Floor Statements

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 20 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, April 10, 2025, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, this is a moment that you don't wish to ever have to do here, but it is time and it is proper that we recognize a fallen officer from the northern California town of Marysville.

Police Officer Osmar Rodarte was a dedicated law enforcement officer. He was a U.S. Army veteran. We lost him in the line of duty in just recent days. He was a loving husband and father. He made the ultimate sacrifice while serving with the Marysville Police Department. Officer Rodarte was taken from us at the tender age of just 27 years old.

He was a proud graduate of Rio Linda High School, class of 2016. He answered the call to serve, enlisting in the United States Army before returning home to the law enforcement role that he loved. As an officer, he was known for his dedication and professionalism.

On the day he was taken from us, Officer Rodarte was participating in a multiagency operation targeting transnational drug trafficking organizations which has been horrific on the lives of so many Americans. He was trying to make a big difference on that, doing critical work and helping keep our communities and our streets safe from the scourge of fentanyl and other drugs.

His sacrifice reminds us of the risks law enforcement officers are always up against. Each day when they go out the door, kiss their spouse, and go out on duty, they know that risk, as does their family. The reality is still way too harsh when it happens to one of our own.

Of course, Officer Rodarte was much more than a public servant. He was a father, husband, brother, and friend. His fellow officers called him a true hero, and those who knew him best spoke of his deep dedication to his family.

In the aftermath of this loss, the people of Marysville, Rio Linda, and the entire north State have come together in mourning, offering prayers and support to his family. He leaves behind a wife and child facing this unimaginable loss. No words can fully ease the grief.

We must ensure his sacrifice is not forgotten. His service in uniform and in life is a testament to his character and his sense of duty. We honor Officer Rodarte's bravery, service, and legacy.

To his family, his fellow officers, and all who knew him, our prayers are with them. May he rest in eternal peace. God bless him, his family, his friends, and his fellow officers.

Mr. Speaker, the March report for jobs showed that 228,000 jobs were added that month, far exceeding expectations.

Private-sector growth led the way with 209,000 new jobs, nearly double the pre-election average.

Wages are rising, with hourly earnings up nearly 4 percent over the past year.

Government job dependence is shrinking, with only 42 percent of new jobs in government-related sectors, down from nearly 75 percent under the previous administration.

Federal employment dropped by 4,000 as the administration cuts government bloat.

Construction jobs remain strong despite concerns over labor shortages.

Federal telework rates have dropped over 16 percentage points, aligning with private-sector norms.

Industrial production hit a record high.

The manufacturing output grew 0.9 percent month over month.

Auto production has surged 8.5 percent.

The core CPI inflation is at a 4-year low, easing pressure on consumers, on family budgets.

America's economy is bouncing back, stronger, leaner, and built for growth. Under President Trump's leadership, this momentum will continue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life, service, and memory of Officer Osmar Rodarte, a dedicated law enforcement officer, a U.S. Army veteran, and a loving husband and father. Officer Rodarte made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty while serving with the Marysville Police Department, tragically taken from us at just 27 years old.

Osmar Rodarte was a proud graduate of Rio Linda High School, Class of 2016. He answered the call to serve his country, enlisting in the United States Army before returning home to continue that service in law enforcement. As an officer with the Marysville Police Department, he was known for his dedication, professionalism, and commitment to keeping people safe.

On the day he was taken from us, Officer Rodarte was participating in a multi-agency operation targeting transnational drug trafficking organizations, work that is critical in keeping our streets safe from the influence of dangerous criminals. His sacrifice is a reminder of the risks our law enforcement officers take every day to protect the people they serve.

Officer Rodarte was more than a public servant. He was a father, a husband, a brother, and a friend. His fellow officers described him as a true hero, and those who knew him best spoke of his unwavering dedication to his family and loved ones. In the aftermath of this tragic loss, the people of Marysville, Rio Linda, and the entire North State have come together in mourning, offering prayers and support to his family.

Osmar leaves behind a wife and child who now face an unimaginable loss. No words can fully ease their grief, but we must ensure that Officer Rodarte's sacrifice isn't forgotten. His service, both in uniform and in his everyday life, is a testament to his character and his deep sense of duty.

We honor Officer Rodarte's bravery, his service, and his legacy. Our prayers are with his family, his fellow officers, and all who knew him. May he rest in eternal peace. God bless him.

Mr. Speaker, this week the House will take up the Senate's amendments to the budget resolution, an essential step in moving forward with the reconciliation process.

This vote paves the way for meaningful action on securing the border, strengthening the tax code to support our families and economic growth, and investing in reliable domestic energy, which ensures a strong national defense and setting the country on a healthier financial path. Passing this amendment allows the House to begin drafting instructions for committees to take up these critical priorities in their subgroups.

The challenges facing the country require decisive action, and this process is key to delivering real solutions Americans have voted for and have been waiting for. With this step, the groundwork is in place to advance policies that strengthen the economy, protect American interests here and abroad, and create a more stable future.

Let's quit hemming and hawing and get this thing done. Then we will see the positive, productive results the American people have been begging for for several years.

Madam Speaker, I wanted to speak a little bit about the SAVE Act and what it is supposed to do to ensure election integrity for our country.

The commentary that this is somehow going to disenfranchise people who normally vote is just part of the rhetoric of this place that obscures that our elections aren't completely secure when we have millions of illegal immigrants in this country who have been given driver's licenses, IDs, without having passed the muster of actually doing citizenship efforts.

