Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On President Biden’s Ambitious Executive Order To Reduce Carbon Pollution And Fight Climate Change And The Importance Of The Clean Cars For America Proposal

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding President Biden’s executive order setting an ambitious goal to make half of all new cars sold in America zero-emissions by the end of the decade and including Senator Schumer’s Clean Cars for America proposal in the Build Back Better plan and the upcoming reconciliation package. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

President Biden announced this morning that he will sign an executive order to significantly escalate our country’s fight against climate change.

Specifically, President Biden’s executive order will set an ambitious goal to make half of all new cars sold in America zero-emissions by the end of the decade. He’ll announce further steps to address several of the worst climate-warming rules that were put in place under the Trump Administration.

I applaud President Biden for taking necessary steps to put our country on the path to substantially reduce our carbon pollution. Climate change is the defining challenge of our times. We have no choice but to reduce our country’s greenhouse gas emissions—very quickly—to reach the targets that will spare our country and our planet the worst effects of climate change.

And we cannot do that without dealing with carbon pollution from the cars we drive. Transportation is the biggest source of carbon pollution, accounting for roughly one-third of America’s carbon output.

So President Biden’s executive order is an important step in the right direction and I’m happy and proud to say it dovetails with an effort I’ve long advocated here in the Congress, even before the Biden Presidency. It’s called Clean Cars for America, and in fact President Biden generously adopted our Clean Cars for America plan and placed it in his Build Back Better.

My Clean Cars for America proposal—and I’ve worked closely with Senators Stabenow and Peters and others on this proposal—would help our country make the transition that President Biden is talking about today by making electric cars more affordable, expanding our charging infrastructure, and creating incentives to manufacture batteries and electric vehicles here in America. It's good for climate, it's good for jobs, and it's good for America to become the center of electric car manufacturing in the world, as we have been with the traditional type of automobile.

The proposal, I’m proud to say, we worked hard to make this happen. Clean Cars for America—now, as I said, is largely adapted in the Biden Build Back Better Plan—is supported not only by the environmental community, but by the major labor unions, and several of the major car manufacturers as well. It's the first time on a major piece of climate legislation that we’ve gotten such broad support. The transition to electric vehicles, of course, is already underway; but it is not happening fast enough to reach the targets that President Biden announced today.

Clean Cars for America is the way to supercharge the transition to electric vehicles, and some of it was put in the bipartisan infrastructure bill. But large parts of it we hope to add in the reconciliation process.

Put another way: If President Biden’s executive order represents the destination we need to reach on the horizon, our Clean Cars for America is the road to get there.

President Biden’s announcement, combined with my Clean Cars proposal, represent the bold level of action we need to tackling carbon pollution from cars.

When Democrats assumed the majority, I instructed my Committee chairs to find climate-reducing policies to incorporate into the legislation we work on.

Earlier this year, the Senate passed the first major climate legislation in years when we reversed the Trump Administration’s Methane emissions rule.

And as we continue working on a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a budget resolution, I have committed that we will make historic investments in reversing climate change.

I’m proud to say that our Clean Cars for America is going to be a very big part of that.

Democrats promised action on climate, and we are going to make it a vital part of the legislation we work on in the weeks to come. It’s a big challenge but it’s one we must meet. It’s so important for the future of our planet, for our children, and for our grandchildren, even more than for us.

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