Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, we are well aware that women's sports are under threat, and it is high time we actually finish the job and take a stand against the threat against them.

I am very happy to partner with Mr. Steube once again in supporting his bill, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which is about fairness and ensuring that female athletes have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field, on their own playing field.

Title IX was designed to give women and girls equal opportunities in sports. Biological males competing on those same fields with them undermines that intent and puts these athletes at a disadvantage and a lot of discomfort.

This isn't about being exclusionary. It is really recognizing biological realities and protecting the integrity of women's and girls' sports. Female athletes should not have to compete against those with inherent physical advantages.

This bill ensures that women can continue to compete fairly, earn scholarships, earn medals, and achieve their athletic goals without being sidelined by unfair competition. We must protect these opportunities and rights.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Steube bill and ensure that in the future women's sports remain fair and competitive, especially for women. Misguided policies erase what has been built for female athletes all this time.

Mr. Speaker, I have to do a reset here and say: Why are we in here even having to discuss this?

It is amazing to me that the idea that we would have XY chromosome males competing and taking the place of women and girls in sports is just mind-blowing.

Where are we at in the country, where are we as a society, that we are doing this? It is beyond comprehension that we are doing this to our girls.

Where are the feminists? Where are the people who have fought so hard to get rights for women but now they fade into the background over this transgender situation that we are advancing way too much in this country?

The young ladies depicted here, Paula, Lily, and Riley, whom I know personally, shouldn't even have to be in this position here. I commend them for being such strong leaders, coming from being athletes trying to do their thing, just trying to compete for medals, scholarships, and things, and having those taken away. They have stepped forward to be leaders when they didn't ask to. They probably were not even that comfortable with the spotlight. Certainly, they have been subject to abuse in doing so.

God blessed them with their leadership in stepping forward. We need to back them up by passing this legislation and put this to an end.

Mr. Speaker, well, it is everywhere. You can't avoid it in the news, and it shouldn't be avoided. It is so horrible. The fires we have now in southern California are devastating so much there, so much value, so much loss, and up to 24 lives lost now. It is an incredibly unnecessary happening that has been raging in L.A. It happens every year with the Santa Ana winds.

Up in the northern California area that I represent, we have had that devastation already many times: The town of Paradise, town of Greenville, town of Canyondam, and others were completely obliterated.

Our Governor Gavin Newsom has been up there to see those fires, especially the Paradise one when President Trump came to Paradise and visited to see the devastation. At the time, President Trump asked him and others: What are you doing to clear the land in

such a way that makes it less fire prone, to rake the forest floor?

Then people made fun of that word, ``rake,'' which is actually a technical term for some of the equipment used in forestry to make sure areas can be a little more fire safe by thinning trees, removing brush, and removing dead material on that.

The question is, as Governor Newsom goes out on site and waves his arms and tells us it is someone else's fault, then what has he learned in the last 6 years? More importantly, what has he applied since he had this photo op in Paradise as the new Governor of California? It looks like not much, not much action.

Certain promises were made to be aggressive on land management in California and certain claims were made, but the actual numbers are one-fifth of the amount claimed that had been treated, the work that had been done in California.

We have seen time after time more and more fires: the Camp fire in Paradise listed here, 85 lives lost, 90 percent of the homes; the Carr fire near Redding; the Zogg fire on the other side of Redding; the Park fire last year, 400,000 acres from Chico all the way up to Mount Lassen; the Dixie fire, 1 million acres. This is all northern California. Now southern California is getting international coverage, and rightfully so.

What are we going to do? What is Newsom going to do? Well, he wants to blame it on climate change. Time and time again, we are hearing about climate change and we are hearing about carbon dioxide. Here is the same chart I show off and on on this floor: Carbon dioxide represents 0.04 percent of the atmosphere. It has barely changed. Look at the rest of the chart, what isn't CO2. They want to just make it a climate change story.

What are we doing to make things more fire resilient in southern California?

This is the Santa Ynez Reservoir just up the hill from Pacific Palisades. The portion on the right here is what it looks like more or less when it is full. Here is what it looks like presently. It is empty. It has been empty since last February. They have been fooling around for nearly a year supposedly repairing the cover over the thing. It holds 117 million gallons of water.

