Floor Statements

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the time from my great colleague from Tennessee who works a lot on the important energy field, and it is great to work with him.

Mr. Chair, I do rise today in support of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act. This funding bill cuts billions of needless spending from the Democrats' budget-busting spending bills of the last Congress and continues prioritizing funding toward our Nation's water infrastructure so desperately needed, especially in my home State of California.

Stored water means water for people and for agriculture. It means hydroelectricity can be generated, which is green power. It means flood control. It means recreation, yes, even environmental water, which is already getting the lion's share of the water we have in my home State.

Additionally, I am pleased to see H.R. 215, the WATER for California Act is included in this legislation, which my colleague Representative Valadao and I worked on with the entire Republican delegation from California.

The WATER for California Act restores the basic principle of fairness for water users in California by requiring the Bureau of Reclamation to follow the terms of their water contracts and use the best available science to operate the Central Valley project.

This would also eliminate the environmental blockade against using water storage funds to move forward with the enlargement of Shasta Dam in my district, an opportunity to store 630,000 new acre-feet at an existing structure. That should be easy.

Lastly, this measure prohibits the administration from completely changing all the rules, regulations, and procedures of the California water system on a whim simply to satisfy the radical environmentalists, much to the detriment of our farms and agriculture, and forcing urban water users to have to ration water to the tune of 42 gallons of water per day.

Imagine, you have got a wading pool for your kids or your pets or whatever. It might take 3 days of your water ration to fill a wading pool under what they have coming down the pike on rationing water and limiting.

We have so much water flowing out to the Pacific through the Delta that is being wasted. We have water right now being let out of the dams in order to meet their conservation level for flood control later, that should be put someplace that can be helpful such as the San Luis Reservoir.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this bill and get some common sense back into our water supply.

Mr. Speaker, we are in perilous times as a Nation due to the

weakness we have been projecting in the last 2\1/2\ years from our leadership.

What do we see? When you have a vacuum like that--we know the terminology ``nature abhors a vacuum''--China is all too eager to step in and move in and replace us in that regard. We are seeing that with the undermining of our currency around the world. We see it with the BRICS group trying to go on its own where the American currency for many, many years has been the standard.

Now, we don't have a birthright to that. We don't have a birthright as the United States for being number one in anything, but I think we can agree that we would be stronger as a country, as well as with our good intentions as a people, that the United States is well positioned to continue to be the light of the world that it is capable of being.

With bad leadership, with poor leadership, we allow others to come in and replace us in that role. China is seeking to do so on so many things, like manufacturing and food. That is what I would like to talk about today: food production.

At the same time as western countries are saying we need to blame agriculture for climate change, which basically means CO2 production, I would remind you once again, carbon dioxide is only .04 percent of our atmosphere. All the hysteria over that is that it is somehow going to be the end of us as a people, the end of the Earth; it has only grown a minute amount.

They would have us cut one-third of agriculture in this country. John Kerry, the so-called czar, as he flies in his private jet to yet another fancy event in Davos to talk about climate change, along with hundreds of other private jets, would have us cut one-third of our agriculture in this country.

You see that happening in Europe. You see the Dutch farmers valiantly fighting back against their oppressive government where they are wanting to put a bunch of their land out of business. Holland reclaimed a bunch of land from the ocean via those polders, via those levees they used to push back the ocean and made prime farmland out of that. You have extremists trying to push them out. You see Ireland a while back deciding they need to cull about 30 percent, maybe a third of their dairy herd because dairies make CO2 and methane gas and such.

There was a time in this country where we had way, way more buffalo on the plains than we do have currently with beef and dairy cattle. That is an interesting stat. It isn't about the animals burping or whatever.

As we see the U.S., due to bad policy, to poor leadership, being displaced in that area, do we really want to become dependent even more so on China and a cartel they might be in with Russia and other alliances they have with Iran, to be more and more dependent on them? We are already dependent on them for 90 percent of our pharmaceuticals, and so much of our manufactured products. Do you want to do that to agriculture, too? It makes no sense.

You see what is happening in my home State of California, where California produces so many of these great crops here. Ninety-plus percent that Americans rely on comes from California. We saw just last year, in 2022, that due to the decisions made by the Bureau of Reclamation and others, and the environmental groups, the water got cut off from Shasta Dam and other Federal project water to much of agriculture.

We saw just an example of rice, for example. Normally, about half a million acres of rice are grown in California. They cut that number in half to 250,000. Do you know how devastating that is to communities when you have that and other crops just wiped away because of mismanagement of our water supply during a drought period?

