On the recordApril 18, 2024
Madam President, I rise today because I truly want to depoliticize this. I want to give you the facts because I was the one who negotiated the bill with the President. I negotiated the bill with the Speaker of the House. I negotiated this bill with the majority leader. So let me give you the facts and depoliticize it, take the Republican-Democrat equation out of this. This rule should have never happened. It wasn't our intent, and it wasn't what we agreed upon. We shouldn't even be voting down or up on this rule today because it should have never been here. I will tell you the reason why. The IRA was designed truly--and we all agreed--on energy security and manufacturing in America. That was it: energy security and manufacturing. We are producing more energy today than ever in the history of the world. We produce more energy today than anybody else in the world, and they are having a hard time grabbing that. But that was the way we designed the bill, to be an all-in. We are going to do fossil cleaner and better than anywhere in the world and more of it, and we are going to do investments in clean technology energy for the future. And we have done that. When we put this bill out, the administration knew exactly the timetables. I am giving you the timetables here, and I can show you how they have accelerated everything because it did not meet their timetable. The deadlines are 2024, 2023. They are going with the temporary rules, 2026 and 2027.…





