Chris Van Hollen
Senator for Maryland · Democratic · United States
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S4105] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRIBUTE TO COLONEL YOLANDA D. GORE Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr.”
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S4105] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRIBUTE TO COLONEL YOLANDA D. GORE Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr.”
“She brought modernization to Fort Meade and the surrounding community by implementing a barracks renovation project, helping break ground on a child development center, and reforming physical security across the installation.”
“She brought modernization to Fort Meade and the surrounding community by implementing a barracks renovation project, helping break ground on a child development center, and reforming physical security across the installation.”
“She earned a bachelor's degree in family and consumer science business and later went on to earn a master of arts in leadership and management from Webster University and a master of arts in strategic studies from the Army War College.”
“She earned a bachelor's degree in family and consumer science business and later went on to earn a master of arts in leadership and management from Webster University and a master of arts in strategic studies from the Army War College.”
The complete record
Every one of 361 lines we hold for Chris Van Hollen, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 8.
“I will speak for the next, probably, hour-plus on the topic of election integrity and the seemingly constant attacks on our election integrity by Donald Trump and our Republican colleagues. I am joined by a number of my friends and colleagues in our remarks here for the next block. Senator Welch will be speaking next, our colleague from Vermont, and then Senator Blumenthal, Senator Merkley, Leader Schumer, Senator Klobuchar, and Senator Bennet. And it will be wrapped up with my partner in organizing this group of Senators, Senator Reed, who is not only the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee but is the ranking member of the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing funding for this space. I rise today, with my colleagues, out of grave concern for the future of our democracy.”
“It is the young generation who is saying: We must figure out a way of reducing this pollution that we are sending up into the atmosphere. Once again, the Republicans are bringing up another bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate that is going to dramatically increase pollution, and that is going into the lungs of every child, of every pregnant mother in our country, and it is absolutely irresponsible and absolutely unnecessary, except for the role that the oil and gas industry plays in the politics of the Republican Party. With that, I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California. SAVE Act Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise today with a number of my colleagues.”
“That is what they are saying, but they are also saying the same thing about our automobiles: No, we can't figure out how to make them more efficient. That is what they are saying about wind and solar: No, we can't figure out how to deploy it in our country as an alternative to oil and gas. By the way, the story always comes back to that one issue--oil and gas and their money inside of this system--but the price is being paid by consumers who have to pay higher bills, and it is going to be a price that is paid by our planet, as it gets more and more dangerously hotter. My mother would always say that the planet is running a fever, and there are no emergency rooms for planets. That is where we are. It is the young generation who is leading us. It is the young generation who is saying: You must do something about climate change.”
“It is making the refrigerator, it is making the air conditioner, and it is making everything that we use more efficient so we need less electricity, because that is all our nuclear powerplants, our coal- burning plants, and wind and solar are. They are just ways of providing electricity for the air-conditioning, for the lighting, and for the heating. That is all it is. If we make it 25 percent more efficient, then, all of a sudden, we need 25 percent less electricity which is being generated and 25 percent less pollution that goes up into the air and into the lungs of the children in our Nation. That is what we are debating here today. Once again, the Republicans are going to side with the oil and gas industry, and they are going to say: America can't figure out how to improve the efficiency of appliances in our Nation.”
“A vote on this next resolution to overturn the updated standards for refrigerators and freezers is a vote against lower bills, against climate progress, and against consumer choice. We need to be investing in the future, not resurrecting the past. When my mother got disappointed in me when I was a boy--when I was 10 years old--my mother would just say: Eddy, you have to learn how to work smarter, not harder. Otherwise, your father and I are going to donate your brain to Harvard Medical School as a completely unused human organ. Ah, and what did she mean? She meant that you just had to be smarter and think the problem through. That is what energy efficiency is. It is working smarter, not harder.”
“And if you have ever worked in a kitchen, you know the importance of reliability and cost savings. Eliminating this rule would only inject further uncertainty into the market, punish forward-thinking manufacturers, and raise prices on the very businesses--especially small businesses--we say that we want to support. Energy efficiency isn't just an environmental solution; it is an economic one. It cuts costs for renters, for seniors, for small businesses, for schools, and municipal buildings. Make no mistake about it. Eliminating these standards is climate sabotage. Overturning even a few of them jeopardizes that future. It locks in dirty fossil fuel use. It worsens pollution in frontline communities that are already burdened by asthma, heat, and high energy bills. We cannot slam the brakes on progress just for fossil fuel profits.”