There is still plenty of water that hits California, plenty of snowpack. We were certainly blessed with a lot this year that made things good for the 2023 crops. We are still having a decent carryover, it looks like. As we watch, they are going to fritter the water away at this time of year, as they have to lower the lakes to have a flood control level, conservation level. Indeed, the water that could be used for other things is just now going out to the ocean as so much of it is. It is a water-management issue. It is a leadership issue.

Where is this food going to come from? They want to continue to take dams out. I heard a colleague here yesterday say, well, these dams haven't been maintained over the years. Well, that is purposeful. If the government doesn't put forward the dollars and the effort and the permitting process to maintain and keep dams upgraded, yeah, after 40 years they can deteriorate. Then someone decides, well, it is going to be too expensive to revamp the dam, to bring it up to spec, so let's go ahead and tear it out. That is what they want to begin with.

Where is our food going to come from if we don't have the dams, the water storage, our hydroelectric power, all of those things? It makes no sense what we are doing.

Mr. Speaker, National Clean Energy week just passed by. It should be a time to recognize the various forms of clean energy available to all of us.

Unfortunately, one form continues to be taken not as seriously and, in many cases, undermined, and that would be hydroelectric power, which has so many benefits. Yet hydroelectric dams across this country, including one in the Klamath area of my district, are being torn out because of an environmental agenda that isn't even true.

Others are on the hit list, like up in the State of Washington, by their environmental extremists. As policy leaders and consumers push for a more green future, hydropower should be part of that solution as a lot of the needed infrastructure already exists, as well as nuclear power.

Why are we seeing dams that supply low-cost renewable energy that have already existed for over a century being decommissioned?

Because here is the trick: You make it where it is almost impossible to do the maintenance and upgrades to that infrastructure so that over time it becomes too expensive now to continue to have those dams and they are old relics that need to be taken out. That is the trick.

Indeed, had we maintained them and kept them in place, we wouldn't have this economic crossroads to deal with. We need to preserve our dams and keep hydroelectric power as a cornerstone of our power grid.

Mr. Speaker, on Roll Call No. 503, I mistakenly voted yea when I intended to vote NO.

Mr. Speaker, Saturday, we cobbled together a 45-day continuing resolution. That is not my preferred way of doing business around here. Indeed, what I talk about to my constituents at home is the process that the House Republicans with our majority have attempted to put in place and are putting into place, a successful Appropriations Committee process.

Now, this isn't just jargon, and it is inside baseball for a lot of people, but when people understand what it is they are trying to accomplish, the Appropriations Committee is going to be the transparency, the light of day, the sunshine on the spending process that D.C. has, and of which we need much more.

We didn't quite get there this year. We got 70 percent of our spending--I hate to use that term, but that is the jargon here-- accomplished in four bills already. We still need to do eight bills as our budget is divided into about 12 pieces in the appropriations process. We have a little ways to grind out here.

So what happened? We weren't able to come to agreement, even amongst all Republicans on getting all these bills done. We had a good start in getting a few things done last week, but we have much more to do.

We want to get through the whole process because we want transparency so the public can see what it is we are doing in this process, the Appropriations Committee, in the light of day, line-by-line, et cetera, so that we can then send documents over to the Senate and have them contemplate those bills. They are not going to like exactly what we do, but we will bring those bills back and hopefully achieve a consensus we can all live with in this era.

I have to remind you, what we have laid out as our goals as House Republicans aren't necessarily shared by the Senate or the White House. It is a hostile environment to try and cut back to pre-COVID levels of spending, as well as secure our border, from the Senate Democrat majority and the Biden White House.

These are our goals.

We want to have a secure border.

We had a document early last week that we thought was going to take a giant leap there, but we couldn't get all the votes we needed even in our own Conference to get it done. That is pretty frustrating.

Now, we have this 45-day ability to buy time with what we passed the other day. I am not happy with continuing resolutions, especially long- term ones. This is fairly short-term. It will enable us to do our work and get these appropriations done. That is what we are doing. Yes, it continues spending pretty much as it was, but we were up against a deadline.

Now, what are the bad things? A government shutdown is what we were up against. That is a terrible way of doing business. I have been around a couple of them and so have my colleagues that

have been here longer than me. One of my friends who has been through five of them has said nobody ever wins politically or policywise on a shutdown.

What happens?

Our troops stop getting paid. Our loyal soldiers out there on the front lines stop getting paid, and they are already underwaged, so to speak.