They report to us that there are three one-million gallon tanks that ran out, the third one by 3 a.m. on the night of the fire above Pacific Palisades. What would another 117, approximately 40 times the storage of those three tanks, have been able to do for them had it been available, had the maintenance been done?

Well, the Governor is going to start an investigation on it now, kind of like when he starts an investigation on high gas prices due to policies he does that drive up the cost of fuel, make fuel and the refineries not available, and quit drilling for fuel in California, which we have so much abundance of near that Bakersfield area, et cetera.

What are we doing here? Why is this reservoir empty? Why has it been empty for nearly a year to make a little repair in the cover that may have been able to be done by reservoir staff? It is incompetence at all levels here.

What do we have going on? Is there enough water supply? He says, well, we have plenty of water.

Presently, this is Shasta Dam in northern California, and it is dumping water right now. It is dumping water out. It still has a million acre-feet of space left, but it is dumping water because they want to have room at the top to conserve for more weather. Okay. I guess I understand that.

However, what are they doing with that water down below? Newsom's plans have stopped the delta pumps from running at full capacity to fill other water systems around the State, such as San Luis Reservoir, which is about 70 percent full right now and doesn't have a storage problem for flood, as well as making sure the aqueducts are filling all the other reservoirs such as the one we just looked at, Santa Ynez. They could fill that in a short amount of time. The amount of water that runs out wasted, running through the delta in an hour, would fill that Santa Ynez Reservoir. It would take a long time locally because they have to rely on either wells or coming from some other water source we haven't quite ascertained yet because it is hard to find information.

Is Governor Newsom going to help or is he going to be a detriment and just go on camera and blame everybody else and blame the President? We need real work done to make fire conditions much safer in California and the West.

Mr. Speaker, I am showing you what a managed forest looks like here and an unmanaged forest looks like here.

In my district in northern California and much of the West, forests burn millions of acres year after year, such as a million-acre fire in my district a couple years ago, 600,000 acre, and on and on it goes. It occurs because the lands are not managed, not allowed to be managed by environmental lawsuits and such.

Governor Newsom, the Governor of California, promised after 6 years in office, when he came to my district in Paradise, to do more. He said: We have done all this acreage. We have done all this work. He actually overstated the figure by five times.

Here we have now the situation in southern California where this brush is catching on fire. In the high winds, it is just a tinderbox that blows into the neighborhoods and burns down Pacific Palisades and all the others affected like that.

They have suspended their brush program there, so Gavin Newsom can't point and say we have done all this great stuff here and blame everybody else like he does, waving his arms around. Instead, they have not done the work, and they have put people in danger, as well as the issue with water in California flowing out to the Pacific instead of being stored to help keep their storage facilities full so they can fight fires. It is mismanagement.

Mr. Speaker, California is on fire once again. Only now, instead of burning up the red counties and the forested areas to the north, it is devastating portions of Los Angeles. Everybody is seeing it on the news.

Every year, we know the Santa Ana winds are going to blow. Every year, we know that there is going to be risk. What is our Governor doing to help stop the risk? He is doing virtually nothing, other than showing up for press conferences and waving his arms around and having long-practiced monologues about how it is someone else's fault, this or that.

It is time for the Governor to either bear down or get out of the way because California keeps suffering. My counties up north had the Carr fire, the Camp fire, the Dixie fire, 1 million acres, and now it is hitting the constituents of southern California hard.

Why does this have to keep happening? Why is nothing being done to mitigate the issue of forest management, of brush management, and lower the risk? Why is the water being cut off at the hydrants? Is it because he won't allow us to build the water storage we need for a growing population and for growing crops?

We need to build the Sites Reservoir. We need to raise the Shasta Dam. We need to not let all the water keep rushing out to the Pacific Ocean through the Delta to supposedly save a smelt that doesn't exist. We need to get cracking on this. Governor Newsom needs to get at it or get out of the way.

Madam Speaker, in another one of the eleventh-hour, thumb-the-nose-at-the-American-people moves, the Biden administration has decided to transfer 11 Guantanamo detainees from the war on terror back to Oman, which is a reckless move that puts American lives at risk and is an insult and a slap in the face to those who have fought for freedom in that area and who have tried to stop the likes of al-Qaida. Our soldiers, our fighting people, and everybody who has cared at all about that has to be taking this as a slap in the face because justice never was done.