“Let's not forget that these rules have support from industry, but now they are the target of political theater out here on the Senate floor. It is not too late to act. We have one more appliance efficiency Congressional Review Act vote ahead of us. This is why I am urging my colleagues to vote no to overturn the Department of Energy's efficiency standards for commercial refrigerators and freezers. These standards update the minimum efficiency levels for new refrigerators and freezers at restaurants, grocery stores, and convenience stores that run 24/7, 365 days a year. This rule alone--the one we are going to vote on--would save businesses up to $4.6 billion over 30 years. These are savings that restaurants and grocery stores could pass on to their customers.”
“That is the equivalent of taking over 18 million gasoline- powered automobiles off the road each year for 30 years. That is bad, by the way. That is bad for the oil and gas industry, with fewer greenhouse gases going up, and less oil and gas being consumed. All of that is part of a very bad equation for the oil and gas industry, but it is catastrophic for families. It is catastrophic for our planet that the industries are allowed to dictate policies here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. These appliance standards have also driven progress in States like Massachusetts, where strong State-level appliance efficiency programs are projected to cut energy costs by $13 million each year by 2044 for families and small businesses, while fighting climate change.”
“We are going to lock you into 20-years-ago technology. That is a dream for the oil and gas industry--a dream. But for the consumer, no, they are the big loser because what [[Page S2696]] we are seeing over the years is after my law passed in 1987, the number of appliances which have been covered has quadrupled--four times as many are now covered. Former President Biden updated more than two dozen standards that have been delayed under the first Trump administration on behalf of the oil and gas industry. These updates were estimated to save households nearly $1 trillion annually over 30 years and save the average family at least $100 per year in lower utility bills. They were also estimated to cut approximately 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon emissions over 30 years.”
“Or maybe there is more electricity left over for the AI industry if you are working in a way that is trying to maximize American ingenuity. That is who we are. We make things that are smarter. Now, a lot of people--I would say the natural gas and oil industry at the top of the list--they don't want there to be progress. Why is that? Because the less efficient something is, the more energy, the more electricity that has to be consumed. That is their profit. But what does it do? It says to the consumer: You have to pay more for more electricity. It says that you cannot have new options that make it possible for you to ensure that your family has the most modern, the most efficient air conditioning or lighting or refrigeration or stoves. No, we are going to lock you into 10-years-ago technology.”
“And since then, the number of appliances has more than quadrupled. Here is the way you should think about it. We need big electrical generating facilities all across the country. Everyone knows right now that AI is now going to be a huge drain on all of the electricity that we have in our country. So how do we handle that problem? Well, one of the ways of handling that problem is to say that refrigerators have to be more efficient in the amount of electricity which they consume. Light bulbs have to be more efficient. Air conditioning has to be more efficient. For example, in Texas, in the summer, 80 percent of peak demand for electricity is air conditioning. So if you increase the efficiency by a third in air conditioners, you are dramatically reducing the need to have to build more electrical generating facilities in the country.”
“The fact is that Federal appliance efficiency standards are one of the most successful climate and consumer savings programs in American history. And these standards have been around for decades. Back in 1987, I wrote the law. I am the author of the law that gave the Department of Energy the authority to set binding energy standards for appliances in America, which are supposed to be updated every 6 years. That is my law. It was signed into law as the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act. Now, I am going to be honest with you, Ronald Reagan vetoed it the first time because the oil and gas industry wanted him to veto it. And that law ultimately did pass, and it covered 13 major appliances-- kitchen refrigerators, dryers, air conditioners, and, yes, commercial refrigerators.”
“Let's be clear: These votes are not about appliance freedom. They are about fossil fuel fascism. This is about corporate lobbyists putting profits over people and destroying decades of bipartisan energy efficiency progress. Having the information to make an informed decision about your appliance that your family wants to buy is about choice--your choice. Not Big Oil's choice, not Big Gas's choice--your choice. Here is the information. Make up your mind. Do you want one that is more efficient? There it is right in the middle of Best Buy, right there in the middle of the store. Pick that one. Donald Trump's ridiculous culture war against energy-efficient appliances is a war against saving families money. The more efficient the appliance, the less money people pay in their electricity bill.”
