hoping that no one notices, something that is much easier to get away with if you are not required to do those studies in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, why do Republicans want to roll this rule back? Well, for one, my guess is that Republicans saw that it was a Biden regulation on offshore oil and gas. If Biden did it, it must be bad.

My colleagues want to pick a fight with anything that Republicans perceive to be a threat to Big Oil, even a minor rule that actually helps the industry avoid unexpected costs.

The second very likely reason that we are here is that my Republican colleagues are looking for ways to kill time. The majority needs some pretext to chew up some floor time here in Congress to distract the public.

This resolution does that, and it allows Republicans to keep working behind the scenes on their plan to find tax giveaways for their billionaire friends and working behind the scenes on their plan that we know is coming to cut Medicaid and SNAP deeply, hurting working families all over this country. My Republican colleagues have voted on the framework for that last week and are still squabbling with the Senate over the details and what comes next.

Clearly, we are not doing work this week to fund the government or to stop Trump's new tax on energy, which he calls a tariff, standing up to self-dealing billionaires who are taking a sledgehammer to our Federal Government, or dealing with their illegal firing of workers and constituents of many of us and causing complete chaos across the country.

Instead of holding this administration accountable for all of that, House Republicans are urgently tinkering,

trying to create the appearance that my colleagues across the aisle are busy doing something here in Congress on a minor rule that simply requires scientific standards for underwater surveys.

Republican Members don't want people to remember that the majority voted just last week to set in motion devastating cuts to Medicaid and SNAP or that, a few days ago, Elon Musk said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Yet, the other night, my Republican friends stood and applauded for him like he was Elvis Presley.

The majority also doesn't want people to remember that the Trump administration has announced plans to cut staffing in half at the Social Security Administration, guaranteeing that services for seniors will suffer, or that the Trump Secretary of Agriculture just went on television and told Americans who are struggling with food prices to get a chicken.

That is why House Republicans want to talk about something else. That is why we are here to debate and vote on this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this farcical resolution and the theater that it represents, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues across the aisle are arguing that the rule is duplicative and that the offshore drilling industry is already doing these surveys.

Mr. Speaker, that is kind of the point. The fact that these surveys are already being done is exactly why this rule is so simple and not burdensome. The rule does not require any new or standalone surveys for the vast majority of leases. It simply makes sure that these surveys are done right, these surveys that are already being performed, so that we can protect archeological sites by identifying them before the work starts.

This is common sense. It is a tweak that will provide important protection for offshore archeological resources, bring the agency into compliance with the law, and actually promote efficiency.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Elfreth).

Mr. Speaker, let's talk about this claim of a double standard and of hypocrisy. Oh, the poor fossil fuel industry is being singled out.

Poor Big Oil with its record profits and its record exports and its executive bonuses and its collusion with OPEC to gouge American consumers, they are just such a victim in the telling of my friends across this aisle.

I hate to intrude on that narrative with a little bit of truth, but the fact is, the offshore wind industry already does this stuff. They have to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act.

The reason that the fossil fuel industry is the subject of this regulation is to bring them into compliance. I guess it reflects the radical proposition that the Big Oil oligarchs, your pals in the industry, should play by the same rules as everyone else. That is not socialism or wokeness or anything else. It should just be common sense and fairness.

Mr. Speaker, I will talk about the real human cost of our Republican friends' allergy, opposition, reflexive opposition, to any type of regulation and what this CRA would mean for working men and women on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Marine archaeological surveys are not just a nice idea. They actually are safeguards that protect workers from hidden dangers lurking beneath the waves. These surveys can detect unexploded ordnance, UXOs, which are military ammunition, that has never detonated.

There is actually a lot of that out there. From World War II into the 1970s, the Federal Government dumped massive amounts of UXOs into the ocean, including depth charges, torpedoes, munitions, mustard gas, and even chemical weapons, all in designated explosive dumping areas. If that wasn't bad enough, these same waters were used to dispose of radioactive waste.

The old technology used to map these areas was crude at best, leaving countless unexploded devices scattered beyond known dumping areas, but modern marine archaeological surveys can identify these things and save lives before disaster strikes.

Rather than protect workers from these deadly hazards, Republicans want to repeal this commonsense rule, rolling the dice with human life in the name of corporate profits. They wrap it all up in a phony pitch about prices like they are standing up for the little guy while they look the other way when their oil oligarch pals collude with OPEC to gouge American consumers.

