Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor my friend, Aldo Pineschi, Jr., who recently passed away in Roseville, California. His loss is felt throughout Northern California, and very personally to myself. My deepest condolences to his wife Lesli, their children, and to his extended family and many friends. Aldo was a quiet leader with tremendous influence, and also had a most caring spirit. There was little in Placer County that didn't have his wise advice and fingerprints on it. Aldo was a humble man who loved his community and did everything in his power to make it better. Never wanting to be in the limelight, he indeed was a light and help to dozens of charities, as well as encouraging all levels of government to come together to solve issues. Putting aside differences and finding areas of agreement was one of his specialties.

I value and will cherish the friendship that I shared with Aldo and will look back fondly at the times, over dinners, local events, we shared. No matter how far he had to travel, Aldo would be there giving me a smile from the back of a crowded town hall or business round table.

God Bless Aldo. I thank him for all he has done and the kindness that accompanied him every step on this earth. He will be missed.

Madam Speaker, last month, the Biden administration took steps toward legalizing marijuana by attempting to reclassify it as a lower category drug, going around Congress in the process. If enacted, this would increase the use of an already dangerous substance.

We have already seen this in California, the State with the highest rate of marijuana users. It is no surprise that California also has the highest rate of welfare recipients. We have one-eighth of the Nation's population, and about one-third of the State's population is on assistance. I believe the government should disincentivize the use of this harmful drug and not allow banks to prop up this immoral industry.

Recently, there have been efforts in Congress to exempt financial institutions from penalties if they provide financial services to marijuana companies. The Federal Government should have no role in encouraging citizens to break Federal law by incentivizing banks to handle the money in these industries. These measures give a green light to the evil that comes from drug use.

The addicts will rely on State welfare and disability payments for unemployment. Their medical problems will increase, draining our already strained healthcare system, which taxpayers are going to foot the bill for that.

Let's not be doing any more to legalize marijuana or pretend that it is legal through financial institutions.

Mr. Speaker, last year, California's air regulator, known as the California Air Resources Board, finalized a new rule that would require freight railroads in the State to adopt zero-emissions locomotives for industrial use by the year 2030, only 6 years from now, and for normal hauling by 2035. It is now requesting a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to proceed with this rule.

This EPA CARB rule would effectively require all locomotives to operate in a zero-emissions configuration when operating in California. Sounds nice in theory, doesn't it?

This regulation would limit the useful life of thousands of locomotives currently in use across the rail network and require transition to zero-emissions technology. What is that going to do to the cost of moving goods with technology that is not yet even available widely?

Even by CARB's own admission, this rule will drive many short-line railroad operators out of business. Short-line railroads are very important for moving freight in the interim from manufacturers, from granaries, from wherever, out to the mainline. We are just going to eliminate them. What will we replace them with? More trucks. We love trucks, but there is a role for trucks, for short-line and for long- haul railroads.

CARB also admits this rule will be shifting the transport of goods to many more trucks with much more truck traffic. They admit to that, which is the opposite of their stated goal of reducing emissions.

Rail operators have not even been able to acquire full tier 4 locomotives yet due to the availability and stretch in technology, which isn't there yet. We can't acquire tier 4 locomotives, which is already being bypassed by new tiers that CARB wants to push, basically going to all-electric trains. This isn't the all-electric train we have in the basement. This is the real world here.

It would make more sense for the bureaucrats at CARB to just take a break a little bit from their carbon-neutral crusade and let rail operators come to the tier 4 standards for the locomotives that they are still trying to develop as being compliant.

These tier 4 locomotives are 85 percent cleaner than other older technology already. That sounds like a win to me. That is a bingo, as some might say, instead of pushing net-zero locomotives on such a ridiculous timeline. Because of their obsession with net zero and carbon reductions, CARB is actually working against their own goals they are stating here.

It is estimated the U.S. EPA approval would result in close to 65 percent of the Nation's class I railroad locomotive fleet being banned from operating in California just 6 years from now.

General Van Ovost, the head of the U.S. Transportation Command, expressed concerns that this regulation will negatively affect the economy as well as the military readiness posture--moving the tanks and heavy equipment that you see sometimes on the railway, these big long trains of items the military has to deploy to wherever. By reducing the ability to transport this military equipment in and out of California from different parts of the country, it could severely impact their ability for military readiness.