“This morning's vote overturned the Department of Energy's updated energy labeling rule that would have made it easier for appliance manufacturers to test, to certify, and to label their products in a way that consumers can understand. Energy labels are like food nutrition labels but for your electricity bill. They empower consumers to choose cheaper, more efficient appliances. They drive competition. They create certainty. They help the American people make informed choices and avoid confusion. The rule that Republicans overturned was not a ban. It was not a mandate. The rule didn't even change underlying efficiency standards. This vote comes after two additional votes earlier this month where Republicans repealed the Department of Energy's updated efficiency standards for gas-fired water heaters and walk-in coolers and freezers.”
“And the motto became, frankly: Above everything else, politics first, Americans last. I am proud to take this fight head-on to ensure that Americans are not shouldering the cost of the last administration's regulatory state. I would like to thank Congressman Craig Goldman of Texas for leading this effort in the House, and I urge my colleagues in the Senate to vote for this resolution. I look forward to the legislation heading to the President's desk to become law. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I am here today to defend the standards for our appliances that save energy, that cut climate emissions. They reduce costs for American families and businesses. Yet Trump and his Republican allies are attacking these commonsense appliance efficiency standards.”
“We need to focus right now on prioritizing American businesses, reducing costs for American people, and we need to be focused on opening factories in America, not closing them, especially for such critical products as these that allow for large-scale food distribution and storage. The government should be making it easier to plan and establish food distribution chains rather than undermining them with harmful regulatory uncertainty. We saw time and time again in the last administration the attempt to force costly and burdensome regulations onto the American people and businesses in an effort to advance a partisan ``green new scam'' agenda. The effects of prices on American families and businesses were devastating. I firmly believe Biden bureaucrats gave no thought to the effects, jumped right in.”
“If this regulation were allowed to remain on the books, Biden's shortsighted harmful energy standard would force commercial fridge and freezer manufacturers to discontinue product lines and close factories in the U.S. The results would be layoffs and open the door for other foreign competitors to step in instead of those here in our own country. Food producers, distributors, wholesalers, grocery stores, consumers would be severely impacted by a sudden unavailability of these commercial-scale appliances at the center of America's food supply chains. That would expose yet another critical supply chain risk associated with foreign dependence and this would be a disaster.”
“As Florida's attorney general, I was proud many times to lead the fight against regulations that made no sense and were driven by partisan, unelected bureaucrats by filing challenges against these regulations in court. While it is regrettable that the Biden-Harris administration ignored our concerns and the complaints by Floridians and, instead, forced these harmful regulations into our States and into our industries in the waning hours of their administration, I am proud to now be here in the Senate to help continue the fight against these sprawling, harmful, nonsensical policies that were pushed by these Agencies at the very, very last minute of the Biden administration.”
“75, a Congressional Review Act resolution to rescind burdensome energy efficiency requirements on commercial refrigerators and freezers that were imposed by the Biden-Harris administration at the 11th hour just before President Trump's inauguration. The Biden-Harris administration, as we all know, in many of these agenda-driven regulations pushed out of Agencies, was a disaster for American families, businesses, and industries across our Nation. Their reckless regulatory agenda prioritized Green New Deal virtue signaling over good fiscal stewardship and the interests of the American people by exposing manufacturers and other stakeholders in our industries to regulatory uncertainty and forcing American families to shoulder the burden.”
“Ending these negotiations at their inception benefits only one actor: China. China will see its full reciprocal tariff limited immediately without offering any concessions to addressing longstanding, bipartisan grievances. Moreover, China will benefit because its trade negotiations will continue, while ours will sputter out. For these reasons, I encourage my colleagues to vote in opposition to this resolution. [[Page S2695]] I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida. H.J. Res. 75 Mrs. MOODY. Mr. President, I rise today on the 100th day as a U.S. Senator--in fact, Florida's newest U.S. Senator--to urge my colleagues to support H.J. Res.”
“I encourage my colleagues to trust the President, at least until they have had the opportunity to hear from his trade team about their efforts. As the White House recently argued in its statement of administrative policy, this resolution, if we passed it, would signal to U.S. trading partners that they can continue to discriminate against U.S. exports with impunity and would signal that the United States is not serious about addressing structural imbalances in the global economy and the conditions giving rise to the threat to U.S. national security and economy. Disapproving this emergency will undercut the serious negotiations that are underway, which are also yielding results. For example, India has already suspended its digital services tax on U.S. companies. The President is a good negotiator, and he deserves more time and our support.”
