Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Arkansas for yielding.

It is amazing here. I represent the northeast corner of California where the wolves are being inflicted upon the people and the wildlife of that area. The stuff I hear coming from the other side of the aisle about recovering the wolves and even the mocking, yes, it is real.

There are wolves that are encroaching on elementary schools in Siskiyou County, the Little Shasta Elementary School. This isn't some ``Little Red Riding Hood'' story. This isn't some made-up deal. It is very real, and they are coming closer and closer to town all over the northeast part of California.

My colleague from the north coast, when he mocks us like that, I am wondering if this Proposition 50 in California kicks in, and he ends up representing my constituents up there that are fighting against this, and I am their only voice in the echo chamber of California against this: Are you going to have townhalls up there? Are you going to go into Modoc County, Siskiyou County, Sierra Valley, and tell them this is a ``Red Riding Hood'' story about the wolves devouring their livestock, eating up all their wildlife?

The mocking. Why is it they can't stand the people that produce the food, the lumber that comes from my part of the State, from the West, from the rural parts of America? Is it they want all of their beef--I guess if they don't eat beef, they might be able to have this conversation--if they want their beef to be imported from somewhere else, if they don't want it produced here, under our standards, why is it they hate my constituents who are just trying to provide the urban people with what they need?

We don't need a hell of a lot, just coming from the urban area, I tell you what. If the gentleman wants to cater only to Marin County and have this population continue to devastate our people up there and rein in just a little bit the misinterpretation of the Endangered Species Act over the 50 years--yeah, it was well-intentioned when it came out. It was a temporary tool. It never was meant to be a life sentence or even a death sentence for livestock and for people's livelihoods up here in this area here or all over the West. This is a clear example of how the ESA has drifted a long ways from that end.

It is high time that people have tools, especially my home State of California, where they have no tools until the fish and game finally decides to come in.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, in my district, the wolf problem is not just some abstract issue. They are on the ground. They are creating real problems for a lot of people and a lot of wildlife.

This past weekend in my district, gray wolves were seen dangerously close to Little Shasta Elementary School right here in Siskiyou County.

As a precaution, law enforcement was contacted, a local emergency was declared, and students were kept indoors for the entire school day, including recess and PE. That is an elementary school that changed its daily operations because of predators in the area. This is exactly what I have been warning about.

Federal policy has made wolves untouchable, even when they show up near homes, schools, and working lands. Local officials are left to try to manage the consequences of this threat while Washington bureaucracy tells them to wait.

We have a bill, H.R. 845, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, which is a giant step toward fixing this. It gives States and locals more authority to deal with problem wolves before someone gets hurt.

Ignoring this doesn't make it go away. It makes it worse. Devouring wildlife and livestock with no compensation is not something just to be ignored. What are we going to do, kids next?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota and the gentleman from Puerto Rico for all of us being able to pull together on this piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2400 is something that has been long overdue. The Pit River Tribe has been very patient and oftentimes not treated very well in the process of establishing that they would like to, once again, own this land.

The 580 acres known as the Four Corners are actually along 299 in eastern Shasta County. It is between the towns of Burney and Fall River Mills in northeast California and, of course, will become part of their reservation.

This legislation promotes local stewardship, economic development, and Tribal sovereignty by placing this modest piece of land back into trust for the Tribe. It is something they really pursued for a lot of years.

What we have tried to encourage here is local stewardship. Our Tribes can provide a very valuable part in either helping or supplanting the Forest Service on the lands that they are not managing as rapidly or as well as I would like to see. We are looking forward to greater stewardship and the opportunities for the Tribe.

It is really a physical and spiritual landmark for the Tribe, central to their identity and ability to thrive and grow on their own ancestral lands. Their ties to the land go back many, many centuries. It holds deep spiritual and historical value to them.

It was a focal point of activism, as mentioned, during the seventies, where Tribal members, asserting their rights, faced unjust arrest and bureaucratic hurdles, with a lot of perseverance to get here today.

The Pit River Tribe has pursued every legal and administrative avenue to acquire this land, facing endless bureaucratic delays.

This bill would put an end to that and empower the Tribe to lead on land stewardship, cultural preservation, and future development efforts, which would be an opportunity for everybody who travels the area.

Owning the Four Corners will allow the Tribe to build, as mentioned, an interpretive center so it can educate the public on the history of the Tribe and other Tribes in the area, as well as better land stewardship.

