Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about a recent shift we have seen in this country over the recent weeks--that is Americans' views on abortion.

Not long ago, a Marist poll found that 55 percent of Americans were likely to identify as pro-choice compared to about 38 percent identifying as pro-life--indeed, a 17-point gap. Now, the polls are tied.

As reported this week by Axios, a similar Marist poll found that Americans are now, for the first time, equally likely to be pro-life as they are to be pro-choice, both registering at 47 percent.

Why the sudden change? The horrific rhetoric offered by some of the left, that is why, including the Virginia Governor's indefensible remarks that he would support the murder of a baby post-birth. It is inconceivable to me that someone could differentiate a post-birth ``abortion'' from actual murder.

The good news is I think most Americans agree with me. That is why we are seeing, finally, this dramatic shift.

My colleague from Missouri, Representative Ann Wagner, has introduced the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in order to end infanticide taking place after failed abortion attempts. The Democrats have repeatedly blocked the effort, including tonight. We need to have a vote on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, thank you to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse).

Indeed, what we know so far about the Green New Deal, it is more like a green pipe dream. It would lead to a total government takeover of just about every aspect of our lives.

Now, it is interesting to watch, since the deal was proposed not that many days ago, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, many of them are starting to back away from it. There were 67 coauthors on that. We are seeing some starting to back away, saying, well, this really isn't the dream or the deal; it is more of an aspiration.

Well, by the time you freaked out half the country with these ideas that you put into legislation, maybe we need a little more heads-up on what really is the goal here.

Some of the guarantees in it:

A government paycheck for those unwilling to work.

Is that really in there? What are we talking about here?

The cost of this implementation? $93 trillion, quadruple of what our national debt is right now. The cost will be passed on, of course, to-- as always--the taxpayer, to families, to those struggling--especially middle-income folks--who could see their energy bills going up from already at a high point to an additional $4,000 annually per family.

We should really have our supporters of this bill benefit from the lessons learned in California on the high-speed rail boondoggle that tripled in a short amount of time soon after it was barely approved, $10 billion by the taxpayers to a nearly $100 billion project, all under the guise of saving greenhouse gases.

Except during the construction of the high-speed rail in California, it will make a whole bunch of greenhouse gases with the equipment involved, so we are going to plant trees to offset that. Yet, at the same time, they are running the rails through hundreds of acres of almond trees in the middle of California that they are supposed to be offsetting.

It is a reckless attempt to undermine America's increasing dominance--not just energy independence--but now dominance in energy around the world.

It ignores the basic reality; a lot of what America was built upon were indeed fossil fuels, those known reserves that we have in this country.

Now, let's talk a little bit about the Paris accord that I think President Trump rightfully withdrew the United States from. The goal being greenhouse gas reduction, CO2 reduction.

Well, when you look at the stats, who is already leading the way outside of the accord? The U.S.--of those western countries--is the only one that has actually reduced its number of CO2 in that amount of time.

We are the ones doing it. You know why? Because we have freedom; because we have the ability to innovate here, to invent the new technology, to invent the things that are going to help us do things better and cleaner into the future.

I don't hear a lot of talk on this about new hydropower, which is clean and ready to go any time you turn on the switch to the gates to allow the turbines to flow.

Biomass. In my area of the country--the Western Caucus, my colleagues here--we burn part of the west every year. We should be putting that fuel into clean burning power plants to make electricity, cleaning our forest, making it more fire-safe, better for the wildlife, better for the environment, not having all that CO2 go up. And then creating jobs in our backyard to get people to work from cleaning up the over-inventory the U.S. forest and BLM has from allowing their forest to run rampant with no management for the last 100 years.

These are things we should be talking about, not this green dream thing. Instead, we are going to hear nothing but climate change, climate change, climate change, with solutions that just harness or handcuff the economy, the jobs, and the people of this country inside this chamber and in the real world out there where people actually produce things.

We need to focus on the things that we know can work, producing energy with hydropower. Yes, with nuclear power, no emissions. With biomass, help clean that inventory that burns hundreds of thousands of acres every year of forest land, and put it to work for us.

That is what we are going to be successful at, because the United States is always number one in developing the new technology, the new ways to do cleaner, better, more efficiently, instead of handcuffing our economy and that innovation and exporting it somewhere else.

I do agree with my colleagues that have spoken here tonight. And in sending the message, we need to strongly oppose this bill and get back to something that actually works for the working people of this country.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time of the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I rise tonight in memory of our friend, Walter Jones, congressman from North Carolina.