Well, what about the working-class men and women who power our offshore energy industry? What about their safety? Are they just collateral damage for the latest favor to Big Oil? Let's be clear. This resolution isn't about helping the common worker, it is about Republicans making good on their promise to deliver for Big Oil billionaires destroying our planet.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

My Republican colleagues decided that the best use of our time today is to debate whether or not we should keep a commonsense rule that protects Tribal resources, worker safety, and our Nation's history. They claim we must do this because this rule is too burdensome for oil and gas companies and will create higher energy prices for American consumers. All of that is nonsense.

What does this rule actually require of companies like Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, companies that make between $28- and $85 billion a year? It requires them to tweak surveys that oil and gas companies are already doing so that they can proactively look for marine archaeological resources or unexploded ordnance, discoveries that would actually stop oil and gas development if they didn't do this proactively.

Even without this rule, this is a commonsense look-before-you-drill provision that benefits the American people and keeps offshore workers safe.

Republicans aren't delivering for everyday Americans. If they were, they would take a stand on ridiculous tariffs that Trump is imposing on our closest allies or unconstrained exports of liquefied natural gas that are driving up energy prices or repealing energy tax credits in the IRA, all policies on their side that are going to raise energy prices.

If they were delivering for everyday Americans, they wouldn't allow working-class people to go out into the Outer Continental Shelf without the guarantee that they aren't working on top of unexploded military ammunition or radioactive waste. That is what this rule does. It protects workers and the public interest.

If they were delivering for everyday Americans, they would not allow massive firings of essential employees who protect public lands.

If they were delivering for everyday Americans, they would not vote for healthcare to be ripped away, like they just did last week.

The Republican agenda in the House today accomplishes one thing and one thing only--selling out the American people and our planet so they can continue to enrich the oil baron oligarchs and billionaire class. This resolution is just the latest favor to these elites.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 177, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 42) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Energy relating to ``Energy Conservation Program for Appliance Standards: Certification Requirements, Labeling Requirements, and Enforcement Provisions for Certain Consumer Products and Commercial Equipment'', and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the legislation and to insert extraneous material on H.J. Res. 42.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie), the chairman of

the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Allen).

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I find this debate fascinating and interesting. That may come as a shock, because it is really pretty boring. However, I find it interesting because my colleagues have just said: Why are we spending time worrying about this little regulation from the Department of Energy when employees are losing their jobs?

Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that if this is such a small, little regulation, I mean it is merely a labeling thing that doesn't cost very much according to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, then what in the world were we doing having DOE employees?

We have got so many DOE employees that they have time to spend all day, weeks, and months creating a new regulation that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim doesn't really have much value to it, it is just a little label.

I would submit, Mr. Speaker, it costs more than what DOE has estimated, because even though they spent countless hours coming up with this new regulation, I would submit that in my opinion it looks like they only counted the cost of the new labels. That is because somebody has to send it to legal, and we have to determine if the new certification has any legal consequences.

Does it say something on the new appliance or on the appliance that is already out there but is in the production process that might cause a legal issue?

I would submit it costs our manufacturers not only the money to print the label but an employee to come up with the new label before it goes to legal to be looked at. Somebody has to pay those people.

While the cost of the labels might only be $200,000, there is a cost to each company. That is because this is broad. It doesn't apply to one or two little items. It applies to all kinds of stuff.

I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that that is where your real cost is, and instead of being concerned about coming up with some kind of a new certificate that has to have a new label, maybe we shouldn't have been doing that at the DOE. Maybe we should have been focusing on making small nuclear reactors available for communities and working on ways to provide a stronger electric grid; but no, no, by golly, we are going to have the best labels in the world. That is what we need.

Mr. Speaker, I submit to you this regulation needs to go away, but my colleagues have told me that it is insignificant. If they don't think it is significant, I think we should get rid of it, particularly when it is going to cost businesses.

It may not cost every business, maybe one manufacturer out of dozens and dozens, or maybe hundreds. I haven't done a study, Mr. Speaker. I will just tell you that it has been interesting to listen to all of this discussion.

I will remind you, Mr. Speaker, that over the last 4 years, the Biden administration finalized more than 30 new or updated energy efficiency standards that ended up totaling over $60 billion in costs. This is just one of many cuts to our manufacturing base in the United States and our producers as well as across the world.

The Biden administration was out to regulate or restrict nearly every appliance or piece of equipment relied upon by every single American household and business.

Today, the House will vote on H.J. Res. 42 to repeal yet another Biden-Harris administration rule that only serves to increase red tape and costs to manufacturers. We know what happens when the costs to manufacturers go up; the American consumer pays the price.

