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...

On 2025-04-29, Senator Angela D. Alsobrooks (D-MD) delivered a floor speech titled "PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5, UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE DEP" in the Senate.

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...

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 71 (Tuesday, April 29, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 71 (Tuesday, April 29, 2025)] [Senate] [Pages S2644-S2656] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] 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'' The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The bill clerk read as follows: A 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''. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii. Trump Administration First 100 Days Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, we are 100 days into Donald Trump's term, and it is time that we ask the most important question, the most obvious question, but it is a question, actually, that has not been asked enough--not ``How is he doing?'' not even ``What is he doing?'' That is important too. The most important question is ``How are we doing under Donald Trump?'' The answer is ``Terrible.'' It is going very badly. In 3 months, we have become less safe, less secure, and less prosperous, and it comes down to Donald Trump. People voted for him for all kinds of reasons, but as my friend Senator Chris Murphy said, people took him seriously when he said he would lower costs and didn't take him seriously when he said he would act like a dictator. It turns out that the opposite is true. We are paying more for everything. We are paying more for everything. People's life savings and college plans for their kids are being gutted. Tens of thousands of jobs are getting cut. Investors are looking for more stable places to invest their money. The hallmark of the U.S. financial system and economy is that we are the most stable place, the most predictable place, the best place for rule of law, to park your money, for infrastructure, for higher education, and all of that has been lit on fire in 100 days. Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. Trump's approach to tariffs--one day they are on, and the next day they are gone--is starting to make everything from groceries, to clothes, to cars and homes more expensive. And people are understandably worried about a recession. Consumer confidence is at its lowest point in 5 years. You will recall that there was a global pandemic that caused people to have a low level of consumer confidence. But this is not a global pandemic; this is a self-imposed recession by one person who has a very weird idea about economic policy and nobody willing to stand up to the mad King. This is not what people voted for. And if you voted for Donald Trump--look, a lot of people voted for Donald Trump. Most people voted for Donald Trump. I am not here to scold anybody. But people thought that whatever his other faults, Trump was going to be good for the money side of things--he was going to be good for your money; he was going to be good for entrepreneurship; he was going to be good for your 401(k); he was going to be good for the stock market; he was going to be good for investments. Here we are, and the American economy is in a free fall, threatening to drag the entire world down with it. But it is not just the economy that is hurting. Trump, aided by his band of rogue advisers, including Elon Musk and Russ Vought, has broken basically everything, forcing seniors and disabled people to wait for hours just to get help with the benefits they have already earned. Veterans are being laid off by the thousands and facing even longer delays in getting the care they need. Trash is piling up at national parks with fewer park rangers to look after them. Drastic cuts to medical research and staff mean fewer discoveries and potentially lifesaving treatments for conditions like cancer and Alzheimer's. The national parks, the VA, the NIH, the CDC--these are the kinds of American institutions that have made us strong for generations, and they are being trashed on purpose. A proposed downsizing at the Postal Service will keep people waiting longer to get their packages and their mail and their prescriptions and their bills, especially in rural and remote areas. And none of this is saving any money. It is absolutely making people's everyday lives harder. OK, so the economy is not doing great, support services are being cut left and right, but are we at least safer and stronger and more respected globally? The answer is no. Since his first hours in office when he froze all foreign assistance, Trump has undermined our safety and national security at every single turn. He has picked fights with neighbors and allies, weakening longstanding partnerships and forcing the rest of the world to work against us rather than with us. [[Page S2645]] I was in Europe a couple of months ago, and it was kind of jarring when our allies--and I mean our allies, our closest allies, who have always been there with us, who have defense treaties with us, who have economic partnerships with us, who have people-to-people ties--came to us and said that the biggest destabilizing force on the planet is the President of the United States. We used to be the good guys that would respond to disasters and treat diseases around the world, but Trump has decimated one of the most successful global health programs in history--PEPFAR--leaving an estimated 1 million newborns to contract HIV from their mothers--1 million newborns contracting HIV from their mothers. What possible purpose could there be behind that? One note to my former colleague Secretary Rubio: There is not a waiver program in place that allows lifesaving aid to flow. These organizations that provide aid are absolutely shutting down. I was just talking to a colleague who was in Africa over the recess period, and he said kids are on half rations. Kids are half the size they are supposed to be because of what America is doing--because of what America is doing. An earthquake hit Myanmar, and the United States sent three aid workers to assist with the disaster response, who were then fired while they were on the ground. We have three people there to help people in Myanmar, where there was a catastrophic earthquake. The ``United States'' logo is on their armbands, and they are fired and told to come home. Guess what happened next. China sent 600 workers and has committed to delivering close to $14 million in supplies. I think that is catastrophic for humanitarian reasons. I think that is catastrophic for moral reasons. I think it is bad that the United States is causing death on purpose. But even if you don't care about that, we can at least see the geopolitical downside to vacating the scene when another country is in trouble and letting China go into the breach. I have a friend of a friend who just texted me. They were doing good work in Fiji, and they were sent home. China came in within 2 weeks and is performing the same work. I cannot imagine anybody making the argument that that is good for the United States. You do not counter China's growing regional influence or outcompete its economy by walking away from the world and insulting all of your friends. You don't bring peace to Gaza and Ukraine by making false promises and empty threats, nor do you win the future on issues like AI and clean energy by pretending that America, as strong and powerful as we are--and we are strong and powerful--that we can solve any of these global challenges alone. A lot of Trump's failures, whether in domestic or foreign policy, boil down to the simple fact that he and his people honestly don't know what they are doing. There is no grand strategy that we are all somehow missing. There is no brilliant, new way of looking at things. They are just kind of messing around in the most powerful positions on the planet--the Signal group chat, the forged DOGE savings receipts, the frantic firing and rehiring of nuclear weapons workers and disease detectives. The people currently in charge of the most powerful Nation in human history, moving trillions of dollars around, are just winging it, and their response to the frequent mistakes, no matter how serious or costly, is ``oops'' or sometimes they pretend it was their plan all along. Trump's ineptitude is matched only by his corruption. Just days before his inauguration, he launched his own meme coin, which he encouraged supporters to buy. For those of you who are not super up on all the crypto stuff, this is the equivalent of basically saying: I have a Swiss bank account in case anybody wants to deposit money into the President of the United States' pocket. That is what this meme coin does. After he made close to $100 million from it, the coin quickly lost most of its value. And then just last week, after Trump announced a dinner with the coin's top holders, complete with a ``VIP White House tour''--let's be very clear. There are some things you absolutely can't do. One of them is to monetize the Presidency. The other thing is to use a government building, to use the White House as an inducement to pay the U.S. President is out-of-this-world corrupt. It is the kind of thing that if you are on the Foreign Relations Committee or the Defense Committee or whatever it is and you are traveling abroad, you will have in your talking points to scold some counterpart of yours about corruption. This is the kind of thing that, up until about 100 days ago, we went around the world trying to prevent, but now our leader is doing it. While regular people are losing money

Referenced legislation: HJRES42