Walter was a kind, gentle, sweet soul of a man, who I admired even in the brief time we had to serve here together.

I found him to be a man of integrity who always put what he thought was right for the people of his district and this country first.

Sometimes he had a vote he might regret, but he did everything he could to make that right.

He went so far as to make the families of a fallen soldier feel that much more comfortable with a letter--to every one that he could possibly do--showing compassion and showing that at least one congressman knows what their pain is.

So, to his family; his wife, Joe Anne; and his daughter Ashley; all his constituents and friends and neighbors in North Carolina, our hearts are with you at the loss of a man whose main goal was to please God and walk with Jesus Christ. We admire him, and we will miss him.

Madam Speaker, last year, veterans from northern California brought an issue to our attention. Due to a flaw in the current law, the Department of Veterans' Affairs cannot include almost any information about the spouse of a veteran on a VA-provided tombstone at a non-VA cemetery.

That is why last week I introduced the Honoring Veterans' Families Act to rectify this issue and allow the spouse of a veteran to be included on the veteran's grave marker on their death.

With all that veterans and their families sacrifice for this country, is that too much to ask?

Every veteran should have the opportunity to include their spouse on their own tombstone should they wish to do so.

I would like to thank my colleague from California (Mr. Panetta), a veteran himself, for joining with me to correct this oversight in a bipartisan effort. Honoring the families of our veterans is something that everyone can and should support.

Mr. Speaker, instead of working in good faith to secure our borders and reach a compromise to

avoid another shutdown, House Democrats have other ideas.

They argue that allowing ICE to increase adult detention beds from 40,000 to 52,000 is actually a bad idea--unbelievable.

Is there any solution the Democrats pose for securing our borders and our sovereign Nation?

They don't want the agency to have the capacity to detain more illegal immigrants who cross into the United States. Instead, just flow right in, increasing the risk to our citizens, as we see time and time again, especially in my home State of California.

Right now, there are 48,000 illegal immigrants detained thanks to the increased enforcement of our sovereign border laws under this administration.

Our county sheriffs are greatly concerned, however, that the new numbers that the Democrats are posing for us will release up to 10,000 illegal immigrants--criminals, even--onto our streets, into our country.

Instead of providing additional beds and allowing our Border Patrol agents to do their jobs, they have actually proposed to knock that number down to 35,000.

It appears my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would rather release illegal immigrants into the community, many of them traffickers, endangering our public.

Mr. Speaker, last night, in this very Chamber, we heard a lot about what has made America the strong country it is: the ideals, the founding ideals, and the strength of which, when the people are able to put their will, their way behind it, has made us the greatest country in the world.

What the President outlined were many important things. We have to keep coming back to the situation at our border.

Now, interestingly, polls taken last night by CBS and CNN--not the bastions of conservatism or the supporters of President Trump that you would expect--both of these polls, the people's voice across this country added up to 76 percent somewhat support or strongly support the measures the President had talked about in securing our border.

We can get into the semantics, if you want to call it a wall or call it a fence, whatever it is. ``A strong fence makes for good neighbors''--an old cowboy saying.

The President laid out a plan that he wants to work with this Congress to get to a resolution on that, not an executive order. But in the time since we came up with this temporary solution here for 3 weeks, the negotiations from that side of the aisle have been zip.

Is that what people see as this Chamber, that this process is supposed to be? No. They want us at the table coming up with solutions.

The President has reached out with an olive branch, saying: We will give you 3 more weeks on this. Let's get the government reopened and get a solution on this.

Instead, gridlock.

What the President talked about was greatness instead of gridlock. That is what this Nation is about. That is what we need.

Instead, we hear around here that the crisis isn't something at our border, isn't something with the immigration problem we have. We hear about climate change. Climate change, climate change--a manufactured problem, a manufactured crisis.

Indeed, the United States is leading the way of all the westernized countries, all the industrialized countries, of lowering its CO2 numbers, leading the way by things we are already doing and innovating. Yet that is the first thing, that the religion of climate change can be tapped around here to stop the progress we have when we can make more progress by being a thriving, strong economy. The crisis isn't that. It would be much more so our crushing national debt and our border situation.

If we don't provide for our own security as a nation, then we don't really have much. So let's solve these issues. As we prosper, as we do better, we can even improve more on doing things environmentally more strongly.