“It discouraged retaliation but also continued the serious negotiations by our trading partners to address longstanding trading barriers faced by Americans in foreign markets. I don't believe there is anybody in Congress who would deny that for decades, nations around the globe have put unjustified tariffs on American producers, on American products. We should not undermine these negotiations by the President at this critical juncture. The administration has shared that serious negotiations are proceeding with 18 countries at a minimum now and with more to follow shortly. In the coming weeks, the U.S. Trade Representative will meet with the Senate advisory group on negotiations and the Finance Committee to discuss these negotiations in detail.”
“I appreciate that many of us in this Chamber have heard from constituents concerned about the economic impact of the tariffs. All of us are watching this issue closely and working with the administration to find ways to minimize its impact on Americans. We should also be working with the administration to address a shared objective: more opportunities for Americans in foreign markets and an end to discriminatory practices in foreign markets against Americans, against our farmers, and against our businesses. The President's decision to pause the full reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, other than for China, was a prudent move in that respect. It helped mitigate the impact.”
“I will vote to reclaim the taxation power of Congress, where the Constitution properly places it, and I urge the Members of my party to do the same. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho. Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in opposition to the resolution. Before I get into my prepared remarks, let me just make it clear. What we are doing here today is following a law, IEEPA, which gave authority to the President of the United States to declare an emergency and gave Congress the authority to reject that declaration of the emergency by a vote in Congress. The President has declared that emergency under the authority of that law, and this resolution has been brought to reject the declaration of that emergency. That is what we are debating today, and that is what the vote in Congress is about.”
“Legislators who stand aside and abdicate the power to tax will one day rue the accumulation of power in the office of one person. I stand against this emergency, I stand against these tariffs, and I stand against shredding the Constitution. I have no animus towards the President. I voted for him and support his administration. I come to the floor today not because I want to but because I am compelled to. I love my country and the principles upon which it is founded. The oath I took upon taking this office is to the Constitution of the United States and not to any person or faction. I want to preserve the divisions of power that protect us and our children from the rule of one person. That is why I will today vote to end this emergency.”
“It asserts that one of the parties must necessarily lose or be taken advantage of. The argument belies a fundamental misunderstanding of trade. By definition, every voluntary trade is mutually beneficial. Trade is good. That isn't an opinion; it is a fact. For at least the last 50 years, as trade rises, so does wealth. And people say the middle class has gotten smaller? Slightly but only because it moved to the upper class. These tariffs will make Americans poorer, and they will make the defenders of those tariffs pay. Tariffs bring us closer to the day when the people are ruled by a czar of industrial policy. When that day comes, we will wish we had defended the Constitution when we still had the power to do so. We cannot afford to stand idly by while the constitutional principle of the separation of powers is eviscerated.”
“Every time Americans went to the grocery store, they were reminded that inflation and putting food on their family's table was more difficult and left them with less money for other necessities. Many pundits say the 2024 election hinged on promises to reduce inflation and lower taxes. Does it make any sense to impose a tax on imports that will make all Americans worse off? Shouldn't we learn from our success? We should ask ourselves a fundamental question: Is trade good? Well, trade is simply capitalism. Trade never occurs unless you want a product more than you want your money. Has anyone ever made a trade, a voluntary trade, where you thought you were being ripped off? No. You buy stuff only because you think you are making a good deal. Those who say that, oh, no, we are being ripped off--it is a fallacy.”
“If Americans live in a country where their elected representatives in the legislature cannot or will not speak for them, it will be because those representatives silenced themselves. They gave in. They did not stand up and do their duty. We can show the people that the constitutional principle of the separation of powers still means something and that we can successfully challenge the Presidential attempt to raise taxes without the consent of Congress. Tariffs are taxes, plain and simple. Tariffs don't punish foreign governments; they punish American families. When we tax imports, we raise the price of everything from groceries, to smartphones, to washing machines, to just about every conceivable product. Voters in the last election indicated they were fed up with high prices.”