The conservation that will come with the process will honor their ancestral past, present, and future. It strengthens their regional stewardship and, again, will improve land management for all of us to enjoy and make a little more fire safe. It will also help to support their self-determination.

Mr. Speaker, I urge everyone in this Congress to vote for H.R. 2400.

Mr. Speaker, affordability is a buzzword these days. Let's drill down, so to speak, on energy costs.

My home State of California is the producer of a great amount of our awesome ag products, our fruits, vegetables, tree, and nut crops.

What we are about to see in California is two different refineries are slated to close: Phillips 66 in the south and Valero up north. Those two refineries are approximately 20 percent of the fuel supply for the State. Also, California's refinery capacity affects Nevada and Arizona as they are right next door, and part of the shipment of our oil products goes there.

We are on schedule to see these closed down because they can't afford to do business in my home State anymore. The rest of the country, under the awesome energy policy we have had for about the last 11 months, have seen prices come down. I have seen in Colorado two different times the $1.85 range. California is still about $4.50, and it is going to continue to go up when there is less capacity and when the pipeline shuts down.

We need energy affordability.

Mr. Speaker, affordability is the buzzword of late. It is also the keyword in the Affordable Care Act, which kicked in well over a decade ago.

Where are we at now? We are about to run into a cliff here at the end of this month because it isn't affordable, and it can't be paid for by conventional means. Instead, we have to pay for it with borrowed money.

What makes things unaffordable to begin with in the medical industry? Mandates make things unaffordable, whether it is mandates on hospitals, mandates on doctors, or mandates on any aspect of the cost of equipment. Again, energy is a big part of everything just to run our buildings, just to run offices, just to run clinics.

Mandates are saddled upon our hospitals. For example, in my home State of California, earthquake mandates go back three decades, where hospitals that are in perfectly good shape that are in non-earthquake zones have to be replaced. Millions and millions need to be spent for them to be brought up to code.

They change the rules in the middle of the game. You are building or remodeling a hospital, and they approve a plan. At the end of the plan, at the end of the construction, they make you change the plan and request you to replace brand-new equipment. They are making it unaffordable with mandates and rules that are not conducive toward delivering healthcare.

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of talk about the word ``affordability'' around here these days. I am going to touch on the burdensome regulations that make the cost of everything go up.

There is a lot of worry about what the cost of beef is, the cost of groceries in general, but what is helping drive up the cost of beef? I will tell you what is hurting the cost of producing it for growers is the introduction of more and more wolves to the areas where they grow their product, like in northeast California, Colorado, and other areas around the country.

What is the issue there? Under the Endangered Species Act, somehow the wolf is still seen as an endangered species, even though there are tens of thousands of them scattered across the country. A lot of them end up in the upper Midwest.

The rule seems to be that you have to have them in every single county, in every rural area. Otherwise, they still count as endangered.

It is costing growers thousands and thousands of dollars, while the government is operating many millions of dollars of an operation to spread these wolves around. The latest scheme is to pull them out of places like Washington and bring them down into Colorado, capturing wolves that are already there.

Why are we doing this? Why are we driving the cost of food up? Why are we making it impossible for the growers to be able to keep their livestock alive as well as the wildlife that are devastating areas because of a nonendangered animal?

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of the PERMIT Act, which includes important provisions for my own bill, the Forest Protection and Wildland Firefighter Safety Act.

In the West, we live with the reality that a single spark can turn into a forest disaster instantly, like we saw 11 months ago in Pacific Palisades and in Altadena.

In my district, the city of Paradise is still rebuilding from the 2018 Camp fire. Every season brings the same concern as well, like the disappearance of the towns of Greenville and Canyon Dam in Plumas county.

We need every tool to keep ready to prevent a new, small fire from turning into the next catastrophe. One of the most important tools we have, that the Forest Service relies on, is the use of aerial fire retardant, that pinkish red stuff you see coming out of the DC-10s and many other aircraft. It effectively slows the spread of fast-moving fires and gives the hand crews and trucks on the ground a chance to get control. However, a lawsuit by an environmental group claimed the Forest Service can't use this retardant without a Clean Water Act permit, even though it has used it for dozens of years very successfully.

A judge agreed, and now that group is working to block the use of this retardant altogether while the Forest Service waits for permits to grind through an EPA process. Thankfully, a temporary stay on the lawsuit didn't take this critical tool away starting 2 years ago.