I come from northern California, where the climate has been pretty tough with the drought. The climate is pretty tough where our forest burns around us and amongst us, like in the town of Paradise, the town of Redding, and other areas of the district that are so negatively affected by that.

The crisis doesn't lie in the religion of climate change. The crisis lies in us doing whatever we can to protect our citizens at the border, from the crushing national debt, and from the threatened export of our jobs that we should be employing our own people here.

Mr. Speaker, there is room for a lot of optimism. We heard that message of optimism last night from the President, again, right in this Chamber, when he mentioned our great heroes from World War II who were here last night and one of the people he liberated from those camps where the Germans held the Jewish people and executed so many of them and abused so many more.

What a great story of optimism and what America is about, liberating and preserving freedom in this country and around the world, and one of the highlights in my time here in this U.S. House of Representatives to see those people come together so many years later and celebrating what is great about America and how it exports that freedom and opportunity to the rest of the world.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize President Trump's effort last night and to congratulate him on his State of the Union Address.

The President's message was indeed clear. America has unlimited potential; we just have to unlock it.

Under the 2 years of this administration, the economy has consistently added jobs at record rates while simultaneously growing wages.

According to a CBS poll last night, 76 percent of Americans approved of what they heard the President say. Even more telling, 72 percent said they approve of the President's ideas on immigration and our border. It shouldn't be a surprise, either, that most Americans agree we need increased border security and we need it now.

Since a physical barrier was constructed in San Diego, California, 23 years ago, illegal immigration has plummeted in that region by 92 percent. That is just one of many examples.

We have a limited window of time with our current 3-week agreement, and what with more caravan hordes amassing below our southern border, we need to take action.

Mr. Speaker, yet another instance of illegal immigration impacting real families has occurred in the western States, Nevada and California.

I thank President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for honoring three people from my district tonight as guests for the State of the Union Address.

Sadly, Debra Bissell, Heather Armstrong, and Madison Armstrong will be here as guests because of the tragedy that happened in their life. They are the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of Gerald and Sharon David, who were murdered in their home in Reno, Nevada, just this last month.

The murderer? An illegal immigrant from El Salvador who had been living in Carson City for over a year. No motive has been released, but, then, does the motive really matter to this family, to yet another loss of life due to illegal immigration and the sieve we have of a border in this country?

But Gerald and Sharon were two of four people who this man, whose name I will not mention, shot dead in their homes over the course of a week. The other two victims were Connie Koontz and Sophia Renken, from Reno, Nevada.

These brutal murders will have a tremendous impact on the families of each of these victims, including Debra, Heather, and Madison, whom we will meet tonight.

When we talk about border security, when the President speaks about it tonight, these three faces should serve as a reminder of the real- life consequences of our open border policy that this country seems to have.

This is not just a talking point or political football to be tossed around. Real people are being hurt--the ones left behind--lives are being ruined, as well as the lives being taken, time after time, because the Congress can't get its act together to get a bipartisan solution for border security, for a border barrier, and a combination of things that it will take to effectively run the border, to patrol our border, and to give our personnel down there all the tools they need to do it effectively, safely for the American citizens and safely for themselves.

It doesn't matter if you want to call it a wall, a fence, a physical barrier, or anything else. It is long past time to do something about the crime, violence, drugs, and human trafficking.

The human trafficking, we don't talk about that enough, what is really happening to the people who are being brought across who do want to come seek something better in America but are subject to the coyotes who take advantage of them, extracting dollars from them and unspeakable things from the women whom they bring across the border and the kids. It is long past time to do something about all those subjects that are currently moving fairly freely in our country.

For Debra, Heather, and Madison from Redding, California, they represent three generations in their family that has been devastated by the status quo of our border situation.

I am grateful that President Trump is shining a bright, unmistakable light on this issue and the urgency with which we must address it. Every single day we do nothing is another day that another family is being potentially harmed in some way by the inaction and inability on both sides of the aisle to come together to get something effective done.

I wish it wasn't under these circumstances that Debra, Heather, and Madison will have to be here tonight. Their grief must be immense. But tonight, their story will be front and center for all America to see. It is certainly no consolation, nothing to assuage the pain they must feel, but I hope their presence might help spark some positive change in this country that is long overdue.

I thank the President and First Lady, again, for inviting them. I thank Debra, Heather, and Madison for their courage in having to share this tragedy and go through the pain in order to help advance a cause of sovereign borders and safety for other American citizens who will, hopefully, not have to go through this.