“We just put it all in one bill, and then they say: If you don't for it, you are for shutting the government down. You can't shut the government down, so you have to vote for the massive bill, which includes more pork than you can probably ever imagine. Congress has--unique among the three branches--unilaterally disarmed and demonstrated itself unable and unwilling to check the Executive. If Americans are to live under this emergency rule, it will not be because the President sought too much power; it will be because Congress let it happen. If Americans are to live in a country where the President alone decides what is to be taxed, at what rate, and for how long, it will be because Congress is too feeble to stand up for the interests and bank accounts of the people.”
“Congress delegates its legislative authority to the President so that the [[Page S2694]] laws we live under are, in reality, written by bureaucrats who the people do not know, will never meet, and cannot hold accountable through elections. But I don't want to let off both parties on this. The powers that have been given to the President over trade have been given to the President by Congress over many decades. Congress acquiesced. Congress said: Here. We don't want to deal with it. You can have it. Congress today can scarcely be bothered to even consider individual appropriations bills. By consistently waiting until the last second to pass a massive funding bill and threaten a government shutdown, the leadership deprives Congress of what Madison called its most complete and effectual weapon: the power of the purse.”
“And the Republicans go along, and they say: Emergency? No problem. Constitution? What? Constitution? Forget about it. Members of his political party will stand by his assertion. Some may cast their actions today as an exercise of party loyalty. Some may even be praised by Pennsylvania Avenue. But for those who care to listen closely, within that praise will be heard a touch of disdain. It is no secret that Congress lacks the fortitude to stand up for its prerogatives, and this is bipartisan. Presidents in both parties routinely exceed their power because they know that Congress has weakened itself to such an extent that it cannot challenge and will not challenge Executive overreach.”
“I know some Republicans like the idea of taxing trade, but what if there is a next President who is a Democrat who says: By emergency rule, I decree there will be no gasoline-using cars. We will have only electric cars. That is what we are preparing ourselves for. Every distortion of the checks and balances of powers gets worse. Every time a party changes hands, they say: Well, you guys did this, so we are going to leapfrog and do this. And it goes back and forth until the individual citizen knows nothing other than the loss of liberty. Even President Trump didn't try to argue that this law called IEEPA, which is normally used for sanctions--he didn't act upon it in his first term. He makes a claim today, though, likely because the appropriate trade laws on the books require months to be implemented, and he can't wait.”
“Madison said we would pit ambition against ambition, but what if we have Presidential ambition and we have congressional acquiescence? we have congressional timidity? we have congressional nonentity, choosing to become a nonentity, not participate, do whatever you want? It is a recipe for disaster. Madison and those of the revolutionary generation would have expected Members of Congress to jealously guard their authority from the imperial pretensions of the Chief Executive. To endorse governance by emergency rule is to fail to live up to what the Constitution demands of us, and failure to do our constitutional duty is an invitation to further emergency rule.”
“We were already worried about too many emergencies. Many on my side have actually cosponsored bills that say emergencies should automatically end unless affirmatively approved by Congress. Many of those people now are looking the other way. They are looking the other way and saying: Well, it is our President now. I had a reform of the Emergencies Act under the previous President, a Democrat. I had the same bill under a Republican. This should not be a partisan issue. The Founders would not have expected the upper chamber, the Senate, to let the novel use of a statute traditionally used to sanction adversaries to become used for tariffs to tax American people and to let it go unchallenged. This is not constitutionalism; this is cowardice. Our system of government cannot work when Congress abdicates its legislative authority.”
“The House, in its haste to give away its power to tax, actually passed a rule to prevent a mandatory vote on ending the emergencies. They prevent it because the rule says that days no longer exist. They declared that legislative days will not exist despite the legislature continuing to meet each day. The House has essentially ruled that days are not days and they are not to be counted as days until such time as the House again agrees to allow days to be counted as days. Does that sound absurd? Absolutely. It is absurd. It is craven. It is cowardice at its best, and it is dishonest because a rule of the House is preventing a law from being obeyed. I didn't know we could pass a rule to prevent a law from being obeyed. When the emergency powers were granted to the President in 1966, the Emergencies Act was meant to constrain the Republic.”
