Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today the announcement from the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers is a very long overdue course correction. This has to do with the definition of the Waters of the United States, which had been defined most recently in the Biden administration and Obama administration to have Federal regulators claim jurisdiction over mud puddles and temporary ponds that are dry within a few hours after a rainstorm.

Mr. Speaker, they want to control everything, and this happens on private land. With the reversal of this decision, the farmers, ranchers, and landowners don't have to worry about Federal regulators coming in and jumping on them for a temporary mud puddle after rain.

The Supreme Court made clear in the decision of Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency that was never what Congress intended. No, it was not. This new proposal finally moves us back to a commonsense reading of the actual law. It reins in Federal overreach, and it restores the rights of States and private landowners. Importantly, it keeps clean water protections in place.

By narrowing the jurisdictions of the waters that truly meet the standard and by removing ditches, groundwater, or other things that really shouldn't be in there, the EPA is bringing clarity and predictability back to those who work the land every day.

Mr. Speaker, I commend the EPA and Army Corps for this course correction.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a friend, CAL FIRE Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit Chief Brian Estes. Brian has been a solid partner in public safety and fire protection for many years, and I am grateful that we became friends along the way. Always a man of deep integrity, I know I could trust his judgement and clarity in any issue before us. He will be missed by myself and my office. Despite being a Los Angeles Dodgers fan, we have much in common and I wish him the very best in his retirement. I do hope our paths cross, and I look forward to seeing what his incredible artistic talent creates in this next chapter of his life.

Chief Estes earned a bachelor's degree from California State University, Chico, in Information and Communications Studies with a minor in Fine Art. In 1991 he would make a pivotal career shift graduating at the top of his class from the Butte Fire Academy, beginning his lifelong commitment to public safety. His first assignment in San Diego County at a bustling fire station along the international border would further his enthusiasm for public safety.

Chief Estes would join a CAL FIRE Helicopter crew in Tuolumne County in 1995. This assignment would ignite a passion for fire aviation, where he would coordinate with California National Guard's Blackhawk and Chinook Squadrons. He would then be promoted and assigned to the Amador-El Dorado Unit. In 2000, he advanced to the rank of Captain and then Battalion Chief in 2005 overseeing the Unit's Training and EMS Bureau before transferring to the Headquarters Field Battalion Chief Position.

Chief Estes would continue to rise through the ranks serving as Assistant Chief of Operations, overseeing a Fire Crew Camp, Deputy Chief of Operations, and ultimately Unit Chief for the Nevada-Yuba- Placer Unit and Fire Chief of Placer County Fire Department. In these roles, he led over 450 personnel in one of CAL FIRE's most complex units, managing operations, administration, and a $100 million budget across 1.7 million acres of State Responsibility Area (SRA). During his career Chief Estes has prioritized professional development, serving on department committees and instructing the next generation of firefighters.

Chief Estes, as a key member of the 2006 branding committee, would transition the department from CDF to CAL FIRE, designing the department's patch logo, apparatus fleet identity, and aviation fleet livery. This rebranding efforts elevated CAL FIRE's public image and highlighted the professionalism of its more than 10,000 firefighters. For over 15 years Chief Estes has chaired the statewide uniform and standards committee, further reinforcing the department's professional standards.

Chief Estes' impact and leadership in public safety will be felt not just in California but far beyond. In 2023, he was deployed to Maui, Hawaii, for incident management for the devastating Lahaina fire. He would also travel to Germany, building partnerships with fire services in over 10 cities and speaking at a major Western European fire symposium.

On behalf of Northern California and our grateful rural communities that Chief Brian Estes has fought tirelessly to defend throughout his career, I thank him for his dedicated service and congratulate him on his well-earned retirement.

Mr. Speaker, under the process in this country of drawing maps for representation, it is done every 10 years immediately following a census. This year, States are setting out to redraw maps mid-decade and mid-census without any census data. This is done for partisan purposes.

For example, my home state of California has a commission that is supposed to draw the maps and put them in the grubby hands of legislators with a pen or pencil and eraser. The voters of California affirmed three different occasions by their vote on the ballot that they don't want it to be done by legislators.

We see a scheme going on right now to take that away from the voters and put it back in the hands of the legislators. Here is one of the results rights here. Where the top of California meets Oregon and Nevada, that corner there is Modoc County. It sounds as rural as the name ``Modoc'' implies. It is now being linked all the way down here to the north half of the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County.

This is the area where wolves have been introduced that are devouring the wildlife and the farmers' and ranchers' livestock up there by the people down here who think it is a really good idea. They are not going to have any voice to balance out and to talk about how they are being devastated by policies coming from the urban areas. That is what is known as Proposition 50.

Mr. Speaker, they should vote ``no'' on that in California and bring balance back. Leave the balance in place instead of partisan lines.