When I asked about this CARB regulation in committee yesterday, they said the military is going to be exempt. I guess that is good. The things that are really important, CARB is going to exempt. I guess goods movement, movement of agricultural products, and movement of food isn't as important. Instead, we are going to be force-fed this rule.

A large collection of national, State, and local agriculture groups have expressed great concern that this CARB rule poses a significant danger to U.S. agriculture's ability to transport products domestically or to our ports. We already have enough trouble getting stuff into our ports.

It needs to be stated that technology for these replacements does not yet exist on these new types of locomotives.

Freight railroads contribute only 0.5 percent total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, as defined by WHO, and 1.7 percent to total transportation-related greenhouse gas. All of this is to reduce the amount of CO2, carbon dioxide, which is currently only 0.04 percent of our atmosphere, practically a rounding error.

Again, EPA approval of this rule would result in close to 65 percent of the Nation's class I railroad locomotives being banned from operating--what will that do to our supply chain--by 2030, with tier 4 locomotives that are not even fully available yet, let alone the next set of technology they are trying to mandate.

This will slow our farmers' ability to get food to our tables and our ports. It will be rotting in the fields or sitting somewhere while waiting for an electric train to recharge and be able to go another 100 miles.

It will delay and raise prices of materials used to build and heat our homes.

It will raise prices for middle-income and lower-income families who are already struggling with inflation and so many policies from this administration.

Every stage of automobile production and sale, including EVs, will be pushed by the same people who are also pushing this rule. Bureaucrats are once again going after anything carbon related without considering the effects of this crusade against carbon.

We need not follow the California Air Resources Board as a whole country. They are not even elected. They are appointed by the Governor. They might be elected locally as a supervisor or something, but they are not elected by anybody to be on the CARB.

Mr. Speaker, so far Congress has provided $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations via the so-called infrastructure bill.

Mr. Speaker, $5 billion of that money is allocated to individual States to build a network of fast chargers along major highways in the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program.

This outpouring of funds, the intense focus of the Department of Transportation and the Biden administration has only managed to finish seven of these stations in only four States.

Investment seems to be the term used on this topic to get around the fact that nothing is getting done and an incredible amount of taxpayer money is being spent.

There is a consistent pattern of electric vehicle charging stations being exempted also from the Buy America provisions that were expanded in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

We are buying these components from China because most are not sourced from U.S. manufacturing because we are in a big hurry, it seems, to not actually build them.

This is a pathetic and embarrassing show of bureaucratic waste and a slap in the face to American workers.

The whole Biden administration at every level, be it funding or regulation, have forced electric vehicles and have forced the demand that the infrastructure isn't even close to being in place for.

Mr. Speaker, 7 in 10 Americans said they don't want to buy an EV and are already trying to give back what they have.

Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize how important the situation is in California right now across the board with our resources: our water supply, our timber, our mining, and our agriculture.

Right now, of course, you are probably reading a lot of headlines about the fire situation, how much of our forests and open lands are in big trouble, and you are going to hear that side of the aisle talking all day long about climate change.

I throw back at them, if the climate is changing, what are we actually doing as people on the ground about it besides figuring out who we are going to tax or whose car we are going to take away or whose gas stove we are going to take away?

What are we doing, practically, about making our forests more fireproof or firesafe?

What are we doing about our water supply to make sure that there is more water stored so that people, agriculture, and, yes, even the environment can use it?

What are we doing to ensure we have a stronger electrical grid?

What is it we have happening? We see they want to tear out part of the electrical grid in the form of hydroelectric dams in northern California as well as up in Oregon and Washington, et cetera. It is just one after another.

Hydroelectric dams provide CO2-free electricity, if you want to worry about the CO2. Now, CO2 only makes up 0.04 percent of our atmosphere, but they are using it as a weapon in order to force us to change our lifestyles.

Let's store more water so we have it for agriculture, so we have it for hydroelectric power, and so we have it for all manner of things that we need water for, for human use and environmental use. Let's move the ball on that.