Why should that apply to elections? You already see municipalities around this country trying to give the right, the privilege, of votes to people who are not here legally.

In the previous example given, if someone has had a recent marriage but their name doesn't quite match yet because they haven't gotten their legal documents, there is a provision for that called provisional voting that you can utilize at that time of election and then go through the process of proving, yes, this is my citizenship in order to ensure that we have elections with integrity.

When our elections are key to deciding who makes the laws in this country, who makes the policy decisions, they need to be secure. If we can't trust the people in office who are actually chosen by American citizens, what exactly do we have?

Only American citizens are supposed to vote in Federal elections. Weak laws have made it, as I mentioned, easier now for noncitizens to get on the voter rolls in certain municipalities.

When President Biden took office, that administration let at least 4.6 million illegal immigrants into the country, with nearly 2 million more slipping in without being stopped, and these are probably low numbers. It is hard to estimate.

Some blue States, as I mentioned, have given these individuals driver's licenses and other benefits, which then can help them in loosely run State election rolls illegally register to vote in Federal elections. We need to draw the line at least at Federal election levels.

Some blue cities have let them vote in local elections to cause even more confusion and abuse of the process. It is deliberate.

Federal law has blocked States from requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, making it easier for the system to be exploited. That is actually against the Constitution.

How would the SAVE Act go about fixing this? Chip Roy's SAVE Act would require proof of U.S. citizenship and identity shown in person at the place of election when registering or on voting day. This rule would apply either when someone signs up at the DMV, a government office, or through the mail.

Making fair exceptions, if someone is a citizen but doesn't have the usual paperwork, like for religious reasons, they could go through, as I mentioned, an alternative process with strict rules like sworn affidavits.

The bill also makes sure there are accommodations for disabled Americans so they aren't wrongly excluded.

It addresses cases when someone's documentation might not match their legal name, as I mentioned here, with their name change through marriage, divorce, or adoption.

Some people, especially married women, may face these issues if their IDs don't exactly match. Under the SAVE Act, it would require setting up a process in the States to confirm the identity in these cases, therefore allowing them to vote while it is being sorted out.

It could include showing legal documents like a marriage certificate or a court order proving a name change. These provisions ensure that legitimate voters aren't turned away while still keeping strong safeguards against fraud.

In cleaning up the voter rolls, the SAVE Act requires States to remove noncitizens from voter rolls and gives them access to Federal databases to help verify citizenship at no cost to the States. Election officials that ignore these rules or allow noncitizens to register can be sued and penalized, as they should be.

The Election Assistance Commission will also update Federal registration forms to make sure these new security measures are properly put in place. This matters because Americans deserve to know that their vote counts and isn't canceled out by illegal ballots. What an insult.

This isn't about politics. It is making sure only legal voters decide who represents us in Washington, as well as at the State and local levels, as it should be.

The SAVE Act is a simple, commonsense way to restore trust in our elections and keep them honest. If we want

fair elections, Congress needs to act and act now.

The SAVE Act helps to protect our democracy--which isn't really a democracy; it is a republic--enforce our laws, and make sure that American citizens, not foreign nationals, decide our future. It is common sense. Let's get it done.

Mr. Speaker, the No Rogue Rulings Act is about stopping unelected judges from blocking a President's entire agenda with a single ruling.

This bill, introduced by my colleague from California, Representative Darrell Issa, puts an end to nationwide injunctions that overstep judicial authority.

Judges were never meant to act as a veto in the executive branch. When a district judge issues a nationwide injunction, they override the will of the voters by halting policies that one judge happens to disagree with politically.

This is about restoring balance. The Constitution sets clear roles for each separate branch of government.

The Issa bill ensures judges can rule on the cases before them, nothing more. Without this fix, activist judges will keep blocking policies on national security, the economy, and regulatory reform.

Passing the No Rogue Rulings Act means the judiciary won't be used as a political weapon to stall a duly elected President's agenda.

Mr. Speaker, we must use budget reconciliation to fully repeal the so-called Inflation Reduction Act's, IRA, green subsidies.

They are a trillion-dollar disaster, driving up energy costs, undermining grid reliability, and forcing out dependable power sources like coal and natural gas as well as the hydroelectric dam destruction we see happening.

Keeping even one of them threatens real spending reductions and makes it nearly impossible to rein in the national deficit of around $2 trillion brought on by the Biden administration and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

The stakes are very clear. Europe's energy crisis shows what happens when

a country relies too much on unreliable renewables. Meanwhile, China profits off of our bad policies, selling us solar panels and electric vehicles while expanding its own coal production and power plants.

We cannot let the left's green welfare agenda weaken our energy security while boosting our biggest adversary any longer.

Full repeal means saving taxpayers $1 trillion in wasteful spending, easing inflation and lowering costs for families and small businesses, and restoring energy security by stabilizing our grid. Reconciliation is the way forward.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak here as we conclude the week.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take the time today to highlight some of the work that we are doing in the Western Caucus, made up of over 90 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

I have been privileged to become the chair of that group this year. Chairing the caucus, I get to bring up a lot of key issues on the floor and kind of illustrate to the people who are watching and wish to pay attention how important the issues are that we are taking up and continue to advance while working with the Trump administration.