The contracts that we would have with Defense come to a grinding halt.

Other Federal projects like construction, roads, infrastructure, what have you, come to a grinding halt.

Now, what happens on that? When you demobilize construction crews or assembly lines like that, they don't just turn right back on and off like a light switch. People go home. They move their equipment to other projects. It is much more expensive to turn something back on that was already in momentum.

Try shutting off a nuclear power plant. That is not the same as what we are talking about here, but you don't just turn these things on and off. That is what happens.

Permitting. When folks have been waiting so long for EPA or Army Corps of Engineers or somebody else to get their freaking job done on getting permits out, and then they have an excuse to shut down--oh, this week-long shutdown, this 2-week shutdown, it is going to set us back 3 months. We have heard that sort of thing around here.

Even though it might feel good to say, yeah, let's shut the mother down--because a lot of people don't like what government does, including me, in my real life as a farmer in northern California I see a lot of dumb stuff the government does--shutting things down in the middle of the stream here doesn't really work for anybody, unfortunately.

The Federal employees will still get paid even if they are not at work, so it is a paid vacation. They will get their backpay. Congress will still get paid by the month. It doesn't really shut anything off that way. We don't gain a lot with a shutdown. We held our nose, and we are going to do this for 45 days to do a good process in the Appropriations Committee.

I want to have faith in that, and I want the American public to have faith in an open process and doing it correctly because process is something that has been lacking a lot in Congress and in government in recent years. We have to cling to the process as something that is important so we can have things laid out constitutionally.

Mr. Speaker, securing our border should be a bipartisan goal, and indeed House Republicans are dedicated to that. We had most of the elements of H.R. 2 in a bill last week that we just fell short on mustering, unfortunately. We did pass H.R. 2 separately earlier on to achieve that goal for the border. It is a comprehensive security package that would end the invasion at the southern border, halt the abuse of the asylum process, and strengthen border security.

Unfortunately, Senate Leader Schumer won't even bring it up for a vote over in the Senate. Why not?

His own New York Governor, Democrat Kathy Hochul, called on Congress this weekend demanding a limit on who can come across and for more agents to catch illegal immigrants.

While Schumer should be listening to her, at least, every single New York Democrat who voted for these right-to-shelter laws and soft-on- crime open border policies needs to realize their policies have now had detrimental consequences.

It is not extreme to want law and order or to track who is coming into our country. If New York City doesn't have the resources to deal with these waves of illegals coming on to their streets, neither do the small border towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

The Senate must take up H.R. 2, and the Biden administration must actually take action on our border.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a dear friend, an aviator, a northern California agriculture community leader, and an American, Nick Macy.

Tragically, Nick received his heavenly wings recently at the final Reno Air Races, where my son and I were in attendance. This loss will be felt deeply throughout my district, the Klamath Basin, Siskiyou and Modoc Counties, and most especially in Tulelake. I feel his pain deeply myself.

Nick was a friend to myself and my office, as we worked closely with him for over a decade to try to resolve a silly bureaucratic issue in his airport.

A soft-spoken leader, Nick was a preeminent figure in his community. He valued his hometown, his family's history in aviation and the agricultural industries, and the rural roots that brought him up.

Nick is the son of a World War II B-24 instructor. He grew to become an expert in many areas of farming, water, crop dusting, fighting fires throughout the basin, and aviation as a six-time national champion in the T-6 Gold Class in the Six-Cat Air Racing Team.

Nick and Macy's Flying Service were incredibly important to the people in both Siskiyou and Modoc Counties. He truly loved his community, family, and friends, and he would do everything within his ability to ensure their prosperity. Nick was a cornerstone of the agriculture community up there.

Nick was devoted to his family and neighbors. One could always count on Nick.

My prayers are for his lovely wife, Beth, and his children and grandchildren. To all of his family and friends--so many who were gathered at the air race--may they feel God's presence in this moment of terrible loss.

Nick, Godspeed to you. Thank you for all you were to us. Your legacy will live on in Tulelake and our hearts. We won't forget you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and service of Colusa County resident Gene Wesley Beauchamp who tragically passed away earlier this year at the age of 75 years old.

Gene was an exceptional member of our community; he was deeply devoted and loyal to our nation. He could always be found helping others. Gene was a truly selfless servant and will be missed by all.

Gene was born August 14, 1948, to Leonard and Lona Beauchamp. He attended local schools, graduating from Colusa High School. On October 3, 1967, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he would serve 3 years of active duty and 3 years in the reserves.