In my own district, we have a project called the Sites Reservoir that has been talked about for 50 years. It seems to be coming close to fruition of actually getting started to be built, but there are still roadblocks that could be thrown up. There could still be weaponized lawsuits to try and stop the building of the Sites Reservoir, which would be 1\1/2\ million more acre-feet of storage for California, as well as its positive flood control benefits when you are pulling the water out of a flooded river system into that reservoir. Why can't we think ahead a little more about these issues with our infrastructure?

Agriculture in California is one of the most important components of our food supply for this whole country that you can imagine. We have so much that we grow in California, from the Sacramento Valley to the San Joaquin Valley, that many of those crops, 90 to 99 percent of them, are grown in California.

If we don't grow it there, we are going to have to import it, or we have to do without. If we have to import it, it means it is going to be a higher cost, it is going to be lesser quality, or it will not be a reliable, constant source if they want to play trade games against us with it as well.

Why don't we produce it in California? We have the water supply. Hundreds of thousands, millions of acre-feet, even, escape to the sea each year because we are not storing it. We are not trapping it. We are not putting it into groundwater recharge, which would be extremely helpful for the San Joaquin Valley, especially where the ground has actually subsided. It is sinking somewhat.

We pull a lot of water out of the ground in order to do agricultural activity, but that said, agriculture also means groundwater recharge. If we are flooding those fields and irrigating those fields, it percolates back down in there.

Instead, they take more water away from the farmers, and they want to replace it with what they call solar farms, which is an insult. Why would you call that a farm?

Indeed, we are finding more and more that these massive solar arrays, as well as windmills, can actually change the climate in the area where they are. Think of the concentration. Think of the heat sink. We see that in urban areas, the urban heat sinks from so much pavement, so much concrete, and so many buildings. It raises the temperature.

If you want to talk about temperature once again, what are you going to do to the San Joaquin Valley where the idea is to take more and more ag land out and put so-called solar farms in?

We need to have our State be much more productive in keeping agriculture going, keeping the jobs going, and having a domestic food supply that is reliable.

With that comes infrastructure, building more water supply, and not tearing out our hydroelectric dams but actually preserving them and adding more to our electrical grid.

We have the Diablo Canyon Power Plant that has been in place for 40- plus years. It was almost going to be decommissioned here this year or next year with the two different reactors. They bought 5 more years. We need 40 more years for that plant, and we need more plants like that.

We have small nuclear plants that we can build more and more of around the country to keep our electric grid stable. Right now, when you see the temperatures in California, and a lot of the West, perhaps, over 100 degrees, 105, 108, even some other areas that are higher than that, it is going to be really tough on our electrical grid because we don't seem to have the foresight to produce electricity.

All these things work together for affordability and for families to sustain their homes and run the air conditioner and have a stable food supply that is halfway reasonable in cost.

It is a domestic food supply and one that brings jobs to our backyard and the water supply that we all need. We need all of the above on this.

Mr. Speaker, I come from California, which there is a certain amount of risk in saying that because we do a lot of wacky things there. It is a wonderful State with wonderful geography, wonderful weather, and so many great things, but the governance sometimes--I don't know.

What we are exporting currently is a lot of the work of the California Air Resources Board, which currently is trying to regulate locomotives into technology that doesn't even yet exist, and therefore, foist that same nontechnology onto other States. We are talking about the logistics of moving freight in California but also out of California and that can't be moved because they don't have a plan for that.

They would have them switch locomotives at the border, but with CARB's plans, they don't really care about that. They want to make everybody in the whole country buy locomotives to meet a Tier 4, they call it, which isn't even available yet. Beyond Tier 4, they want to go to zero emissions, which isn't really zero, the so-called electric trains. They are not even available. The technology isn't there, and CARB wants all of this done by the year 2030.

Imagine the logistics of getting food from California, which people rely on. Mr. Speaker, 99 percent of certain crops come from California. We won't be able to ship them out as well as the military material that might need to be moved out of our State in times of war or conflict. Anyway, don't do what we do in California.

Madam Speaker, if you have observed the West during the summer and fall months the last few years, maybe longer than that, you would see that fire season is soon upon us and has had devastating effects.

One example would be a 1 million-acre fire, one fire of a million acres in my district just 3 short years ago.

What are we doing as the Federal Government to combat that? They are moving pretty slowly.

The U.S. Forest Service has allowed, due to lack of ability to get access to the forest and get the type of board feet out that needs to happen, in the last 15 months, 50 individual sawmill closures up until March. Over 1,500 sawmills have closed since the year 2000.

