Brett Guthrie: “Mr. Speaker, we are working on affordability. This whole bill is about affordability. If we look, because of the current…”

“Mr. Speaker, we are working on affordability. This whole bill is about affordability. If we look, because of the current Biden-Harris appliance policies, there is a 28 percent increase for refrigerators, a 25 percent increase for air-conditioners, and a 28 percent increase for dishwashers. The argument is they are going to pay more up front, but they are going to make it back in efficiency over time. A refrigerator takes 6 years and sometimes, depending on which model you buy, 46 years to recoup the increase in the value. These are Department of Energy numbers. It is up to 10 years on refrigerators. The question is: Do people want to pay a fourth more for a refrigerator in the hopes that over the next 10 years they will get that money back? It is just not realistic, and that is why we are fighting for affordability. When we look at the energy prices being up, we can look at a map of the United States and see in which States they are up. They are higher. They are higher in States that have policies like this. They come particularly from blue States in our country. Local governments have put the affordability crisis in their cities. State governments have put the affordability crisis in their States. I remember being in California just last year and putting gas in a rental car. I looked over and I think I was paying well over $5 there when I was paying about $2.50 in Kentucky.”