One of the cornerstones, indeed, is energy. We call ourselves the Western Caucus, but the issues are a little beyond the Western States. Indeed, they are rural issues. They are issues that affect all of our States and the opportunity to strengthen our entire economy with what we have available in the Western States and in rural areas. Indeed, our oil and our energy come from many, many parts of the country. The original oil patch was actually in western Pennsylvania.

The Western Caucus is less about maybe what the real estate is, but more about the concepts of advancing rural issues and the ability to extract resources and to utilize resources in an ecologically sound way. We are all about that, too.

The U.S. gets a bad reputation sometimes that people who are in these industries are misconstrued by environmental groups and such as being against the environment and against doing things properly. The bottom line on that topic is that unleashing American energy and our mineral resources, strengthening agriculture, and tackling the real challenges facing our country, like the devastating wildfires in the West, are key issues that the Western Caucus faces.

One of the things that can help with some of these issues will be modernizing the Endangered Species Act that has been around for over 50 years, and I see the futility as it is interpreted these days in layer after layer of court decisions and lawsuits that basically just hamper the ability for us to do the things we need to do to have stronger energy availability and have the other resources that are key to a strong economy for our country and not import all of these products.

Indeed, with the goals set out, at least by some, to have further electricity usage for appliances, which we have talked about this week on this floor, there is requirements. There is people being mandated to change what their appliances are powered by.

When you have a gas-powered stove, gas water heater, and on and on with mandates, whether it is my home State of California or has come through the previous Biden administration, this has taken away consumer choices and taken away the best choice for a lot of people for how to power these devices.

That extends also to automobiles, trucks. If you have it, a truck brought it. That is an important aspect to remember, as well, is that just by merely sweeping away the ability to have gasoline and diesel, as California is doing and that they are trying to do and that the Federal Government had been doing until the end of the Biden administration, that is going to cost a lot. It is going to make it a lot less convenient and a lot more difficult to get raw materials and products from where they are created to where they are needed.

The Endangered Species Act is part of the issue that needs to be modernized, as well as getting over the lawsuits and litigation that is used as a weapon, whether it is by Federal agencies or by so-called NGOs or environmental groups.

We have been working in this Chamber, as I mentioned, this week to help deliver solutions to lower energy costs, cut red tape, and reverse the Biden administration's relentless overreach, from blocking costly energy efficiency mandates on consumer products to stopping unnecessary restrictions on American manufacturing and energy production.

We want these things to be manufactured here by American workers, using American technology, American efficiency, and the cleanliness that comes with it. We are much more efficient and much cleaner than what happens in Chinese manufacturing. Our natural gas that we use in this country is actually cleaner than Russian natural gas. We should be exporting more of that to Europe and helping them out instead of them becoming dependent on the long reputation we have had with Russia there.

When we are talking about these overreaches by government by these regulations, it really drives up prices, burdens businesses, and makes us more dependent on foreign products, foreign energy, et cetera.

Let's restore American energy dominance, support these industries that put food on the table, clothing on our backs, and shelter above us. We should support them to make our country stronger and more independent. We will push back against the policies that are failing and harming rural America.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to hearing from my colleagues, some of whom will be joining me during this time here, and what they are working on as part of our Western Caucus partnership here.

I see a couple of my colleagues have arrived here. I would like to recognize, if the gentlewoman is ready, my executive vice chair. The gentlewoman from Utah (Ms. Maloy) is with us here--I am pleased to have her as a partner and friend on the Western Caucus--to inform us on the issues that are particular to Utah, but also the Western States, as well.

I am really, really pleased that she has stepped up to be in this role here, and I appreciate her quite a bit.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Utah (Ms. Maloy).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Maloy for her remarks. I appreciate it.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the gentlewoman a little bit about the Antiquities Act because I have shared a lot of that frustration, as well.

The Biden administration, on the way out the door, declared several monument areas--a couple in California, one on the ocean area. It really seems it has been down to just being an executive action with very little input by Congress, and I know that is what she is working on in her legislation.

I can think of a couple of recent examples. Over 600 million acres are turned into an ocean monument area. When you do the math on that, that ends up being about a million square miles of a 1,000-mile square. That is a giant chunk of ocean that is no longer really usable for normal things like fishing and things like that.

In my home State, up in my district, they declared almost a quarter- million-acre area--they really had little consultation with the folks there. It had like a mining operation, and the timber management needed to happen, so it has been quite abusive.

I ask the gentlewoman what she thinks the long-term effects have been on energy in the West, energy exploration, and the types of things we need to be doing.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Utah (Ms. Maloy) for the purpose of a colloquy.

I agree. It seems that it has really flipped into this one direction on the invoking of a new monument or wilderness area, what have you. I know your State of Utah has been hit pretty hard by several.

It is not that we are against these measures to protect particular areas, but what we are talking about is gigantic swaths of land instead of something a little more focused.

The original intent was a focus on the particular historic or geographic areas, maybe like an old-growth forest area or something like that, areas where there might be Native American ruins that we want to particularly focus on. Instead, we get these gigantic acreages.

I know the Trump administration is going to be looking at some of these here as he did previously.

I also like what you were speaking about on your geothermal process there because it should be an all-of-the-above way of looking at things, on types of energy we have available, and geothermal is clean power. It is one that is available 24/7. You don't have to wait for the wind to blow, the Sun to come up, or the clouds to go away.