Mr. Chair, 47 States have delegated authority under the Clean Water Act. That means that even after the EPA issues a permit, those States, including my home of California, would have to issue their own permits. This would create a maze of different requirements and bog down the Forest Service in red tape at the exact moment when speed matters.

My bill fixes that.

The Clean Water Act already recognizes the difference between fighting fires and causing pollution. My bill ensures that the aerial fire retardant, which is already subject to strict Forest Service rules, is treated the same way as runoff from other fire control activities, so our firefighters aren't stuck waiting on paperwork and permit approvals when lives and towns are in harm's way.

We have seen what happens when delays allow fires to get ahead of us. California alone has lost over 13.5 million acres in the last decade.

We can't afford to tie the hands of the people trying to stop these fires. I urge passage. Please vote for the PERMIT Act.

Mr. Speaker, lately we see a lot of the usage of the word ``affordability'' around Washington. We hear it on both sides of the aisle. Let me say that Republicans were about affordability before affordability was cool.

We see that the cost of everything has been driven by policies that are due to these regulations. Because of the regulatory load that has been put in place by Democrat policies in my home State of California and in Washington, D.C., then it is no surprise we have these very costly regulations for fuel.

We are expecting to see fuel in California go up to $8 next spring because we are losing two refineries, plus possibly a third one, and a pipeline that goes from north to south and is losing money. There is also another regulation that will be put in place to regulate the fuel on how it is formed to make lower carbon.

That brings me to my next thought.

CO2 in the atmosphere is only this little, tiny wedge right here. It is 0.04 percent. Check it out. In 1970 and 2025, it is the same proportion. It has barely changed from the whole picture of the makeup of the atmosphere. Yet, we are spending trillions and trillions and displacing our economy. We are sending our economy to other places because of this chase over CO2.

I should remind my colleagues that carbon dioxide is essential to plant life, for trees, and for all other forms of life. We then gain the benefit of it by exchanging oxygen with plant life. We are really going down a bad path here as we continue to chase these carbon policies.

One of the things greatly affecting the cost of doing business, especially in my home State of California, are the policies that take away water supply and don't allow the water supply to be added to. How do we think we will have agriculture in California and things will be affordable when we keep taking away the water and losing the water?

Mr. Speaker, check this out. There are 34 million acre-feet lost from all inflows up through the delta. Lake Oroville holds about 3.5 million acre-feet. Shasta Lake holds about 4.5 million acre-feet. There are other smaller lakes around the State that are still very significant. We have others that hold up to 1 million.

We can't fill the lakes because they let all the water out. They have an idea about a flushing flow or this or that. Yet, 3 years ago, agriculture, especially on the west side of the Sacramento Valley, had allocations cut down as low as 0 percent, but it was 18 percent across the board for several districts.

We really have a problem with affordability that is driven by Democrat policies at the Federal level and the California State level. It isn't because of something the Republicans are doing. Republicans, again, are the driver of trying to make things affordable if we can get through the regulatory load.

We get to the point where we can't run a farm or a business. Even a household can't afford to do the things a household does because of these policies. We see the spending habits of Washington, D.C., as well as the amount of money the Federal Government has spent and overspent over the years. Profligate government spending eats up the money supply, which drives inflation.

We put all these $2,000 and $1,200 checks in people's hands during the COVID era especially, and there was a lot of money chasing very few products because nobody was manufacturing anything. We still live with that inflation.

Thankfully, President Trump's policies are helping to bring prices down on groceries, fuels, et cetera.

Let's go back to fuel for a moment because energy is really the main driver of affordability. Is it going to be low-cost energy or the high- cost energy we saw so much of during the Biden era? Indeed, it is starting to come back, at least in the States that aren't California.

Mr. Speaker, I have seen the price of gasoline at $1.85 in Colorado. It is right around $4.00 or $4.50 in California. As I mentioned, they expect the prices to go up next spring, if they continue on this path of closing refineries or refineries being driven out of business by burdensome regulations.

Where is it going to stop? When will people stop it? I guess that is the biggest question. When are they going to stop Governor Newsom and the 3-1 Democrat-ratio State legislature from thinking up more and more laws and dumping them on the backs of our people?

In Washington, we try to do reforms. We run into a buzz saw of rhetoric, flat-out lies, and the difficulty of passing some of this stuff on the other side, over in the Senate, because they can't get 60 votes.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans are trying to reform this effort and make things truly more affordable. These are not just buzzwords and not just something to say to the press.