From 1968 to 1969, Gene served in Vietnam as a Helicopter Aircraft Mechanic. He was trained on several army helicopters and even acted as crew chief. Gene was one of our nation's most highly decorated servicemen, being awarded the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars for valor, a Purple Heart and fourteen Air Medals.

After his military service, Gene came back to Northern California and attended Chico State University. After which he would return to his family's rice farm in Colusa County. In 1975 he married his wife. Lana, and they raised a family on the rice farm in the very same home he grew up in.

After retiring from farming, Gene could be found volunteering with his local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 2441 and the American Legion Post 218. During his time with these organizations, Gene could be found serving at fellow veterans' funerals, carrying the American flag in parades or local football games, and participating in ceremonies honoring the U.S. military and our treasured veterans.

Gene is survived by his loving wife of 47 years, Lana Beauchamp; his children Lance and Kimi, and his many grandchildren and great grandchildren. In honor of his outstanding military career, Gene will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. His presence will be greatly missed in our community.

Mr. Chair, the machine glitched. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall No. 477.

Amendment No. 47 Offered by Mrs. Boebert

Mr. Speaker, America's energy is critical toward our economy, toward people of all income levels. Energy is the cornerstone of either a strong economy or a hyperinflation one like we are seeing now. Either government spending or the cost of energy or both are the reasons why we are where we are these days.

Important things we could be doing are building more nuclear power plants and offering more hydroelectric power as well as natural gas, which we have so abundantly in this country.

Now, there are a lot of people worried about CO2, which is only 0.04 percent of our atmosphere, but let's play along for a moment: nuclear energy, zero CO2; hydroelectric power, zero

Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 405.

Mr. Speaker, I missed this vote due to an office meeting exceeding the time. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 402.

Stated against:

Mr. Speaker, the Holman rule is a rule in the House of Representatives that allows amendments to appropriations bills that reduce the salary of Federal employees. It is a great mechanism for punishing Federal employees and public servants who fail the American people.

I can think of no greater failure than this administration allowing millions of illegal immigrants to pour over our southern and even northern borders. This mass illegal immigration, sometimes aided and abetted by the Biden administration, is an insult and a farce. From the language some of its proponents use, it seems as though it is being done out of pure spite.

It is supposed to be the job of the Department of Homeland Security to prevent illegal immigration in this country and deport those who violate this Nation's sovereignty. Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has utterly failed his duty and stubbornly insists to Congress and Senate Republicans he has done nothing wrong.

I disagree. Secretary Mayorkas has done much wrong. What is worse is that, in fact, he could argue the border situation would be better if he had simply done nothing. When you see welded-open gates, when you see even the city of New York saying, Please make it stop, and they start shoving people into the border States, you know you have got a giant problem.

Maybe Secretary Mayorkas' salary would be better off under the Holman rule adjusted down to $1 per year because that is even too much.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson), for yielding.

So here we are, after nearly 9 months of investigations into the Biden family's influence-peddling schemes, this body has uncovered mounting credible evidence of corruption, evidence that

has come to light through numerous committee meetings, whistleblower testimony and interviews, document discovery, and rigorous Congressional oversight.

Despite the false claims of leftwing media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC, there is, in fact, evidence of peddling and corruption. Under the IRS whistleblower testimony, two IRS agents testified under oath that Joe Biden was present at at least one meeting with Hunter Biden's foreign clients.

Agent Joseph Zeigler, formerly known as ``Whistleblower X,'' testified that he was handcuffed and hamstrung throughout the IRS's 5- year investigation of Hunter Biden and was ultimately stopped from moving forward in the manner that he believed to be appropriate for the offenses committed.

Over $17 million were sent to Hunter Biden from companies operating in authoritarian, oppressive nations.

The Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers also alleged that the DOJ would not let them pursue Joe Biden or any connections that would lead to him. They allege a campaign of delay, divulge, deny surrounded their requests to pursue leads that led to Joe Biden.

This allegation has been confirmed by a former FBI SSA. The Special Counsel was appointed to obstruct Congressional investigations and inquiries behind the curtain of an ongoing investigation.

The testimony of these IRS whistleblowers have been corroborated by the testimony of the FBI SSA and two additional colleagues that claimed that they were fired from the investigation by order of Attorney Weiss.

Devon Archer's testimony to the Oversight Committee is that Joe Biden is a brand. Archer alleges members of the Biden family used Joe Biden's position as Vice President to sell power and access to interested parties. VP Biden would protect oligarchs from competent legal probes and investigations into foreign countries, such as Ukraine.