I ask the American people to join us in praying for Gerald and Sharon David, for their family that will join us here tonight, for other victims and family members who have been taken by the senseless killing, and to pray that a solution happens so we don't have any more of this in this great land.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Acting Secretary David Bernhardt for being nominated to serve as the next Secretary of the Department of the Interior.

President Trump announced that news on Monday after Acting Secretary Bernhardt has led the Department in a temporary capacity since December. I applaud this decision by the President. He has chosen a nominee that brings a strong background of industry experience and expertise to the table.

Under this administration, I have worked with the Department of the Interior to improve stewardship of our public's lands, to increase water storage, and improve forest management policies in California, as well as the West, and to help prevent more wildfire damage.

I know that will continue under the leadership of Secretary Bernhardt as it has since he has led the Department. I intend to invite him out to my district in California to see firsthand the issues that we face with our forests and public lands, including the ongoing Camp fire cleanup in Paradise, as well as the Carr fire in Redding from last summer, and the conditions that helped create these fires to begin with.

Until then, congratulations, and I urge the Senate to quickly move on the confirmation process.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight a bipartisan bill that I have been working on with my colleague from California (Mr. Garamendi). This week, we introduced H.R. 830, the Flood Insurance for Farmers Act.

Currently, FEMA's requirements for flood hazard areas essentially prohibit farmers from expanding or improving operations on what they deem as floodplains, often requiring barns and silos to be raised upwards of 10 feet, which can be very cost prohibitive for farmers and prevent needed buildings. This legislation would remove this unnecessary red tape, while also allowing farmers to pay more reasonable flood insurance rates that align with their true level of risk.

If levees in the area provide a 50-year level of flood protection, FEMA would then charge rates based on that risk level instead of the lack of 100-year flood protection of the existing levee system, which, essentially, means zero availability for flood insurance.

From the north State to the Sacramento Valley and beyond, this legislation is good for agriculture production in California. I urge its passage.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to remind people, that although it is wintertime, a rainy season, a stormy season, that we are still in a dire circumstance on fire safety in our forested areas, California, of the West, and many areas of the United States.

So for us to just be comfortable during the wintertime, during the rainy season and not think about it would be in error. We need to do much to catch up on the forest inventory we have across this country, across the West.

That will require USDA, the U.S. Forest Service, our States, our local governments, Tribes, and everybody to be able to coordinate much better than we have in the past to reduce this fuel load, this inventory we have in our forests that makes it so dangerous when fire season comes around once again.

We have seen that with so many devastating fires in the West, just this year in my own district, the Carr fire in the Redding area, and the Camp fire in the Paradise area.

Many factors go into what causes these fires, but we can at least be proactive in thinning our Federal forests, thinning the material that needs to come out of there, putting people back to work doing that, using this material for biomass, generating electricity, and the wood and paper products that we all need and enjoy.

We need to move fast-forward on the pace and scale of what it takes to make our forested areas fire safe, healthy, good for the economy, and good for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend President Trump for coming together with this 3-week deal that will allow us to open the government, as it has, and continue the discussion on the border security issue we so desperately need.

It is time to put up or shut up. This has been a bipartisan effort in the past with previous legislation to build the border fence and a lot of rhetoric and a lot of talk by the other side of the aisle supporting a controlled border and legal immigration.

It is time to go ahead and do it--no more talk, no more obfuscation, and no more pointing fingers in the other direction. We need to have border security in a bipartisan way, as it has been done in the past.

Who cares that it is President Trump or someone else in the White House only because it is a political fight? This is something our Nation needs.

So, again, 3 weeks to get it done, 3 weeks to come together and acknowledge that a barrier system on our border is one important component of many to have a secure border and allow legal immigration in this country.

Mr. Speaker, this week marks the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, bringing us close to 50 years since unborn children have not had legal protection.

Since then, there have been an estimated 60.9 million abortions in America. In 2018, an unborn child was aborted every 34 seconds, on average.

These aren't new statistics, but they are still shocking and horrifying to those of us who believe that all life is sacred.

The country is split nearly in half when it comes to being pro-life or pro-choice, but a majority of Americans don't believe their tax dollars should be used to fund abortions.

The largest provider of abortions in the United States, Planned Parenthood, is taxpayer subsidized, despite reporting over $1.4 billion in revenue for 2016-2017.