Mr. Speaker, once again, we are hearing this word ``affordability'' tossed around a lot these days as an election line. It seems to be used to cover up the ideals of the bad policy that is driving up the costs and making everything unaffordable.

You see it in every speech and every press release. The buzzwords aren't really the important part. It is the policies that are driving the high cost of everything.

Let's start with energy, once again. In my home State of California, our electricity prices are higher than most other States except maybe Hawaii. You can slap the word ``affordable'' on this policy, but it isn't. You can't run a farm or a business or a household on slogans.

Then there is Washington's spending habits. When we saw ``affordability'' being tossed around again, massive government spending is part of vacuuming all available money out and supply out and driving inflation. It is amazing how quickly these talking points lose that.

Then there is the regulatory stack. Folks love to preach ``affordability'' While burying projects under NEPA delays. In my home State of California, car regulations are taking away our vehicles and forcing everything into an electricity grid that can't handle it. Affordability doesn't come from a policy like that.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 356) to extend the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self- Determination Act of 2000.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased and honored to be able to stand here today in support of the bipartisan Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2025, which we are considering under suspension of the rules.

This important bill would reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools program, also known as SRS, which is really a lifeline for many rural communities in my home of northern California, my neighboring States, and across the Nation.

In counties with large swaths of national forests, the SRS program makes essential payments to county governments that help ensure schools stay open, county roads stay maintained, and emergency services remain available.

Previously, counties received a portion of timber sale proceeds from projects on our national forests, as Federal lands are not subject to State or local property taxes. However, as timber sales have decreased over the years, something I am working with Chairman GT Thompson, Chairman Westerman, and the administration to reverse, Congress created the SRS program to make up for that shortfall in timber receipts.

This program expired in fiscal year 2023, and the last payments went out in 2024. For many counties and many schools, the lapse in the SRS program means an abrupt and devastating cut of roughly 80 percent of that portion of funding that they would normally receive, which is unacceptable.

It hurts local governments' ability to provide basic educational, public safety, and other services. Schools would close, and jobs would be eliminated due to this delay. In this case, it might even be just in time for Christmas.

In 2024 alone, my home State of California received $33.7 million through this program.

The Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2025 helps ensure the more than 700 rural counties that receive these SRS payments have the resources they need for schools, roads, and wildfire mitigation by reauthorizing this program. This bill not only ensures that SRS payments can go out in 2025 and 2026 but also makes retroactive payments for those missed in 2024 when the program expired.

Reauthorizing the SRS program means that schools, public works, and county services will not be forced to lay off dozens of employees who do the essential work for rural counties and schools--again, right before Christmas in some cases. Those who have already been let go due to the lapse in funding should be able to be brought back to continue the important work they do for their areas.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I thank my great colleagues, Chairman GT Thompson of the Committee on Agriculture and Chairman Bruce Westerman of the Committee on Natural Resources, for their work on reauthorizing the SRS program.

I also thank my colleagues for making this a bipartisan bill, my co- lead on the issue, Colorado Representative Joe Neguse, for coming in with me on this for the House version of the bill, and Senators Crapo and Wyden for their work on that side.

I urge my colleagues to support this. Let's get this out and get the delay over with to help these local counties and schools.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Vasquez from New Mexico for driving this forward on his side of the aisle, both sides of the aisle. I appreciate being able to get this over the line here soon, as we both know too much about wildfires in our respective States, as well. This will go a long way toward helping that issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Bentz), my colleague from my north border.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Oregon (Ms. Salinas). It took a while for all of us to get here, but I appreciate her help, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Hageman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), who is the hardest working man on this issue. My colleague is the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Utah (Ms. Maloy), who is also from the Congressional Western Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson). I greatly appreciate my colleague's strong work in our Agriculture Committee and the Subcommittee on Forestry.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

In closing, I thank once again Mr. Vasquez for our ability to work on these issues. We should use this ability for a lot more success going forward on forestry, fire, and keeping these schools funded as we go.

Mr. Speaker, I also thank Mr. Neguse of Colorado for working with me on the House version of this bill to get where we got today. I thank Speaker Johnson and our leader, Mr. Scalise, as well, for helping get this shepherded for us today and get past some of our other issues that have taken a while to get through. Let's just not have this happen again in this fashion, as it has taken a while to get here. I am very grateful that we have come together and that everybody has seen the importance of this legislation.