We need a lot more baseload power. Look at what is going on with the tech centers, the amount of AI that is going to be coming onboard and the amount of energy that it is going to be consuming.

These data centers are going to use a mass amount of new electricity if they are allowed to, and they have talked about wanting to do it all as renewable.

If geothermal can be a source in those areas, that is one thing, but we are going to have to get real on where our power is going to come from because we have to have reliable baseload power.

Geothermal has had a very difficult permitting process. Any idea what kind of timeline? How many years does it take to get one through if you can get them through?

Indeed, as another example, there was a copper mine--it is not the same as a geothermal power plant, but one particular one in the West took 29 years to permit. When you are talking about any kind of thing that is moving forward on self-sufficiency in minerals or energy dominance that the U.S. needs to have, it takes a decade or more, in many cases, to get this done.

A desalination plant in southern California, along the coast--I think out of Huntington Beach; the Poseidon project it was called. They fought for two decades to try to get a desalination plant.

We can't build water storage in California, it seems, or other areas, so everybody says, ``Desal, we can use the Pacific Ocean,'' until you try to permit it. They fought for 20 years to work through the permit process and jumped through every hoop, like what requirement will make them happy to take care of the brine, the landscape itself. After all that time, they were still denied by the California Coastal Commission and others to be able to do that.

Permitting does need to be reformed, not thrown away, because we want to have a process where people can have a say and a look at what is happening.

By the same token, when we talk about the Antiquities Act, people need to have a say, as well, not just 2,500 miles away in Washington, D.C., where a stroke of the pen does it, as Ms. Maloy mentioned here. Local input from their legislature, their Governor, and their delegation to D.C. basically was ignored on national monuments that were done in Utah. We didn't hear a whole lot up in northern California on the one done recently, either. It was kind of one-sided.

I appreciate you bringing those to the forefront here today, and you are welcome to make any more comments you wish, but we will move on a little bit to Western water for right now, too.

It is a key issue for agriculture and hydroelectric, with safety from flood, and even recreation, as well as a lot of

the folks who are wanting more water for fish needs, fish passage and such. They sure enjoy the benefits of having stored water in the Western dams or any dams.

I will point out as an example here Shasta Dam in northern California. It is the Central Valley Project, as it is known. It is a Federal project built in the thirties that came online strongly in the early forties.

This is an amazing project. Indeed, it is the cornerstone of California water as well as some of the Colorado River water sources we have, but this is 4.5 million acre-feet in one dam and one lake up in Shasta County, California.

The way it is operated is extremely important, and when we don't have as good of decisions being made, at least in my opinion, on how that water is stored, how it is kept, and how it is allocated, then people suffer on that unnecessarily.

Right now, this lake sits at about 600,000 acre-feet still to fill it up. The thing that gets me is that we are seeing farmers and others in the water districts in central California in San Joaquin Valley, where so much of our important food supply for the whole country comes from, stuck at 35 or 40 percent of what used to be the normal allocation.

Part of that is that they can't point to the water supply. I think it is a bit of a misnomer. There is plenty of water around. I will illustrate that here in a moment, but this lake, when it is 4.5 million acre-feet full, along with our other lakes, why isn't that allocation to agriculture and others closer to 100 percent?

It hasn't reached 100 percent in a long time, and a lot of that is based on what we talked about a moment ago here, the Endangered Species Act and its weaponization in the last 50-plus years.

It is not a matter of us not caring about species and trying to recover them and conserve them. It is that it is used as a weapon to stop further water storage or the other issues we were talking about, other energy projects, even forestry practices that would be helpful to not have continued wildfire at the massive scale we are seeing, especially in the Western States.

What I want to see happening for Lake Shasta, for example, is that they can use more scientific forecasting of what the systems of weather are going to be looking like in a given year, in a given season. We are about to end the rainy season as the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers--Army Corps is in charge of flood controls, so they control the top portion of this dam, Lake Oroville down near where I live, and many others around the whole country. Their charge is for flood control.

They will require that a certain gap from the top of the dam down 40, 50 feet or so. A particular amount of storage has to be available until the end of the rainy season, which is pretty much April 1. At that point, you are allowed to fill the lake. The lake can fill on up.

Over 600,000 acre-feet down, they are assessing the snowpack, more or less, as I speak, but with still another weather pattern coming in here quite soon that would probably enhance that snowpack number, as well.

What gets me is that we have allowed Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps 2 million acre-feet to leave this lake, to leave this system, since early January, and that has flowed down, in this case, to Sacramento River and on out to the delta.

If you want to see something about delta numbers, this poster here isn't quite updated, but it illustrates how the water flows down from the north and such and flows through the Bay Delta out to the ocean. These numbers are a little bit older. I have to update my poster here, but it shows a gap. In this case here with this timeline, 29 flowed into the delta. Down below, it shows 22 million acre-feet flowed out. That is a heck of a lot of water to lose that we didn't capture more of.

We have an excellent opportunity to do better at that and keep more water for hydroelectric power, agriculture, recreation, and people's use in the urban areas. There is a bit of a misnomer that people in agriculture use way more water than what is actually the case.

Of stored water in the State, 50 percent goes for environmental purposes, 40 percent and descending goes for agriculture, and about 10 percent for urban and people's use. That is of captured water. There is about another 50 percent of the total rainfall and snowpack that falls on the State that flows out to the ocean or other areas that ends up being--basically, you could call it environmental water as well because people don't get to use it. It is doing what it does in the rivers and streams and such.