Mr. Speaker, the gray wolf has made a full recovery in the United States and has been for some time. Yet, with the introduction of more and more wolves into the rural areas, you get results like this, with cattle losses as well as the wildlife in the area being devastated.

Yet, activist lawsuits have kept wolves on the list long past the point of recovery. The result is indeed devastating for rural America.

In the Great Lakes and Rocky Mountain regions, wolf populations are in the tens of thousands. These predators kill livestock and pets, costing ranchers their livelihoods.

Some years, the USDA reports loss of nearly 5,000 cattle and sheep. They are

wiping out the wildlife in Colorado and my area of northern California, too.

Families who work hard shouldn't have to live in fear that the next attack will be on their herds or even their kids or themselves. In the Sierra Valley, for example, in northern California, just in the recent months, ranchers have lost 80 head of livestock.

Ranchers and rural residents must be allowed to defend their property and themselves, including with lethal force when necessary. Indeed, the wolves are untouchable because the protections are so strong you can't even defend yourself or your land. In effect, hazing is what is allowed. You can't even hardly disturb wolves.

We must delist them. U.S. Fish and Wildlife listed them years ago. Now, they need to go through the delisting process because the wolf has fully recovered.

Mr. Speaker, today, we celebrate Constitution Day.

Constitution Day is observed on September 17 each year. It was originally passed as a law in 2004 for citizens to remember the founding document, our Constitution, and the hard work they did in Independence Hall back in 1787 to give us the pieces that are really important to our American citizenship.

This law requires educational institutions and Federal agencies to commemorate and teach about it in schools. It is very important that schools emphasize the Constitution, how we got here, and how it is the core of our existence as a free nation.

We have to know about the Constitution as it protects our rights, but it can only do so if we protect the Constitution.

I commemorate each day a person whose rights weren't protected. Iryna Zarutska was a refugee from Ukraine killed needlessly on a train in North Carolina by a guy who had been released 14 times for other crimes.

Mr. Speaker, I wish we could have protected her more. We have a lot to do.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues might have heard about the redistricting scam going on in California, which has set off a wave of a bunch of them around the country.

Indeed, what has happened is that about 15 years ago Californians put in place a commission to take the responsibility of making the new district maps out of the grubby hands of legislators. We see the current process they are doing, if we want to call it a process, is exactly why.

They have taken maps of who represents what parts of the State and have completely drawn them for partisan reasons. Basically, in this case it is in order to eliminate up to five Republicans and make them into Democrat seats, drawing urban areas into the rural ones. What is really bad about that is that rural representation will no longer be heard. In those areas, we will have people who will only have their issues represented by urban people who want to take their water supply away from agriculture.

They keep introducing wolves into areas of the Northeast and the rural areas of California. This devastates wildlife and livestock. They let the timber burn so we have massive fires because they would rather kowtow to a few environmental groups in the urban areas. That is what we are getting with these district lines. We are only getting urban voices and not rural.

Mr. Speaker, I also ask everyone to please remember Iryna Zarutska. She was killed needlessly by a guy who had been released 14 times.

Mr. Speaker, as I often tell you, California is the leader in specialty crops important to all Americans, to their diet and their enjoyment. For many of these crops, 90 percent plus are grown in my home State. If we didn't grow them there, you would not have them or you would have to import them from somewhere else at higher cost and lower quality.

Farmers in my State know how to grow food better than anyone, but I think my Midwest folks would probably dispute that a bit. The American farmer is extremely important, and we need to have what they need, the inputs for that.

In my home State, water is the key element that seems to be shorted not so much by nature but by bad, manmade decisions on how we manage our reservoirs or even not to bother to build reservoirs. We need new reservoirs to feed our growing Nation and a growing State. When we get the water cut off, as happens frequently, you have farmers left literally high and dry and the crop having to come from somewhere else or not at all.

It doesn't have to be this way. Let's build water supplies and be a little smarter about actually allocating to farmers instead of to fish and things like that.

Lastly, remember Iryna Zarutska, needlessly killed by a guy who had been arrested 14 times.

Mr. Speaker, this is the last opportunity to speak on the floor this week, and today is like a confluence of a lot of really horrific things in recent or longer history.

We should not forget the very recent vicious taking of the life of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee who made it to this country and was victimized on a train in North Carolina by a 14-time released criminal. Let's not forget her.

Today, we mark the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on our country. We never should forget that, although it seems our society is doing that with what we are allowing to happen. Remember those 3,000- plus folks who died on this day.

I can't let this week go without also acknowledging Charlie Kirk, a modern-day civil rights leader, so to speak, who stood for truth, who stood for the people. Even though he might have been arguing with them in a friendly way at these events, he wanted them to know the truth. He wanted to lead them from the darkness, from the deception of this modern-day society of people who are deceiving people and their really bad choices. He was doing it with God's love, with Christ's love. He has been taken.