In October 2024, the Department of Energy finalized new and amended certification, labeling, and enforcement provisions for about 20 different products, including dishwashers, central AC, heat pumps, and more.

I am going to get to the ``and more'' in a minute.

Today, an American homeowner spends about 34 percent more money on appliances than they did just 15 years ago. From 1995 to 2005, the average homeowner replaced their appliances about every 12 or 13 years. These days families get new appliances about every 8 or 9 years. Maybe it is because they are not as efficient as they used to be. I don't know.

However, I do know on one washer-dryer standard, according to the data--I believe this was DOE data--there was a 46-year payback on a device that was expected to last or be expected to be used by the homeowner 8 to 9 years. We are going to make it more efficient, but, by golly, it is going to cost you, Mr. Speaker. It is going to cost you, and it is going to take 46 years to pay back on an item you will only use for about 10.

Consumers are buying more frequently in part because some energy standards make the appliance wear down more quickly. That is what my suspicion was all along.

Consumers don't see the savings. These appliances just don't last as long because they have got to run their washing machine three times.

I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, one time I had a constituent contact me, and she said: Morgan, look at this picture. I take a hose from my backyard to fill up my washing machine because under the new guidelines there is not enough water in there to actually get my clothes clean on one time, so I supplement it with the backyard hose and add more water to my washing machine.

Yeah, that is really, really good policy.

I remember an old DOE energy standard from a few years ago that one of my constituents told me about related to the washing machine. I just told you that story, Mr. Speaker, and I think it is instructive.

This final rule will only expand already broken efficiency standards, increase costs, and slow the development of reliable, efficient products.

On a previous DOE standard for electric combination washer-dryers, DOE said in plain black and white in Federal regulations: payback period 46 years.

DOE itself estimates this final rule might only cost $213,000, but that is $213,000 we don't have to spend. As I said, I don't think it is that cheap. I think by the time you get finished with the lawyers and everybody who has to review it and all the time that is spent by your employees, Mr. Speaker, it is a lot more than that in reality.

DOE assumes manufacturers will incur these additional costs, but we know better than that. They will send that on to the consumer, and it will cost us more money.

It also has a DOE expansion in data collection. In one example regarding the data collection, Mr. Speaker, you have to collect the data for dedicated purpose swimming pool pump motors.

Historically, DOE only collected data demonstrating compliance with efficiency standards. However, in this final rule, DOE aims to expand reporting requirements to store data for potential future conservation standards.

If you are trying to run a pool, whether at your house or a commercial operation, I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that is an additional cost. You are

having to collect all this data, Mr. Speaker, or if it is built into your machine, then that is going to cost more, and it is unnecessary. We are making everything more complicated.

Mr. Speaker, you will be surprised to know that at one time in my life I was a Virginia certified pool operator. That is why I brought this over. I keep this on my desk. When the baby pool pump--that would qualify as one of these dedicated purpose swimming pool pump motors-- when it broke down, and it would have been in 1980, I found that when we had to get it replaced, this was the gadget that had worn out.

It reminded me that we were moving from brass, in this case, to plastic, and so I have kept it on my desk all these years.

Who knew it would become important today because probably some kind of a label should have been on here if we had today's standards in place. I don't know. All I do know is that when you are trying to get something replaced, Mr. Speaker, particularly in the case of a swimming pool, when the pump breaks, it means you are going to have to shut your facility down, and you are not looking at the label on the new pump motor. You are just getting it in there as fast as you can. You are driving over to the swimming pool supply place, Mr. Speaker, or you are calling them up and saying: Get over here now.

That came out of the Hunting Hills Country Club baby swimming pool where I was the manager that summer and was a certified pool operator to have that job.

Now we are going to be collecting data on all this stuff. Mr. Speaker, you would think we were TikTok in the way we are collecting data on swimming pool motors and other devices.

This overcollection jeopardizes confidential business information. It might not have mattered to the swimming pools I worked with, but it complicates the matter. It is an inappropriate use of the certification process.

Additionally, many of the provisions in this final rule are also duplicative of existing reporting requirements by certain States, EPA, and Energy Star. This increase in red tape will do nothing to lower appliance prices, and it will do nothing to lengthen product lifetimes or to bring real energy savings to the American homeowner.

Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Georgia (Mr. Clyde) for his leadership on bringing this to our attention. I urge all Members to join me in voting in favor of H.J. Res. 42, and I yield back the balance of my time.