We keep hearing that these farmers are wasting water, and people in the cities have to conserve more. Conservation is good. Farmers using better practices is good, as well. If you are telling people in the urban areas--and wait till this really happens to them. This is when we will get their attention, when they get rationed down to 42 gallons per day per person and you see these kinds of numbers.

When you see that much water going out to the delta because we have people refusing to build the storage and run the pumps, for example, at the south end of the delta, that could be filling up what is known as San Luis Reservoir, which hasn't been topped off yet. It was topped off 2 years ago, but last year and this year, under similar snowpack and rain circumstances, they haven't allowed the pumps to run hard enough to fill it.

I am hoping--a lot of stuff seems to be based on hope--that we can have enough melt into Shasta Lake or Lake Oroville and the other large ones that they will fill up and there will be enough water for everybody.

How do you count on having that amount of water, that amount of rainfall, in March and April? I have lived there my whole life. You don't always get heavy rains in March and April that would help top off these reservoirs.

It is, indeed, important to California, but it is an important Western issue, and what gets produced in those areas is important to everybody. I recognize that it is not just a California issue, but an entire Western issue. That is why the Western Caucus will be focusing partly on that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Begich), another colleague of mine who will bring his perspective on what is happening in the great northern area of Alaska and the amazing amounts of resources they have there that this country enjoys and consumes, and it does so responsibly as well. I thank him for joining us.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Begich's remarks. Indeed, with all the rich resources we have in Alaska, it would be amazing if we could get the permitting process so they can produce these rare earths and critical minerals in our country instead of relying on them from adversaries that are not going to be reliable long term. I appreciate him bringing that to our attention, and the work that he and others are battling to do up there.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Downing), one of our new Members here as well who represents half of Montana. He doesn't get to have the whole State anymore, I think, with two Members there. I appreciate his joining us here.

Mr. Speaker, indeed, these large States are home to so many rich resources that are important to our country, and we are glad to have Western Caucus membership that is recognizing that and working with us here.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Downing for his perspective on that. We are finding that these Western States, the Western Caucus focus area, I guess, is very rich in so much of what we need here. I appreciate his work with those folks in the mines to illustrate how important they are to the whole country and our energy grid, et cetera.

I thank him for his time with us, and the technical issues with the podium emphasized the point.

I am pleased to have excited, new freshman Members who really want to take charge and get going here. It is good stuff.

Mr. Speaker, I yield now to the gentlewoman from North Dakota (Mrs. Fedorchak), a new Member who has shown a lot of enthusiasm in jumping in with us here in the Western Caucus and helping to make it happen.

She represents another at-large district, which means the entire State. Even though there are maybe not a lot of people in these areas, what they do is extremely important.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Fedorchak. Those were great points she emphasized for us. It is a common theme here, and I thank her for that.

Mr. Speaker, there is red tape and endless delays in doing the work that needs to be done to produce what comes from the Western States, Western Caucus, and our whole country. I have to remember and to emphasize these products come from all over. When we talk about mined materials, farmed materials, and wood, it is all important. The same laws that affect us in the Western States affect us everywhere.

Why do we spend so many years on permits to do things that we know how to do well? Indeed, the United States does this with a better set of environmental regulations and are way more conscientious than what will be produced in China or some of the other Pacific Rim areas. We have the technology to do it the best, as Mrs. Fedorchak was talking about.

I don't talk about CO2 a whole lot because I think CO2 is an essential building block. It is not a pollutant, as has been whipped for so many years amongst regulatory agencies and NGOs and such. If we look at how the United States has been doing, we are one of only a couple of countries that has been able to level off and even reduce CO2 production.

We are going to get to the point where it will be so critically harmful to our industry that we need to reassess how burdensome these regulations are, especially as CO2 is not a poisonous pollutant, per se. I mean, plants need it, and all things in moderation we might say. It is important that we have some reality on how these regulations affect us.

We have talked about water storage. We have talked about energy production. When we talk about our water storage, we know how important hydroelectric energy is in that it is a CO2-free source. Ms. Maloy talked about geothermal. That is a clean source of energy to produce electricity.

What we haven't touched on much but is a potential issue the Western Caucus will be working on is nuclear energy, another CO2- free source of electricity. If we want to deal with CO2, here it is.

These forms of electricity generation continue to be pushed out or pushed off in the regulatory climate we have here. We have the opportunity to mine uranium--a lot of it in the Western States--and build the plants that are going to serve our urban centers.

I was talking earlier about how AI and data centers are going to use so much more electricity, as well, if the electrification of cars and trucks keeps getting pushed. Where is that electricity going to come from?

It is amazing how we mandate this in a lah-de-dah atmosphere of, well, we are just going to have more EVs. The folks regulating that and pushing that are not accountable for where that electricity is going to come from. They think more and more acres of prime farmland covered with solar panels is going to do it or offshore windmills will produce a certain amount of electricity. They find that they have problems with that. There might be negative effects on the wildlife and the ocean life there.

We need to have the ability to take a look back at these layers and layers of court decisions since these laws were made with good intentions back in the early 1970s. We talk about the Endangered Species Act, NEPA regulations, Clean Water Act, or the Clean Air Act. All had good intentions, but they have been weaponized by NGOs, environmental organizations, and even those certain belief systems of government. My home State of California is weaponized to stop some very good projects from happening.