Where is the capacity going to be to process these logs and turn them into something useful if the private sector isn't allowed to take enough harvest. Because of the U.S. Forest Service's lack of action, the U.S. is now number one in imported wood when we have all this wood standing out there. It makes no sense. We have got to move much quicker.

Madam Speaker, as we are on the precipice of another Memorial Day in this country, we have so much to be thankful for and grateful for as we pause to remember those who have fallen to defend our country, our way of life, and our Constitution.

From the fields of Valley Forge to Tripoli to our own homeland in the Civil War to San Juan Hill, the trenches of France, Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Iwo Jima, the 38th parallel, the jungles of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and others, we are grateful for those that stood up and stood in the line of fire for us and for our values.

Indeed, from John 15:13: ``Greater love has no one than this: To lay down one's life for one's friends.''

We owe them a lot. We can never pay that back other than to be grateful and to remember those who have fallen for our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the life and career of respected businessman and lifelong Yuba-Sutter resident, Heiman Cheim who passed away at the age of 86 years old.

Heiman was born on May 27, 1937, in Sacramento, California, to parents Harry and Lea. Heiman's Yuba-Sutter family roots run deep, as his maternal great-grandfather William G. Murphy was a member of the 1846 Donner Party. His father's side immigrated to Marysville in the mid-1800s from Germany.

Heiman attended Marysville High School, where he was active in sports and played the trombone. After graduation in 1954, he would first attend Menlo College in Palo Alto, CA. and was later recruited to play football at Westminster University in Salt Lake City, UT.

While at Westminster, he would meet his wife, Kaye, who he would marry in 1958. They would go on to have five children, along with many pets and countless family memories.

Heiman spent much of his early adulthood working with his father and uncles at the Union Lumber Company and Cheim Ranch. Heiman would eventually buy the company from his uncles and continue the family- owned legacy with his son, Harry. Heiman was a hard worker, his 64-year career was a testament to his tireless work ethic, and his deep connection with the community.

Heiman had an endless appetite for life, which included trips around the country and learning to ride a Harley-Davidson. His favorite place to be with family was Jackson Hole, Wyoming; together they would: flyfish, ski, track down bear jams, and enjoy our country's National Parks. After his wife passed away in 2004, it was imperative to carry on that tradition and make every holiday and birthday special. He shared many of these moments with his companion of twenty years, Donna.

Heiman is survived by his children, Heidi, Lorie, Harry, Charlotte, and Alison; twelve beloved grandchildren and one great grandchild. He is also survived by Donna Helms, along with many extended family and friends. His humor, generosity, drive, and joy in life inspired everyone around him. He will be deeply missed by all who knew him. May he rest in peace.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a very special young man, Preston Sharp, for his passion, commitment, and accomplishments in honoring our nation's veterans.

Preston is a resident of Shasta County, a loving son, and grandson with a heart of gold. His hard work and devotion to honor veterans in our community and our country will be felt for generations.

On Veterans Day in 2015, when Preston was just 10 years old, he visited the grave of his grandfather, a Navy veteran, at a local Redding cemetery. He placed a flag and flowers on his grandfather's headstone to thank him for his sacrifice. As he looked around, he was troubled by the lack of flags and flowers at the gravesites of all the other veterans. With encouragement from his loving mother and grandmother, Preston used that compassion to make a positive change in the world. He set a goal, and in just 5 months, by doing odd jobs and chores, he had earned enough to purchase flags and carnations to honor all 500 veterans in that cemetery in Redding, California. This gratifying success prompted him to set another goal, to honor veterans in all the Redding cemeteries. He began speaking at local groups and organizations who enthusiastically donated to his worthy objective, seeing in this young boy with a passion to honor and appreciate those who served. Soon, Preston was honoring veterans in cemeteries all around our North State, throughout California, and beyond.

Preston has organized the placement of more than one million flags and red carnations on veterans' headstones throughout the homeland. His crusades have inspired citizens in communities across the United States to participate in similar acts of patriotism and respect for veterans by coming out to clean headstones, replace weathered flags and flowers, and say ``Thank You'' to those that have served our country.