“The Founding Fathers empowered Congress with tools to ensure that the liberties of the people would not be threatened by one-person rule. The Founders would not be surprised that the Executive would attempt to aggrandize power at the expense of the legislature. They would have expected it. Indeed, they did expect it. But they would be surprised-- the Founders would be shocked that Congress would voluntarily and recklessly and fecklessly give up their power to the Presidency, to submit to emergency rule. The Founders would not have expected the House of Representatives to become so craven as to refuse to even allow a vote on ending the emergency. The law says that the vote we will have is mandatory. It is privileged. The Senate will adhere to the law. The House will not have a vote.”
“Our Founders led a rebellion against a King precisely over this. They went to great lengths to circumscribe and limit the power of the Presidency. Devoted as they were to the preservation of individual liberty, the Founders divided power among three branches of government. But more importantly, those three branches were to check and balance each other to prevent one branch from accumulating too much power. Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers that the Constitution was to pit ambition against ambition. The natural ambition of men and women to accumulate power was to be checked by other branches of people who would say: You can't have that power. It is our power. That pitting of ambition back and forth was to constrain government. It was to constrain government from running away and power from being run away with one person.”
“Yet, people--particularly on my side--are looking away and saying: Oh, whatever. We will just let the President do whatever. Look, I supported President Trump. I still support President Trump on many things. But I am not for a country run by emergencies. Even if the person was doing what I wanted and was, you know, making every day my birthday, I would not be for that unless we deliberated upon that. There are constitutional processes that are incredibly important. The Constitution doesn't allow the President of the United States to be the sole decider. Even the President must abide by the proper limits of Executive power. Thankfully, our Constitution does more than merely hope that our Chief Executive will remain within the confines of the Constitution; our Constitution explicitly limits the power of the Presidency.”
“Government by one person who assumes all power by asserting a so- called emergency is the antithesis of constitutional government. It was Montesquieu that our Founding Fathers looked to in setting up the separation of powers. And Montesquieu said that when you unite the legislative power with the executive power in the body of one person, that no liberty can exist. They worried about this. They fretted about it. They worried about having too much power with the President, and so they severely constricted the power of the Presidency. They said the President couldn't take us to war; only Congress could. They said the President couldn't spend money; only Congress could. They said the President couldn't tax people; only Congress could. These were the very bedrock and still are the very bedrock of our constitutional principles.”
“An emergency has been declared, as the Senator from Virginia remarked, everywhere. There is an emergency everywhere. Sounds like an emergency everywhere is really an emergency nowhere. But despite the constitutional restraints or constraints on executive power, Americans have now been ordered to pay higher taxes in the form of tariffs but without the consent of Congress. The tariffs we discuss today are global tariffs. Just about every country in the world is subjected to at least a 10-percent tariff, to say nothing of the dozens of countries whose imports will be taxed at a much higher rate. Congress didn't debate these tariffs. Congress didn't vote to enact these tariffs. The tariffs are simply imposed by Presidential fiat, by proclamation.”
“It goes back to probably Magna Carta. I mean, for hundreds of years the English were arguing of the supremacy of Parliament, that Parliament would be able to have the power over the King. So when we were leading up to the Revolution, the cry from James Otis was, ``Taxation without representation is tyranny.'' These were the words of James Otis, but they still ring true today. It should not come as a surprise that in a country founded on a tax revolt, one person [[Page S2693]] is not allowed to raise taxes. Our Founding Fathers saw this and said: No, we want to make sure that the authority of taxation begins not only in Congress, that it actually originates in the House, the body closest to the people. Our Constitution forbids taxes from being enacted without the approval of Congress, and yet here we are.”
“The vote we will have later today gives the Senate, the greatest deliberative body in the world, the chance to stand up and say: Let's take a different path. I thank my colleagues for their work together on this important resolution and urge a favorable vote on the resolution that we will have later today. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky. Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, you know, there was an old-fashioned conservative principle that believed that less taxes were better than more taxes; that if you taxed something, you got less of it, so that if you place a new tax on trade, you will get less trade. There was also this idea that you didn't do taxation without representation. That idea goes not only back to our American Revolution, it goes back to the English civil war as well.”
“We must turn this around, and the good news is the Senate has the ability to turn it around. When the Congress passed the IEEPA law decades ago, it recognized the potential that an Executive can overuse the emergency power, and that is why Congress did something rare in IEEPA. They gave the power even to a single Senator, even to a single Senator in the minority party to say: Wait a minute, Mr. President, you have declared an emergency and, guess what, you are wrong. And even at the request of a single Senator, this body is put on the board to have to declare whether we own the policies of the President, this Trump madness, or whether we disown it and urge him to take a different path. All the economic trends are pointing in the same direction. We should take a different path on the economy before this gets worse.”