Lastly, I really want to thank the folks in our districts for their patience and good cheer. In New Mexico and my part of northern California, as well, I am thankful for the patience people have shown with us trying to get through this process and for the good cheer, again, they have brought.

Our colleagues from Trinity County and Shasta County, some of them are in the audience here today. I am going to especially point out a couple of Modoc County supervisors who are always in my ear in a good way on this: Supervisor Coe and Supervisor Geri Byrne. I thank them for their consistency and persistence in helping get this over the line.

I am very happy we have gotten here today. With broad bipartisan support, let's do more of this.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2025, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, here it is, the word ``affordability.'' It has become a cute buzzword nowadays because during the last 4 years of the Biden administration and in my home State of California, so many things have caused things to become unaffordable.

So the idea is going to be to paper over with borrowed money in this place when, really, if we attack the core issues that make things unaffordable, cause inflation and an inability to start businesses in my home State and in this country, which is energy costs, electricity and fuel, especially in my home State in northern California. We have the highest electricity everywhere.

As we see in the rest of the country, due to Trump's policies coming in, fuel prices are coming down. We are getting down to about the $2 level.

In my home State of California, they are going to shut down, I hear, three refineries now and we can't keep a pipeline full. We have a new fuel standard which means more carbon has to be taken out of the fuel. That fuel will be more expensive. We are going to see, according to a USC study, perhaps $8.50 fuel in California.

Yes, there is affordability for you right there, driven by Democrat policies and by regulation as well; profligate government spending, creating $2 trillion in deficits every year. It sucks all the money out of the room of other people needing to borrow and spend when the government is spending all the money handing out $2,000 checks, $1,200 checks, and $600 checks, that is all borrowed money. There is no credit then.

There are also burdensome regulations weaponizing NEPA, weaponizing the Clean Air Act, and weaponizing the Endangered Species Act. These were all well-intentioned when they were passed, but they have been weaponized to stop projects and to stop people from doing things. That is what is causing affordability to be unaffordable is these regulations driven by more government.

Mr. Speaker, this week, I introduced a bill called the ESSENTIAL Act, H.R. 6200, that removes the requirement to have those annoying devices in your car that shuts the engine off every time you come up to the stoplight for more than a few seconds. Now, it is supposed to be something that saves fuel, but at the end of the day, statistics show that on over 100,000 miles of the life of a car, you save two or three gallons of gas.

On the other side of that coin is the amount of maintenance that would potentially be required.

Around my farm we change a lot of starters, batteries, alternators, and cables. All of these are high-wear items, especially when we are stopping and starting the car.

I have taken Uber to get to events here, and at every stoplight the engine shuts off, turns back on, then hesitates. You can get rear-ended or one of those things might have glitches. There is nothing very good about it other than that EPA and others are trying to offer incentives if they put that stuff on there. They will be giving credits to auto manufacturers.

When will we appreciate the effort of Director Zeldin saying that we are not going to force this anymore?

So we need to back it up here in Congress so we don't have obnoxious requirements to make drivers worse and make maintenance worse on automobiles.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind everybody across the country where their food comes from. A whole bunch of it comes from California.

Look at these crops here, 100 percent: pistachios, almonds, plums, prunes, olives, nectarines, kiwifruit, honeydew, garlic, celery, artichokes come from California. Shelled walnuts come from California. Tomatoes come from California, along with 96 percent of mandarins.

If we don't have the water to grow these crops in California, if we don't have the support from the government now regulating us out of business, it is not going to come from there anymore. If it doesn't come from there, it is going to have to come from a foreign country because nobody else in the country can grow these crops quite the way we can in California.

They can do a pretty good job in some other places, but this is where it happens, so we need the support of the Federal Government to continue to build the water supply at Sites Reservoir, Shasta Dam raise in northern California, as well as hold on to our water supply and not have it all frittered out to the Pacific Ocean in pursuit of a non- scientific pursuit of water for fish.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to remember and make sure we don't forget the name and the likeness of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee who successfully made it safely to this country, to North Carolina, where she innocently one evening was riding a transit train and had her life brutally taken away from her by a 13- or 14-time arrested criminal for no reason other than a thrill kill.

We need not forget, as it doesn't seem to be playing very far into the news, this tragic loss. Remember the name, the face of Iryna Zarutska, and hope that she gets justice from the prosecution of this animal currently in court.