When we talk about the Endangered Species Act reform, there are species that are basically used to stop water storage, stop highways from being built, stop power plants from being built, and even things like levees being repaired in areas that have the potential to be flooded.

One project in my district took 20-plus years to finally get approved and through for a project on a levee that already existed. They required that it be set back from the river more. Then a bunch of habitat created out of the farmers' orchards that were adjacent to that on the outside of the old levee but now inside the new levee. That took over 20-plus years.

It is because a species was listed as an endangered species by the Fish and Wildlife 20 or 25 years ago, maybe longer. Fifteen years ago they recommended to delist it. Mr. Speaker, it seems you can hardly delist anything under the way these rules have been misinterpreted.

One issue ravaging much of the West and right now has really taken hold in my district has been the wolf population that has been introduced. I know the Biden administration had done some of that at the end with over 40 wolves being dumped into Colorado last minute on their way out the door.

Wolves in California have really taken hold in the northeast part of the State. They are ravaging Modoc County, Siskiyou County, Lassen County, Eastern Shasta, and other areas to a little bit lesser extent. The deer population is being decimated.

When they run out of deer, guess where they look next? They look at livestock. Here is an example. I don't mean to be morbid, but people need to see what this really looks like. Here is a wolf toting off a deer right here. There is a deer head right there. This isn't native to that area. These are Canadian gray wolves. These are great big, powerful, scary wolves that really aren't indigenous to the farther Western States.

It is still listed. We are making efforts to delist this wolf from that list, but it is running into problems and difficulties because of the environmental movement saying, no, we need to have mating pairs in every county in order to satisfy their desires on that.

These wolves are plentiful in areas like Minnesota and neighboring States

and the central part of Canada. It is not an endangered species. There are plenty of numbers there. Mr. Speaker, if you want to look at a gray wolf, travel to that part of the country because we don't need to have them everywhere in order to somehow deem them as recovered.

I like the giraffe analogy. If we want to look at a giraffe, go to places in Africa. If we want to look at it in North America, go to the zoo. We don't have them here. We can't deem them an endangered species in North America because we don't have them here. Someone would have to start a new program to encourage and build a giraffe habitat to bring a species that really doesn't belong in that area.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, and it is really devastating. Over 200 calves have been taken in the northern California area and part of Oregon, as well. Here, we see a calf that has been devastated. It has been just completely annihilated and fed upon by a pack of wolves there. Again, I am not doing this to be morbid.

Mr. Speaker, I hope it does shock you. I hope it does shock you because this is really happening to the livelihoods of the people who are producing food that Americans want and that others want. They can't do so because of a wolf population that has been introduced by government at the behest of basically urban people who think, oh, that would be a nice ideal to have these wolves in that area. They don't have to live with the results.

These wolves have become so brazen in how they act in the area. It has taken a sheep. Any livestock is on the menu for them because when they start running out of the local wildlife, they are going to take what they need.

The ability for people to push back on that, to haze them, or to move them away is very, very limited by how U.S. Fish and Wildlife has made the rules. They have very, very few options to keep them not only out of their herds but away from their doorstep, including this doorstep right here.

Yes, this is the family dog right here. This is what is happening to families that are working in and living in those rural areas for four, five, six, or longer, generations. They provide food and put it on the table for Americans, and this is what they have to live with today. They can't let their pets out in some of these areas anymore. They can't let their kids go down to the bus stop without being guarded and to do normal things like go to school.

People are afraid to go outside their homes at night in certain areas because they hear the wolves howling, and the wolves don't feel any fear of mankind. They don't feel any deterrent due to the very limited and meager measures that people can take to deter them. They are not allowed to shoot them. They are not allowed to shoot over them. They are not allowed to be very aggressive with vehicles and such.

Indeed, one anecdote I received on visiting some folks in the district is that they have drones they try to fly over and move the wolves away from the herds and away from their area. Funny, the wolf just looks up at it and lays down and watches it. They fly pieces of a flag or a ribbon on their fence and hope that ribbon flapping in the wind will scare the wolf away. It is called fladry.

The wolves are pretty smart. They are going to go around that. When they are running in packs like that, they are very effective at moving the livestock, moving them, herding them to other areas. There are stories about them coming in and wiping out an entire flock of sheep on one farm just for the heck of it. A single wolf in one case killed 30 sheep, killed the dog, and basically scared the horse, ran the horse over a cliff area, killing it. That is more or less for sport.

This is what is happening to people. This is what is happening in the northeast part of my State and all over the West. The elk and deer population is being devastated in these areas. We don't talk about that much because it is an ideal under the Endangered Species Act that we have to move these animals wherever someone deems they need to go, indeed, when we have populations that will sustain and prevent extinction just from what is in the upper Midwest and Canada.

What is it going to come down to? Do people have to be victimized to get a nice, idyllic scene like this with people hiking the trails? The Pacific Crest Trail runs through that portion of my district. Have warnings been sent out by the people promoting this wolf population to those who are looking to utilize these trails, such as the Pacific Crest Trail, or to climb the different mountains around northern California?

Are there adequate warnings going out to the urban areas when people expect they are going be able to do this as they come travel and recreate a little later on this spring and summer and fall? Are they doing that?