Preston does not just honor our fallen veterans. He often visits veterans at the local veteran's home or takes them out to lunch and enjoys listening to their stories. His goal is clearly to honor and help all veterans in any way possible, as evidenced by his current initiative, to help prevent and spread awareness of veteran suicides, which has become a top priority.

Preston's contagious ambition has spurred him to start other movements like the Flag and Flower Challenge to encourage everyone in the United States, especially youth, to honor veterans in their own hometowns. He also established Veterans Flags and Flowers, a non-profit organization with a vision to ``honor veterans across the country'' and a mission to ``honor veterans every day, not just the holiday''. As a teen member of the Sons of the American Legion, Preston helped inspire the Flying Flags for Heroes program and became their national spokesperson.

Preston was invited to the White House and was honored with a seat beside the First Lady during President Trump's inspirational State of the Union Address in 2018. President Trump commended 12-year-old Preston Sharp for ``a job well-done'' and praised young patriots like Preston who teach all of us about our civic duties as Americans.

Preston has been recognized and is supported by nearly every local club, organization, school, and business in northern California. He has been an honored guest, speaker and advocate at countless events, services, and fundraisers. He has been featured on the History Channel and highlighted social studies curriculum such as Inspire My Kids. He continues to collect accolades around the country for his work such as being awarded the title of Legacy Keeper by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and is allied with the Wreaths Across America program.

Preston's goal was to honor veterans in all 50 States which sent him travelling across the country, meeting veterans, visiting cemeteries, inspiring communities, and sharing the experience of planting flags and flowers along the way. Despite setbacks during the COVID-I9 shutdowns, on Veterans Day, November 11, 2022, Preston Sharp officially met his goal by presenting flags and flowers in honor of veterans in all 50 of our U.S. states. Quite a celebrated accomplishment.

Preston is now planning on taking his cause overseas to Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. He will be placing 17,000 American flags and red carnation flowers at every gravestone, saying each veteran's name out loud, and thanking them for their service.

This young man reminds us that we all have a sacred duty to honor and remember those who served and sacrificed for our nation, no matter how old we are.

Mr. Speaker, in my district in northern California there is this catastrophic removal and destruction of the Klamath dams. These are hydroelectric dams that provide clean, CO2-free power for about 70,000 homes. It is reducing the renewable grid that everybody seems to want, eliminating recreational assets, hurting property values, damaging the local economy, and making it tougher on agriculture in the Klamath Basin.

Mr. Speaker, many of these products right here that are grown in California, 90 to 99 percent of what America relies upon. Even 100 percent of some of those same crops are grown in the Klamath Basin. They won't be able to do that much longer if they keep tearing down our infrastructure and taking water away.

The removal of these dams currently has released many millions of cubic yards of accumulated silt which has ruined the water quality and killed hundreds of thousands of fish and their spawning beds that they have laid new smelts in.

We have seen even full-sized deer getting stuck and dying in the mud. The Governors of California and Oregon seem willing to ignore these because they think it is a win to tear out the dams.

Local farmers, again, are suffering. The project borrowed water from the dams to extend irrigation systems. We won't have that flexibility anymore with that out. We won't be able to grow some of these crops that Americans enjoy and rely upon.

We have this devastation going on all in the name of the environment and all in the name of saving some fish, and in the meantime they have destroyed and killed hundreds of thousands of fish and will continue to do so with this reckless dam removal that won't end here. It will keep going. We will have less hydroelectric power, less stored water, and less recreation with this crazy type of thinking.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a dear friend, Brigadier General Clarence E. ``Bud'' Anderson, probably known best, at least by me and some others in the neighborhood, as Colonel Bud.

In recent years, Representative Tom McClintock and I petitioned the Air Force to upgrade him to brigadier general, which he certainly deserved and he earned, but I think most folks kind of know him as Colonel Bud.

What you see there in his countenance and smile goes even beyond his exploits as a triple ace in World War II to the kind, nice, and decent man that he was.

You could sit down with Colonel Bud and just chat about anything. He was willing to talk about his time serving in World War II, especially as a fighter ace, a triple ace. ``Ace'' means five kills of enemy aircraft. He did that over three times.

He was known as everybody's friend in the Auburn area of northern California. It was certainly a pleasure for me to know him since somewhere around 2011 when I first got to meet him at a special event there.

