Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), House Republican Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), and Congressman John James (R-Mich.) to express support for a range of bills – including the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act and the Save Our Gas Stoves Act – which would curb the Biden Administration’s extreme efforts to restrict and regulate Americans’ daily lives. As unelected bureaucrats in Washington push costly regulatory agendas, Leader Scalise highlighted the REINS Act as an important measure to limit such overreach and provide accountability for the American people. Leader Scalise also highlighted bills which would rebuff the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency rule to ban gas stoves for millions of hardworking American families. Leader Scalise slammed the rule as another example of bureaucrats attempting to push an extreme left-wing agenda and limit American freedoms.
Leader Scalise’s remarks:
“We’ve got another busy week and really, if you look at the agenda this week, it’s like a lot of the weeks you’ve seen over the last few months we’ve been in the majority. It’s Republicans fighting for the hardworking families across this country who are struggling under the weight of all the crazy, extremist regulations coming out of the Biden Administration. From bad energy policies to a bad border policy – that’s led to devastation across our country, fentanyl deaths, [and] millions of people coming into our country – to now what we’re seeing from the Department of Energy and the [Consumer Product Safety Commission]: the idea that you would ban gas stoves.
“Does the Biden Administration not have more serious problems to deal with than trying to tell families in America what kind of stove they should be cooking their food on? And yet, that’s what we’re seeing from the Biden Administration: literally a plan to ban gas stoves, and this is coming from an administration who – just a few weeks ago – said they weren’t going to do it. A few months ago, actually. You know, at the beginning of the year, they said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re not going to have to gas stoves,’ after they saw what happened in [House Republican Conference Chair] Stefanik’s state, where they went after gas stoves. [The] Biden Administration said they weren’t going to do it, until they then went after it and did it.
“And families are looking at this saying, ‘Why are you going to continue going after these hardworking families?’ They’re trying to tell you what kind of car you can drive by banning gasoline and diesel engines. Then, they’re going to try to tell you what kind of stove you can use in your house, or what kind of oven you can buy.
“You saw this during COVID, when they tried to tell parents, ‘Don’t worry, you shouldn’t be worrying about your kids’ education and seeing what’s going on in the classroom. Stay out of the classroom, we’ll take care of that,’ and parents realized what was going on in the classroom and said, ‘No, we are going to have a say in what’s happening in our kids’ classroom. We want to have a say and how we live our lives. We don’t want government control.’
“And you saw this over-and-over during COVID, where people actually did have choices where they could move out of states that were trying to control every aspect of their life, and they moved towards states that gave them freedom. Look at the states that lost population and the states that gained population during COVID. New York, California, Illinois – go down the line – all of those states lost hundreds of thousands of people, and states – like Texas, Florida, Tennessee, where they believed in [and] embraced freedom – were the ones that were growing. And that trend continues, but in Washington, they haven’t figured it out, because they’ve got these extremists control freaks running some of these agencies that wake up every day coming up with these crazy ideas about how to change your life, and it’s hurting hardworking families.
“It’s not like these decisions don’t have a cost. Just look at the stove example. A gas stove – compared to an electric stove – a gas stove actually costs less money, and if the government’s banning it, it’s not going to affect the billionaire friends of Democrats. It’s going to affect those lower- and middle-income families who are already struggling from the other devastating, far-Left, extremist ideas coming out of the Biden Administration.
“Think about what’s happening today. [The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] is getting ready to control and limit production of energy because they want a higher price of gasoline. Now, that’s a pretty big news story today, and it’s going to be something that has a real negative effect on families all across America who are already paying 50 percent higher in gasoline costs. But that would not even be a news story today if the Biden Administration stopped attacking American energy. If we were able to produce all that we can here in America, with the safest environmental standards of any energy-producing country in the world, then OPEC’s decision today would be irrelevant because it wouldn’t affect oil prices – because America could pick up the difference. America could produce more, and the price of oil and natural gas would actually be going down.
“So, these decisions coming out in the Biden Administration – day-after-day and month-after-month – are having devastating impacts on hardworking families. It’s like the REINS Act. It’s like the bill going after Chevron deference that we’re bringing up this week, also, because all of these decisions are costing families thousands of dollars a year that it’s taking out of their pocket to appease some unelected, extremist bureaucrat in the Biden Administration.
“Enough is enough. Republicans are standing up for those hardworking families. I hope we get a lot of Democrats that vote for these bills too and, frankly, I think we will on some of them, but at some point, the Biden Administration is going to have to start listening to those families who are sick and tired of having to pay the cost for the extremist ideas of these control freaks working in these agencies that just want to tell you how to live your life at a higher cost than what you were paying just two years ago.”