These detainees, many of whom have ties directly to terrorism, are being resettled without facing justice. This action weakens our national security and

signals a dangerous leniency to those who have plotted against our country.

Despite the administration's claims, releasing these individuals only increases the likelihood that they will return to their extremist roots and try to maybe pull off another 9/11 along with the cells that are already in this country. We have already seen a recycling through of some who were released during the Obama era.

This prioritizes political agendas, especially at the very end of this term, over the security of the American people and those who have fought so hard.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the efforts of our chairman, G.T. Thompson, of the Ag Committee and many of our colleagues in making sure that this year-end agreement we have is going to also include the importance of agriculture.

Agriculture is in big trouble with the commodity prices and disasters they face around the country. Many of these amazing crops you see right here on this poster board, Madam Speaker, would not exist, and, without this aid that we have in this package here, they will be in big trouble and maybe not get the finances here.

Some of the finest quality crops anywhere come from California and the U.S.

Also, some of the finest quality staff we have, our Ella, a staff member who works on this floor, will be leaving us pretty soon and heading over to a different building to work in a new Member's office. We will still miss her and her high-quality work and her thumbs-up like an empress up there in front.

Madam Speaker, I wish Ella best wishes and good luck. God bless Ella.

Mr. Speaker, this week is National Bible Week. I am proud to be able to stand up here and proclaim my own devotion and adherence to the Bible and Biblical principles.

I appreciate my colleague, Mr. Doug Lamborn of Colorado, who led a Special Order on National Bible Week last night here in this Chamber. I am sorry I wasn't able to take part at that particular time, but I wanted to continue that.

Mr. Lamborn has been a faithful servant in making sure that National Bible Week is always proclaimed and recognized each year here, and I appreciate him as a colleague. Of course, we will miss him, as he has decided to go off to other pastures from this body. God's blessings on him and his family.

As we know, during this National Bible Week, throughout American history, the Bible has been a guiding light, shaping our culture, government, and moral foundations to the good.

We hear a lot of talk about separation of church and state. That isn't really a truism. It is more about the State shall not establish a particular religion, but it is certainly fine for the Founders and our leaders to use that as a guiding principle. Indeed, they did, from Washington all the way through.

As we reflect on this week, it is important to remember that the Word of God has always provided clarity, strength, and direction to this Nation. In Psalms 119:105, we are reminded: ``Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.''

In a world filled with uncertainty and confusion, the Bible serves as a beacon of truth and wisdom. It calls us to live with integrity, to honor one another, and to acknowledge the divine responsibility we have to God. Indeed, the Bible is the inerrant Word of God.

As leaders, citizens, and people of faith, we must continually seek guidance from our Scripture. It is extremely important and a guide in my own life, as well as that of my family.

The Word of God is not just a historical document, although it has always been found to be proven historically accurate. It is also the foundation of our morals and the source of wisdom that has indeed shaped our country.

During National Bible Week, let us renew our commitment to uphold these principles to guide our actions with the truth of the Bible and to honor God in all we do.

On top of that, it will soon be Christmas as this body tries to complete its work for the end of the year. Let's remember the reason for the season, as it is put. That is the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amongst all the hustle and bustle of Christmastime, let's not lose sight of the fact that, indeed, that is why we celebrate.

Merry Christmas.

Mr. Speaker, I can't emphasize enough how important it is for the ag economy and for the security of this country that my home State of California provides so many of these essential crops in high percentages. Many of these crops you see, 90 to 99 percent, even 100 percent, are grown in my home State.

What does that underline for you? It underlines the need for my home State to have a water supply to grow those crops. Each year it seems more and

more is being taken away regulatorily from farmers and given to environmental purposes.

We need to build more storage in my home State. We need to build what is called Sites Reservoir. We need to raise Shasta Dam. We need to look at other projects. We also need for the pumps at the delta to be running full blast at this time of year when we have this excess water running out to the ocean and filling up the San Luis Reservoir so we have that water supply for the southern part of the State in the San Joaquin Valley.

We need to do all these things in order to ensure that we have the crops to put the food on the table for Americans. At this time with the ag economy suffering so much across the country, we need to do everything we can to make their jobs easier.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about how Washington's obsession with overregulation is making life unnecessarily difficult for everyday Americans.

Under the Biden administration, their energy efficiency standards have become weapons of control, driving up costs, limiting choices for households, and strangling economic growth.