Hunter or another family member would be paid money, and then Joe would meet with the interested party in Washington, D.C.

A quick summary: An oligarch pays money to Hunter Biden's company or associate, which then is paid to Hunter, and a portion of that goes to the big guy, his father.

The Shokin investigation: In 2015, Hunter was pressured by Burisma to call D.C. to get help in removing a Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.

Shokin was indeed later fired, and video evidence has surfaced of Joe Biden bragging about getting him fired in order for foreign aid dollars to flow to the Government of Ukraine, right on tape.

Joe Biden's family received $17 million from contacts from foreign nations, according to IRS documents.

What was being done in exchange for this money? The National Archives have confirmed that Joe Biden used pseudonyms when communicating with Hunter and his business associates from official government emails, including the Office of the Vice President.

So you have DOJ misconduct, confirmed by the FBI SSA and leadership, that DOJ--specifically, Merrick Garland--prevented investigators from doing their jobs as best as he could.

The FBI D.C. office tipped off the Secret Service of an interview with Hunter Biden that was being planned. The FBI headquarters also tipped them off of a planned search of Hunter's residence which gave time and forewarning for any incriminating evidence to be removed.

No ordinary American would ever expect to receive such preferential treatment if they were accused of the crimes that Hunter and Joe have been. What they can normally expect is a 4 a.m. knock on the door with a battering ram for even lesser crimes.

Investigators are not allowed to ask about the big guy. The bank records show over 170 Suspicious Activity Reports filed by banks on the Biden family financial transactions. This means banks believe that over 170 separate financial transactions in Biden's family bank accounts were linked to bribery, money laundering, or other serious financial crimes.

An FBI informant documented conversations that indicated to them that Joe pressured foreign companies to send millions to the family business. The claims from Democrats and their media allies that the impeachment inquiry was opened without evidence are not only false but also illogical.

Inquiries exist for the purpose of uncovering evidence. An impeachment inquiry is an investigation into whether an impeachable offense has been committed. It is not the whole scope of impeachment. It gives the ability to do further investigation.

Where there is smoke, you will probably find fire.

There is evidence from whistleblowers and former associates that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter's corrupt business dealings.

This is an impeachable offense. The allegations that since this conduct allegedly only happened when Joe was VP and not while President thus means that an impeachment is not possible, that is false.

Impeachable conduct includes high crimes, bribery, or other misdemeanors that occurred while the accused was in a previous Federal office.

Joe Biden has lied about his connection to his son's corrupt business dealings for years.

Now, we are not supposed to take impeachment lightly around here. Indeed, it has been abused the last few years a couple of times, but House Republicans are going to go through a process, due process, and find real evidence.

The conclusion is that despite the disparate claims of the partisan media and their Democrat allies, there is indeed mounting evidence that President Joe Biden was involved in his family's influence-selling scheme and intimately involved in Hunter Biden's corruption.

An impeachment inquiry will help House Republicans get to the bottom of this, and I hope Democrats will be interested as well, and then determine whether or not there is proof of these crimes. If there indeed is, then President Biden has committed impeachable offenses.

Again, impeachment is not to be taken lightly, not to be just thrown around for political purpose but utilized. This impeachment inquiry is a very important ability for Congress to answer the questions that many, many American people are asking about the obvious corruption that is coming forward, thanks to whistleblowers, and others, that are bringing this evidence to the front.

With that, let's proceed, and let's do this properly.

Mr. Speaker, during the month of August, we had several wildfires break out in my district up in Siskiyou County at the top of California.

As you know, our Federal wildland firefighters are on the front lines battling the blazes and preventing them from spreading to populated areas and burning down all of our forests and the habitat that is in them.

They are doing their jobs, working 16-hour days often, grueling heat, remote rugged terrain, and what happens?

The new food vendor for the Forest Service tried serving them beans and rice on bread on the far side there and then moldy cheese sandwiches for our firefighters that we ask to be out there in risky conditions and tough, hot conditions as well.

What an insult. What a slap in the face as they have a national food vendor trying to provide meals like that that actually would cause harm to their health as well as just the sustenance they need to work hard.

In light of all this, we also find that the Klamath National Forest supervisor who fired this food service vendor was later investigated by the Forest Service higher-ups, and they only backed off because a scandal was made public.

Since then, it has been corrected, thanks to that Klamath Forest supervisor, and these unacceptable conditions are not going to continue.

The American people expect accountability for our firefighters and for our workers.