We have this idyllic scene of a family hiking out there. Do they know possibly there might be wolves lurking in here if they are hungry and they have run out of deer to attack? The farmers and ranchers have sold their livestock herds or pulled them out or just lost them to wolf attacks. They are going to get hungry and start coming after anything they can find. Are people going to be on that list?

Am I being dramatic? No, this is the reality. This can happen. Will this scene be allowed anymore in those areas? Well, it is a wolf habitat now. We don't have any people recreating on their lands, on their national lands, on their parklands, the forestlands that are deemed to be multiuse. That use is being narrowed more and more to not doing timber operations and preventing wildfire and having wildlife flourish but to satisfy a very narrow group.

This is part of the work that we need to get done. The Western Caucus is going to be focusing on endangered species reform, our energy, and agriculture. We need to make the farm bill a reality here soon because the farm bill has had extensions so far. We need to pass a full farm bill this year that is good for 5 years. Agriculture is a very important cornerstone of Western Caucus priorities, as well as a national priority.

We have our work cut out for us, but we have a great team on our Western Caucus staff. Nearly 100 Members of the House are in this, as well as our colleagues over in the Senate, led by my good friend, Senator Lummis from Wyoming. It is a very positive thing, and I am looking forward to the work here. I am honored to be able to chair that.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, foreign influence in American education, higher education especially, is a growing threat that cannot be ignored.

For years, adversaries, like the Chinese Communist Party, have funneled billions into U.S. colleges and universities through undisclosed donations and contracts, gaining influence over research, curriculum, and even campus policies.

These backdoor financial arrangements jeopardize academic integrity and national security, allowing foreign governments to push their own agendas under the guise of educational partnerships. Foreign regimes, including the Chinese Communist Party, have capitalized on loopholes in the Higher Education Act to expand their influence. Many U.S. institutions fail to disclose foreign gifts, as required, allowing foreign entities to quietly infiltrate and manipulate academic environments.

The DETERRENT Act, which will be taken up soon, introduced by my colleague from Washington, Representative Baumgartner, takes a decisive stand against this threat by enhancing foreign gift and contract reporting requirements. By slashing the reporting threshold to just $50,000 and implementing an even stricter zero-dollar threshold for countries and entities of concern, the bill ensures universities disclose all foreign funding regardless of its size or source. Lowering that threshold will bring more and more of them into the light.

China alone has sent over $1 billion to U.S. universities in the past decade, much of it undisclosed until recently. These financial ties have been linked to research theft, censorship of critical discussions, and undue pressure on faculty and students. A congressional investigation uncovered nearly $40 million in unreported contracts between two top U.S. universities and the CCP.

Foreign-backed research centers are often used as footholds for regimes to infiltrate American institutions, steal intellectual property, and push their political agendas. Some universities, either unknowingly or in pursuit of financial gain, have allowed foreign- funded centers to operate on campus, shaping curriculum, limiting academic freedom, and suppressing dissenting viewpoints.

The DETERRENT Act strengthens reporting requirements, ensures greater transparency to Congress and the public, and imposes strict penalties for noncompliance. It requires universities to disclose foreign gifts and contracts to individual faculty members, who are often the most targeted by adversarial regimes. It also holds private institutions accountable by revealing foreign investments in their endowments.

With the current administration failing to investigate this growing threat, the DETERRENT Act provides a necessary course correction.

Foreign influence not only threatens the integrity of academic research but also compromises national security by giving adversarial governments access to sensitive technological advancements. These financial entanglements, if left unchecked, will continue to erode the independence of U.S. institutions, putting both intellectual freedom and national interests at risk.

Higher education should be a place where students are taught how to think, not what to think, especially by foreign entities with their own agendas that go against United States interests.

Increased oversight is essential to ensure that universities serve the interests of students and the Nation, not those of adversarial regimes. With the previous administration failing to take this step, it is essential that we do that now with the DETERRENT Act.

Mr. Speaker, Congress is moving forward with reconciliation to rein in Washington's reckless spending and put the budget back on a responsible path. This process brings multiple committees together to craft one comprehensive bill that strengthens the economy, reduces waste, and prioritizes taxpayers.

The bill secures the borders with real enforcement measures, keeps taxes low for families and small businesses, and rolls back job-killing regulations. It also boosts domestic energy production, making America less dependent on foreign adversaries while lowering costs at home.

Every committee has worked to ensure this bill eliminates wasteful spending and focuses resources where they are actually needed. Budget reconciliation is about making the Federal Government work smarter, not bigger, and being accountable to taxpayers because the hard-earned money they have to send this place is certainly not voluntary.

Budget reconciliation puts America back on a strong track to what we should prioritize to begin with.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Moore for leading us in these efforts to help enlighten folks on what we are doing here in Congress to give people more choice, more options, and have goods be more reasonably priced and available for them.

As we are coming out of the Biden administration, we saw a lot of devastation to the economic conditions for families, for homes, for small businesses, et cetera. In Washington, there seems to be an obsession with overregulation. It does make life harder for everyday Americans.

Under the Biden administration, the energy efficiency standards became weapons of control, driving up costs, limiting choices and strangling economic growth.

Under the antienergy agenda that President Biden had, American families felt the pinch every day, every time they turned on a light, heated their home, powered their appliances, or drove their car. These so-called efficiency standards didn't lower costs, they shifted the burden on to local level wallets and bank accounts.