He was always out participating in the community when he could. Health issues more recently made that tougher. He was out there sharing and just being an inspiration to so many, especially young people. He would take the time to sit with and chat and talk about his experiences. That is very special because his service was an incredible experience in helping keep our Nation safe and helping free Europe in World War II. Not a lot of veterans want to talk about that publicly. It is difficult for them. He was the guy who could do that.

You see him here with his aircraft. He flew three different types of aircraft in World War II, but the one most known was his P-51 Mustang named the ``Old Crow,'' of which there are replicas that you can see at certain air shows. I am very proud of that, and it is well known because of his amazing exploits.

We are very saddened by his passing, but our hearts are filled with what a great man and a nice man he was.

He would talk with us about engines and airplanes and the dogfighting in World War II that got him to that point of being a triple ace, and he would even talk about NASCAR racing.

Interestingly, there is a special edition Ford Mustang done up like his aircraft that he got to see, which was pretty cool as well. It was done, I think, by Roush Racing.

He was a northern California native. He grew up on a rural farm in Newcastle, and he loved to watch the airplanes back then.

He graduated from Placer High School in 1939 and earned his private pilot license in 1941 through the Civilian Pilot Training Program. In January of 1942, when duty called, he entered the U.S. Army aviation cadet program, receiving his wings that September of 1942.

In Europe, Bud served two combat tours, escorting heavy bombers in the P-51 from 1943 to 1945, which was some severe duty.

If you have ever watched any documentaries, the duty they had in those daylight raids to try to bomb Germany out of the war is incredible. Those ``Little Friends,'' as these Mustangs were known, escorting those bombers in that difficult mission were indeed valuable and loved by them.

He flew 116 combat missions, 480 hours' worth, destroyed 16\1/4\ enemy aircraft, as they divided them up amongst a couple other pilots as well.

Bud flew in the 357th fighter group known as the Yoxford Boys and was the highest scoring ace in the 363rd fighter squadron. Bud came home from Europe and married Eleanor Cosby in 1945. They had two children, James Edward and Kathryn.

After the war, he became a fighter test pilot and later chief of fighter operations. He flew many models of early jet fighters and was involved in some very unusual flight test programs, including down at Edwards Air Force Base where much of that came from. He has flown over 130 types of aircraft and logged over 7,500 flying hours in his career.

He was also assigned in postwar Korea as a commander of a F-86 jet

fighter squadron there as well, commander in the F-105 wing in Okinawa, and two assignments at the Pentagon, as well.

Bud was decorated 25 times. His awards include 2 Legions of Merit, 5 Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Bronze Star, 16 Air Medals, the French Legion of Honor, and the French Croix de Guerre, as well as many other campaign service ribbons.

When Bud retired from the Air Force, he joined the McDonnell Aircraft Company and served for 12 years as the manager of the company's flight test facility there.

After his full retirement in 1984, Bud and Ellie moved back to Auburn where he continued to travel, hunt, fish, and speak at air shows and just be the great man we knew him as. God bless him. I am going to miss him personally. What a great friend he was. He was a great human being, and I am glad to have known him.

May God bless you, Bud, and hold you in His hands.

Fly high, my friend.

Madam Speaker, our forests are in crisis, and we must act with urgency on managing them and making them more fireproof.

In the past few years, for example, my district in northern California has seen the devastating effects of wildfires, from the Camp fire in 2018 where 85 people lost their lives, and the Dixie fire which consumed 1 million acres.

They are not just statistics. They represent real people, homes lost, and entire towns disappeared.

Yet funding alone is not going to be enough. We need more tools, we need more authorities, and we need categorical exclusions that will help move us into the forest more quickly, more broadly, and more effectively.

Pace and scale need to be dramatically increased, especially on Federal forest lands.

The 2024 farm bill promotes active forest management; yes, the farm bill, because USDA has the Forest Service aspect in that bill, as well. We need to do much acceleration of the process. We don't want to continue to see the West burn year after year. We need to put the jobs back in the forests where we used to have them 40 and 50 years ago.