“And in a time of chaos, those investments are not going to be made, and that raises the danger that this first quarter economic contraction will be followed by another, which would be the textbook definition of a recession. So how did we get here? From an economy on Inauguration Day that was the strongest in the world, when President Trump stood 50 yards from here and said it was a golden age, to an economy that has nothing but red lights and question marks all over it, we got here because one individual decided to bypass Congress and take both the taxing power and the trade power into his own hands without a debate, without committee hearings, without deliberation, without considering what the people thought about the plan, and that one man and his decisions have taken a chain saw to the American economy.”
“And then we end up with the chaos argument that my colleagues had mentioned before. From the New York Times last week: ``With Only Bad Options, Businesses Scramble for a Tariff Chaos Playbook.'' A tariff chaos playbook. When the cost of your imports is going up, when your export market is shrinking, when you don't know what the end of the story will be, the options that you have are very murky. Businesses want to have predictability. They want to be able to look into a crystal ball, and if they don't completely know the future, they want to be able to make enough of a prediction about the economic climate that would justify sizable investments.”
“And China, Japan, South Korea--a company from South Korea just announced a huge investment in Virginia yesterday in the clean energy space. Japan and South Korea, especially, are countries that do a lot of foreign direct investment in the United States. Japan and South Korea are two of our strongest partners, but even they are responding in a hostile way to U.S. tariffs. In fact, you see China, Japan, and South Korea starting to cooperate together to ward off some of the negative economic effects of U.S. tariffs. The last thing we want to do is encourage Japan and South Korea to work closer with China. We want Japan and South Korea to work closer with the United States. But the Trump tariffs are chasing allies into the arms of adversaries. How foolish is that?”
“manufacturing was already slowing before the GDP numbers came out today. A larger share of manufacturers are reporting declines in new orders rather than increases. Some of those declines are driven because of the price effect of tariffs, the price effect of retaliatory tariffs, but some are also being driven by the uncertainty. There is a chaos penalty on the economy. When you are not sure what is going to happen, you slow your investments, and that is why you see a decline in manufacturing. The Trump new sales tax, again, as proof from Reuters, ``Trump tariffs would harm all involved, U.S. trade partners say.'' This is not just something that is hurting everyday Americans--those are those to whom we have a responsibility in this body, but this is affecting the global economy in a way that is shocking.”
“And as I talked to German leaders, military leaders and leaders in the civilian government, they said this is going to be the most pro- American, pro-transatlantic Chancellor you will have seen for a very long time, but he is coming in with a powerful mandate to grow the German economy so that we can be even better security partners, so that we can work better together on the manufacture of the F-35 and to help Ukraine in its defense. But the Trump tariffs are standing directly in the way of this new, pro-American government being able to achieve what they need to be able to achieve. And that is why the IMF said that the Trump tariffs, this new sales tax, will be a drag not just on U.S. economic growth but on global economic growth. This is a story from less than a week ago. U.S.”
“The new sales tax is also a drag on economic growth--we saw this in the announcement this morning--but not just economic growth in the United States. I am on the Armed Services Committee, and I had a chance to go visit 2 weeks ago with the new government, incoming government in Germany. Germany is a great ally. More U.S. troops are on the ground in Germany than any nation other than Japan outside the United States. We are security partners in Ukraine and in European security generally. The new German Government was just elected, the Chancellor will be installed in the first week in May with a mandate to restore the German economy, which has been in the doldrums since about 2019.”
“For the next, it is 5.0, all the way up to the richest 1 percent will see their effective sales tax rate go up by 1.7 percent. This is a sales tax on everyone in the country, but it is a sales tax that, as all sales taxes do, fall hardest on those who can least afford it. The new sales tax is affecting retirees particularly. So from NBC News: Retirees `stunned' as market turmoil over tariffs shrinks their 401(k)s. We have a Social Security system that is a good foundation for retirement so long as this administration doesn't mess it up, but it is not sufficient for retirement. And what you need for a dignified retirement is Social Security plus private savings, in most people's case, 401(k)s. The turmoil in the market driven by tariff uncertainty is hammering retirees more than just about any other group of people in this country.”