Under Biden's anti-energy agenda, American families are feeling the pinch every time they turn on a light, heat their home, power their appliances, or fuel up their vehicle.

These so-called efficiency standards don't lower costs; they shift the burden onto people's wallets and purses.

In my home State of California, we have seen the impact firsthand. Between skyrocketing energy bills and blackouts caused by these misguided policies, families are paying more for less reliability. Indeed, the blackouts we see in California are for two chief reasons. First, on a hot day in July or August or September, you can see the grid actually having to shut down manufacturing and shut down businesses so the rest of the grid doesn't collapse when people are trying to air-condition their homes or other businesses.

Secondly, we have what are called public safety power shutoffs, which, when the wind blows in California, we actually have to shut off the power lines in some cases because the fear is that trees or branches or whatever might fall upon the power lines can cause a blackout and the failure of the equipment, or, worse, a wildfire.

Indeed, in my own district, we have suffered with enough wildfires to last eons. Just to name a few: a million-acre fire known as the Dixie fire just this year, the Park fire where hundreds of thousands of acres were destroyed and many homes damaged, and the Camp fire a few years ago where 85 people lost their lives.

It is all sorts of mismanagement by my Governor in that we are not managing our forests. We don't have the electrical grid to have 24-hour sustainability even in a tough time of year.

There are remedies for that. We could be building more nuclear power plants. We could be building more natural gas plants and not regulating them out of business. We should be building more pipelines to get natural gas, which is extremely efficient and low cost.

We cannot be doing dumb things like tearing out hydroelectric dams like is being forced upon us in my district in northern California where four hydroelectric dams have been removed.

What do you get with a hydroelectric dam? You get water storage, you get flood control, you get water for agriculture, you get the hydroelectric power, and you get recreation. That has been taken away.

When you are talking hydroelectric power, a lot of people are worried about CO2 and carbon dioxide. Hydropower is a zero CO2 emitter as is nuclear power. We seem to want to regulate these things out of business, regulate them to not be part of our grid. Instead, we opt for the idealism of a few solar panels and windmills, which have a very limited life and are very inefficient.

This is the future the Democrats want for the rest of America, like in California, where energy is neither affordable nor dependable.

Soon gone will be the days when you can buy the appliance that best works for you. Bureaucrats now want to dictate what kind of washing machine you can have, what stovetop you can use, and even how long your dishwasher should run.

They even want to dictate what light bulbs you can use. A new mandate in California is talking about how State buildings, schools, things like that, have to start changing their light bulbs out by an arbitrary deadline. It doesn't matter if the bulbs have burned out or been used up or the ballasts have been used up. They just want to change them out.

This will cost schools, for example, hundreds of millions of dollars throughout the whole State to have to just arbitrarily change these out instead of attrition over time. I am doing that on my own farm, my own ranch, where when a ballast goes out or a set of bulbs goes out, let's change it over to LED at that time, and then you are saving the costs.

They don't care about that. They just have this mandate. We are limiting options, and the government is telling you that it is good enough for you, for your home.

Californians know this all too well. We have been forced to live with these policies that now Washington, D.C., tries to emulate. It just continues to strangle our economy. From manufacturers forced to spend millions complying with ever-changing rules to even small businesses struggling under higher energy costs, these regulations hurt all of them, large and small, as well as families.

The more we hamstring energy production and force businesses to conform to out-of-touch mandates, the less room we have for growth and prosperity. There are a couple of key drivers that are making things less affordable with inflation, the high cost of energy being one of them. The other is government overspending, as we are going to find out here pretty soon this week.

These policies are rooted in the same far-left ideology that has driven inflation. They have weakened our energy independence and have left America less competitive on the global stage. We need to do better.

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that when you go to get a permit to rebuild your roof or go open a new bank account that you think: Could I do even more paperwork?

Well, that is going to be applied to cars now and other vehicles through the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission. They finalized a new rule to do just that to small business dealerships, the so-called CARS Rule.

An estimate of this rule by the Center for Automotive Research claims it will add at least 1 more hour to purchasing a vehicle and over $24 billion in new regulatory costs across the 40 million transactions expected for consumer vehicles and hundreds of millions of consumer inquiries expected each year.

Even though this rule was supposed to only affect consumer sales, the FTC recently stated it would now apply to heavy-duty trucks, tractor- trailers, and schoolbuses, as well, which are almost exclusively bought by businesses and governments, not consumers.