The 2024 farm bill will enhance our ability to manage forests proactively, reduce fuel loads, and put people back to work in the West.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith for helping us with our legislation all this time here, and I am very grateful also to Mr. Steube for allowing our bill to be piggybacked with his in this effort here, as well as H.R. 7024, Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which is still waiting over in the Senate. I hope we can get that one passed, but I am grateful for everybody to join this effort here today in a strong, bipartisan effort to move this narrower, very important disaster relief package to help people all across the country, as has been said.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Thompson of California, so much for our partnership on this. It has taken some time, but we are getting there. I am glad to see it.

With the losses we have suffered along with our constituents-- especially our constituents, of course--it is very painful to see and not be able to go back to them and say we have gotten a result.

My own constituents, I commend them. I am grateful for them. They have been very patient, the victims of the Camp fire where 85 lives were lost, the victims of the Zogg fire, my neighbors down there in the Santa Rosa area, and of course, my good friend, Ms. Tokuda. Lahaina suffered an even greater loss of life than what we had in Paradise, which was a record. We don't want to set records. We want to get results.

It has been a great partnership on top of disaster and heartache.

Just picture this, though, as I talk about Paradise: You wake up in the morning, and you hear there is a fire. All of a sudden, there is an evacuation. People are crowding the narrow roadways, trying to get up the hill or down the hill out of town, barely making it in some cases, scorched vehicles, tires on fire, all of that.

They are seeing in their rearview mirrors their neighborhood engulfed in flames and their houses burning down with all their mementos, as was mentioned, in them.

They are wondering: Did their neighbor get out? Did the elderly lady up the street get out? Thank goodness there was a firefighter or neighbor that maybe helped that lady get out just in time, so there was not even a bigger loss of life.

The resilience of these folks in the fires that I have had in my district and my neighbors in our neighboring States is just amazing as they have stuck with us on this.

A settlement happened with the utility to somehow partly compensate them, and indeed, they will never be made whole.

My colleagues have pointed that out well. They can never be made whole, even with a lot of money. That settlement should not be a taxable event.

Think about it. Just break that down for a minute. You are in your home, and you have been paying off your mortgage. Maybe it is already paid off. You have your equity in your home. This disaster happens, and you lose your home. All of a sudden, you have to rearrange your life. You have to rebuild your life. That portion of that equity that now is going to be compensated for partly by the settlement with the utility, that portion of your home, is now a newly taxable event because of the IRS' interpretation of that.

How is that right? How is that fair at all? Someone is ripped out of their life, home, family, whatever may have happened to them personally, and now they have a taxable event on top of that piece of equity that was in their home because of a bad interpretation here.

That is why this legislation is necessary. That is why it has been so strongly supported on both sides of the aisle all through the process here. That is why we need to overcome these hurdles we have, whether it is over in the Senate or what have you, to get this done.

People deserve to have that predictability, that sustainability of their lives, to be able to put themselves back in a good way again.

To the fire victims of the Camp fire in my area, the Zogg fire, our other neighbors out there, relief is on the way.

This has been a tremendous effort, a little out of the ordinary, to get this legislation back to this floor here tonight, and I think it will pass resoundingly. I hope so. I ask for everybody's ``aye'' vote.

Again, I appreciate all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for stepping forward and doing right by the fire victims, by the hurricane victims, by those folks in East Palestine, and by others who are going to be added to this.

This is how legislation should look. This is how a country pulls together, and I am glad to be part of it.

Madam Speaker, California's agricultural sector is a powerhouse, contributing over $50 billion to our economy and all these amazing food products for U.S. consumers.

Since we produce so many of these fruits and vegetables at 90-plus percent, it is a key element. Our Nation's consumer base really depends on a

strong farm bill for the products that come from California and all over the country.

In a week, the House Agriculture Committee will hold a vote on this year's farm bill. I can say from personal experience that the committee has spent countless hours going around the country listening to people and taking into account all the things it takes to make our domestic food supply strong.

It aligns our farm safety net with the needs of producers as well as folks in need, and an incentive for conservation and market access are all elements of that.

I also have the privilege of chairing the Subcommittee on Forestry. We are focused on making our forests safer from devastating fire, which we have experienced in northern California with the loss of many lives, as has my dear friend, Representative Tokuda, with Lahaina in Hawaii.

We have to do much better on making our communities and our lands fire safe to prevent unnecessary loss of life and unnecessary damage. The farm bill is going to be a big element in going forward and improving upon that situation. I look forward to a positive vote and success next week.