It is big business. Planned Parenthood makes millions each year providing over one-third of the Nation's abortions.

It is unconscionable that millions of Americans are forced to contribute tax dollars to create profit for an industry they are fundamentally or morally opposed to.

If only they understood the whole truth on the abortion industry and how much it hurts women and the unborn.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and to mourn the passing of a truly larger-than-life figure from my community in northern California, Mr. Steve Nettleton, pictured here with his wife, Kathy, appropriately out at the ball game.

A well-known philanthropist and lover of baseball, Steve passed away recently due to complications of Parkinson's disease at the age of 79.

Originally from Iowa, Steve grew up with a passion for America's pastime: baseball. Now we know that Steve also attended San Diego State University. His love for the game drove him to try out for the SDSU baseball team. While he didn't quite make the roster, he never left the sport behind.

In 1971, Steve and his family relocated to Chico, a small town in northern California he never heard of--and he never left. More than 20 years later, he built a multimillion-dollar business as a grocer but said his best day in the business was the day he sold it in 1995.

If you lived in or near Chico, it would be hard to miss the Nettleton name, as Steve's generous philanthropy resulted in many buildings and many projects bearing his name: Enloe Medical Center's Nettleton Mother and Baby Care Center and the Nettleton Gym at the Boys and Girls Club of Chico are just a couple of those examples that were named in his honor due to his work.

Perhaps even more notably, Steve and his wife, Kathy, generously donated $2 million to transform Chico State University's humble baseball diamond into a modern, 4,100-seat stadium, which was soon also adorned with the name Nettleton Stadium. The ``Nett,'' as they call it, helped revitalize the baseball program at Chico State, which then became home to two national championship baseball teams, among the many more regional and conference titles the Chico State Wildcats went on to win.

Steve also brought the joy and family fun of minor league baseball to town as the owner of the Chico Heat franchise. Throughout the club's existence, Steve's limitless passion for baseball shone through in every facet of the organization. They wanted to win games, but they also wanted to give the community something that was unifying and entertaining. Indeed, it is and was.

It should come as no surprise that Steve was awarded Chico Sportsman of the Year in 1999 and was inducted into the Chico Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.

His generosity was not limited to baseball. Steve was deeply passionate for the community he learned to call home. As I mentioned, he was also a known contributor to the Boys and Girls Club of Chico, the American Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, United Way, the Salvation Army, and many more.

For all of his efforts and contributions on behalf of a university which he did not attend, Chico State awarded him an honorary doctorate degree of humane letters--only the second person in school history to receive such a degree.

It is indeed clear that Steve deeply cared for his community. In return, it deeply cared for him. Through his selfless generosity over the years, Steve Nettleton built a legacy that will far outlive his time on this Earth. But still, those who remember it will miss the nightly opportunity to shake Steve's hand after a baseball game as he showed his appreciation to those fans in attendance.

Steve brought much joy and fun to his hometown and to its people. He will be greatly missed. God bless the Nettleton family at this time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the storied life of one of my constituents, decorated Vietnam War veteran Richard Allen Shirley.

On September 14, 1947 in the small town of Toppenish, Washington, our nation was blessed with Richard Shirley. A true patriot, Richard knew he wanted to serve our country, so he joined the United States Military. From 1964 to 1970, Richard proudly served six years in the United States Navy, four of those years aboard the USS Yorktown during the Vietnam War. While in the Navy, he earned several medals for his service, including the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, and the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal.

After being honorably discharged from the Navy, Richard moved to Biggs, California. For the next 46 years he worked at the Butte County Rice Growers Association in Richvale, California, where he met his wife Terry. During that time is when I had the pleasure of getting to know Richard. He was always friendly, helpful, and never without a smile. Richard was always beaming about his lovely family and the sense of fulfillment they constantly brought to his life.

Seen as a father figure to many, Richard was the kind of man that would give someone the shirt off his back if they needed it. He often opened his home to strangers, and many of those strangers soon felt they were part of his extended family.

On Sunday, January 20, 2019, we lost Richard Shirley to a difficult battle with cancer. The sadness that many in Butte County feel right now is immense, but we must take comfort in knowing that his legacy will not be forgotten. May the Lord continue to guide his family and may they be consoled by the knowledge that they too will see Richard again someday.

Please join me and the constituents of California's First Congressional District in remembering and honoring the distinguished life of Richard Allen Shirley. He will be greatly missed.