I hope his image, his memory, is made even stronger somehow, as sometimes is God's will, with his loss.

Today, we pray for his beautiful family, for the support they are going to need.

Mr. Speaker, Charlie Kirk was a leader. He was leading people from the darkness, and may God bless him.

Mr. Speaker, I spoke about this young lady yesterday, Iryna Zarutska. I think it bears repeating that she need not be forgotten in the

heinous crime that was committed in Charlotte on a light-rail system there.

Iryna Zarutska, escaped from Ukraine as a refugee, a true refugee to the United States, and lost her life because of the inability for us to stop crime in our large cities in the USA from a guy who had been arrested 14 different times and turned loose. Remember her name, Iryna Zarutska.

California's Water Situation

Mr. Speaker, I speak often on this floor about California's water situation and how important it is not just to California, to California farmers, but to the country as a whole.

The crops that we grow in my home State indeed are important to the nutrition and the economy of the whole country. So many of the crops that we grow, up to 90 percent and more, are grown in California. You would have to import it from some other country if it wasn't grown there, and indeed, it would be at a lower level of quality, lower level of availability, under less constraints of proper environmental rules of usage of chemicals and labor. Those regulations go way beyond, a lot of times, like the California Air Resources Board, but I digress.

What is the key to California crops? It is our water supply. I speak often about how important it is to carefully guard our water supply that is available in our State.

Mr. Speaker, this graphic shows how much water is wasted each year. We wouldn't have to take away from fish. We wouldn't have to take away from farmers. We wouldn't have to take away from cities. We wouldn't have to take away from washing cars and filling swimming pools like they talk about in L.A. a lot. Nobody has to have less if we would be a little bit smarter on how we allocate it and how we store it.

We have opportunities in California to store more water. We can raise the Shasta Dam 18 feet and gain 630,000 more acre-feet of water. Down the Sacramento River a little way is an opportunity to build a place called the Sites Reservoir, which would be 1.5 million acre-feet of supply.

One of the topics I am working on with the Shasta Dam is an amendment to put the language into the next bill on what is called FIRO, which is called Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations. Basically, we will do what a lot of people do, which is look at the weather forecast and look at the long term. We would see what the effects of the weather would be on the storage of the water in the dam.

The dam is required to have a certain amount of a buffer zone in the winter months so that if an extreme amount of rain or melting snowpack happens, the reservoir would have room to absorb that water instead of going straight down the river at an uncontrolled rate. That is what our flood control system is for.

This dam holds 4.5 million acre-feet full. They don't allow it to fill all the way up until April 1. They start filling it on approximately April 1 when the conservation period is over.

At that point we have to rely on how much snow might be on the mountains here on Mount Shasta, for example, and the other areas in the watershed to melt enough to bring the lake back up to that last 1 million acre-feet or so. We don't always have the weather to do that after April 1. A lot of times we run short. We don't fill the lake all the way up.

What we are talking about with the FIRO, the Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations, is we will look at the weather patterns. What do we expect will happen in the period of February or March? We can look offshore and see there are no storm fronts coming in for 3 weeks. They can tell with a satellite.

Obviously, we can't predict the weather to the nth degree. We can tell if there is a big issue or a lack of issue. Is it El Nino or La Nina? What will happen there?

If we see there is no weather coming in for a period of time, we can bump up that level of water the lake is holding in February and in March to a little higher degree than we would if we are afraid it will fill up and overflow. That is why FIROs are important.

The amendment we are working on will put some resources forward so they can plan for FIRO on Shasta Dam, which is the largest one in the State. They have done FIRO on some smaller reservoirs around the State. Why wouldn't we do it to the biggest one first that can have the most gain on water supplies in the State?

Mr. Speaker, let's get that done. We can save 200,000 or 300,000 acre-feet easily just by looking at the weather.

Mr. Speaker, I rise with great sadness and outrage at what happened to this beautiful, true refugee from Ukraine who made it to this country. She escaped that war-torn situation and found refuge in America, as it should be.

Her life was viciously taken in the city of Charlotte on the light rail system there by a guy who had been let out 14 different times by different judges.

The system failed her, and the system is failing a lot of people, so I don't quite understand why, when President Trump or others are trying to up the game on trying to enforce the law in our cities with extra resources, there is so much opposition there.

This beautiful life is gone unnecessarily.

What is the Governor down in North Carolina, Josh Stein, doing?

He didn't even want to acknowledge it until they finally got so much heat and pressure on that. Of course, the mayor there in Charlotte wanted to sympathize with the killer.

Now, where is the press coverage on this?

A certain guy in Minnesota years ago got way more press coverage. It is the wrong narrative? The wrong narrative, is that what it is?