Not even once did the FTC mention the words ``heavy-duty trucks'' or ``commercial transactions'' in their original proposal or the cost- benefit analysis that they are required to carry out.

A business buying a new cement truck and a family buying a minivan are two very different things. It only makes sense in the mind of a Washington bureaucrat that they somehow should be regulated the same way.

Next Congress, we need to fix or nix this sort of thing.

Mr. Speaker, beyond the usual incompetence on the border security that the Biden-Harris administration has exhibited, they are now sneakily selling off materials intended for the border wall in Arizona. These are materials that taxpayers have already paid for and were meant to secure our southern border.

Earlier this year, I visited the border once again and saw firsthand the challenges that our agents, local law enforcement, local businesses, and local communities face every day and the impact that these challenges have on them.

Border agents are stretched thin as they work around the clock to try to protect us, yet this administration continues to undermine their mission at every turn.

This isn't the first time. Last year, they sold off materials intended for a critical 20-mile stretch of border wall, leaving gaps. The gaps are easily found, and they pour through. Members should see the trash and the stuff that is on the ground in the arroyos from the people passing through illegally because they have a green light.

Their actions sent a clear message from this administration: border security isn't really a priority for them, even though Vice President Harris tried to pretend so in this last election.

Americans want secure borders. Instead of addressing this crisis, the administration is doubling down on failed policies that are just putting our border at risk.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at noon on Monday next for morning- hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to help celebrate the passage finally this week of the National Defense Authorization Act, a key step in strengthening America's security and supporting our military. It was a strong, bipartisan vote showing there is unity on America's military.

The bill ensures our military has the tools, the resources, and the capabilities to promote readiness and deadliness. With its cutting-edge technology, critical infrastructure, and much-needed pay improvement for our soldiers and their housing, it is a broad approach that is really going to help with meeting the all-around needs of meeting those goals. It demonstrates a clear commitment to protecting our Nation and defending freedom for this country and our allies around the world.

Indeed, the best war to fight is the one you never have to fight. That is why, when we have a strong military that is ready, the deterrence factor is one of the best things we can have for avoiding conflict and avoiding unnecessary bloodshed.

We are sending a powerful message with this legislation. With the challenges we face as a country, the United States will always be ready to protect what matters most.

Mr. Speaker, I am here with mixed feelings here.

Of course, I want to be here to honor Alex, but I am sorry we have to.

I can echo a lot of the words our colleagues have said here too for your standing up and being forthright, and the reason you wanted to take a bold step to be able to represent the people in the entire State of West Virginia.

You have done, as the map shows, one-half of the State already, which is pretty amazing. I come from California where I represent one-fifty- second, for those who are keeping score.

I really value your friendship. You have been one of my best friends in my legislative years. I appreciate that a lot.

Our good pal, Tony Strickland, from southern California is the one who put us together here.

I have known Tony ever since I first ran in the State legislature many years ago. He said: You have to check out Alex, he is great.

He was absolutely right. You have been a strong voice as a patriot for our basic freedoms. You have always done it with a sense of humor and a good flair that people want to be around you. They want to be a part of what you are doing.

Tony is proud of you down there in SoCal. I am proud of you as a friend. It is like what Tony is doing as a beacon of light and freedom in that place, here you fought for that in West Virginia, and I do have to kind of look at some the parallels we have with northern California.

West Virginia decided back around the Civil War that they wanted to break away because they didn't agree with a whole lot of what was going on in all of Virginia. We have a whole bunch of us in northern California who want to break away with the rest of the State because we don't agree with a whole lot going on in the urban part of California either. We have a common bond there with that spirit.

I enjoy your State. I enjoy the visits I have been able to make there. I want to be able to continue to do more with you as we go on, whether it is business or the fun stuff with some of the professional cage fighting we have enjoyed together a few times there, too.

Of course, getting to know your son a little bit, it has been fun along the way. You have a great legacy coming in behind you.

With that, I don't want to go on and on or maybe get this to be too emotional or something, but I appreciate you, Alex. You are a good man, and I know there is a lot more for you in the future here, for you to be able to continue to give, to help strengthen our country, to strengthen your State and our people.

God bless you. You are a dear friend. I appreciate you. Best wishes and God's blessings on your travels.