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to talk about the two amendments that passed yesterday in committee to increase water storage at Shasta Dam and Black Butte Dam in northern California in the appropriations bill. Shasta is the largest reservoir in California and the primary source of the Central Valley Project.

Yet what goes on, you see that spillway in use right there, we are letting too much water get out of the lake because it isn't being properly planned for. They are using a water control manual written in the seventies. Instead, they could be using modern technology called FIRO, Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations, which should be applied to Shasta County, the largest dam in California. We could apply that. We could save hundreds of thousands of acre-feet that would normally be going downstream or flooding out the roads of Glenn County, for example, as we saw this year.

Updating the manual with modern forecasting, using what they use on TV and The Weather Channel, could actually inform operations for Army Corps there. We could be producing many more agricultural products and dispatchable power with that hydro plant.

The other amendment I got done provides $2 million for an Issue Evaluation Study at Black Butte Dam in Glenn County. It is the first step toward adding spillway gates that could boost storage by 100,000 acre-feet there that we normally couldn't store. We need the water. We need to store the water for agriculture, energy, people, and even for the environment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise with a heavy heart tonight to note the passing of a really good friend and colleague who I came up with in the State legislature, Mr. Sam Paredes.

He was a strong, strong advocate of protecting all of our rights as Americans, focusing on the Second Amendment with his work with Gun Owners of California, Gun Owners of America, and through the foundation.

Beyond that, Sam was a good man, a great patriot, and a great family man. His family was right there beside him working the events, working the efforts out there to protect people's basic freedoms on the Second Amendment.

Sam was a man of strong faith who believed in God and loved Jesus and would always sign off each night to his family with: All is well in the kingdom. You don't find a lot of people like that in the political realm there who are beyond politics.

The movement that he helped build for the Second Amendment is stronger because of him, and that legacy will continue long after we can't remember all about it. His unwavering commitment to liberty and, indeed, his leadership helped shape the national movement to protect, keep, and bear arms.

Beyond that, the man himself, his personal attention to people to make sure they are okay, to be that friend, to be that big bear of a guy, you just don't see very many people like that in this world, especially in the realm of politics, as I mentioned.

He will be severely missed. He was greatly loved by his family. It was a surprise that we lost him, and I will miss him, as well.

Indeed, he was a great man and a great patriot. There is not anything I could say that even fulfills what a good man this is, so God bless his family. God bless Sam Paredes.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 21 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, September 4, 2025, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, in my northern California district in Glenn County, there is a water district called the Orland Project. It was built to capture and store water, yet outdated Federal laws tie our hands on how it can be used.

Right now, those supplies can only be transferred to the Central Valley if the Governor declares a drought emergency. That restriction makes no sense as water isn't as flexibly used as it could be.

In most years, surplus water is sitting behind a Federal dam while farms just down the road are short and our aquifers are getting pumped harder and harder to make up the difference from the surface water.

If we don't start pulling down these Federal roadblocks, then more water will keep going to waste just running out to the sea and not being used.

My legislation, the Orland Project Water Management Act, is a simple fix. It allows that water to be moved whenever it is available, not just during emergencies or when the Governor feels like it. There is no new construction and no extra costs, just smarter use of what we already have.

It is really, in terms of government, a no-brainer bill that supports agriculture, protects groundwater, and improves reliability.

Why don't we build in the flexibility to move the water where it is needed instead of just wasting it out to the ocean.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the life and career of Wallace Clark Roney, who passed away on July 6, 2025, at the age of 79.

Wallace, known as ``Wally,'' was a fifth-generation cattle rancher. From a young age, he balanced school with the responsibilities of adulthood, working alongside the men on the ranch. As he grew older, Wally helped drive cattle on horseback to and from the mountains, a journey of more than eight days each way. He made the trip multiple times each year with several herds, accompanied by up to 20 ranch hands, a chuck wagon, and camp gear. Wally's passing marks the end of an era that will not be repeated.

Wally went on to earn a degree in Agricultural Business from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He received numerous awards and recognition over the years and was known as an industry leader focused on finding better ways to do things and making the seemingly impossible work. He also honed lifelong skills training exceptional horses and competing as a rodeo cowboy while at Cal Poly.

In the late 1980's, Wally traveled to Washington, D.C. to warn the Department of the Interior that our forests would someday burn to the ground if changes weren't made to their management. Wally, as usual, was right. His insights on so many issues were nothing short of remarkable. He often said he ``learned something new every day.''

He is survived by his wife, Billie Jean; sister, Catherine Jane Oviedo; son, Jaret; daughter, Sally Roney; grandchildren, Eric, Tyler, Gigi, Joy Roney, Austin, George, and Ani Knox; and great-granddaughter, London. He will be deeply missed by his family, friends, and all who knew him.

Rest in peace, Wally.