Back in my home State of California we see the impact firsthand, as these ideas seemed to start there first, between skyrocketing energy bills and blackouts caused by misguided policies. Public safety power shutoffs is what they call them. When the wind is blowing and they haven't trimmed the trees in the forested areas around the power lines they have to shut off the power rather than doing the work out in the forests that is needed, but that is another issue.

All of this causes families to have to pay more for less reliability in their needs.

This is the future that our Democratic colleagues seem to want for the rest of America, one where energy is not affordable nor dependable. The conversations keep pushing more toward wind and solar, which are fine in and of themselves, but they are a tiny part of the grid. They are not a 24/7 available source of power anyway such as we would get from nuclear energy, hydroelectric, natural gas, or coal. Those can be counted on at any time. You can turn them on and use them at any time. Obviously with the wind or solar you have to wait for the Sun to come up, the clouds to go away, for it to stop raining, or the wind to blow--as long as the wind doesn't blow too hard, which in that case, they have to slow down and shut off the windmill because the wind might spin it off of its hinges.

Washington bureaucrats are now trying to dictate what kind of refrigerator you can have, what kind of stove you can use, and even how long your dishwasher should take to run. Most folks want to see that the dishwasher runs long enough to get things clean and dry; the same with your dryer, the same with your clothes washer. Folks want what it takes to get the job done, not some arbitrary shutdown of when a bureaucrat decides you have used enough energy.

So really it is just limiting options and you being told what is good enough for you, rather than what you actually need.

Californians have already been through a lot of this. We have been forced to live with policies that prioritize these whims of regulators over the needs of families. Indeed, we have seen the elimination of many outdoor tools, gas-powered lawn mowers, weed eaters, leaf blowers, and I will come back to even they are trying to take away generators.

Now, how do you take away a gas- or diesel-powered generator? When the electricity goes off, and you need something to replace that at least temporarily, what do you power that generating vehicle with? It isn't going to be other electricity. Some will argue we need to have batteries with this power saved up. Okay. Well, there are a lot of issues with batteries on what it takes to make them, what do you do with the metals and the materials from a battery that is now no longer useful and it has to be discarded versus just having something that works at the flick of a switch or the pull of a cord. You can start your generator using gasoline or diesel and have great success like you had for generations. They want to take all these options away from us.

Indeed, they do many things to inconvenience families, small businesses, and they also strangle our economy. It is amazing to go out to Tractor Supply or someplace like that, and they have a whole lineup of those outdoor appliances and they are all electric. It just happened overnight. I don't know how well they are selling or how well people like them, but we have to get to a point where we can overcome these mandates or at least not have them at the Federal level for the other 49 States or whatever amount of States that are not following California as more and more of them seem to want to get toward with California's craziness.

Manufacturers are forced to spend millions trying to comply with these rules changing the dynamics, changing the makeup of how their equipment works.

Take the electric car industry, for example. I remember back in California in about 1990, the California Air Resources Board, known as CARB, pretty famous now, I believe it was 1990 they wanted to mandate that 10 percent of all vehicles by the year 2000 had to be zero- emissions vehicles. At the time, all that would mean is, well, you have to use batteries instead of fuel.

The manufacturers were standing on their heads, the auto manufacturers, trying to figure out how are we going to meet this mandate in 10 years for 10 percent production. You ended up with these basically glorified golf carts with batteries on them using the same old battery technology we had and finding out that you can't just slap a license plate on a golf cart and have a practical vehicle for people. They actually had to relent on that mandate before 2000 occurred, but you still saw these little golf carts running around dealerships with license plates on them pretending to be automobiles that people would buy.

They don't always know by making a mandate--many in those institutions believe that, well, if we force the mandate, then they will come up with the technology. Well, battery technology still hasn't made a quantum leap into the future yet to where it can be such an incredible source and for long extended periods as really the previous generation. They have got more experimental materials. They have different, more exotic materials they are actually using now, but the battery life hasn't extended that much more than what batteries of 20 years ago were doing.

The more we hamstring the energy production and force businesses to conform with out-of-touch mandates, the more time businesses have to waste on developing technology, which really isn't going to go anywhere. The further refinement of internal combustion engines has so far achieved amazing results with how clean gasoline and diesel engines are running these days. They have put the filtration systems and the fuel additives on there to make a diesel engine run pretty darn clean, so why don't we allow those manufacturers to continue in the direction of

making them even better instead of saying, no, we are going to force you to stop selling gasoline-powered vehicles in California I think by 2030, and you can't sell any new ones and take away diesel-powered trucks.

We are going to run into a real reckoning in California when these mandates kick in and there are no goods to deliver. People expect to take the raw materials from a mine or from a farm or wherever to the mill, to the manufacturer and then bring a finished product to the store shelf and you go pick it up and bring it home. What is taking away these options, it is going to be a real strangle on the economy of California and any other State foolish enough to follow what we do out there.

So it really isn't about saving energy. It seems to be a lot more about controlling what people do, the ideals of putting people in stacked communities and these walkable communities, transit communities instead of letting them live how they would like to or what is needed.

In my rural district I have in northern California, the people that produce things that other people need whether it is timber, and the products that come from timber, wood, lumber, paper, et cetera, that has to come from a rural area. You need rural people living there that can do that, and they need to have the vehicles and the wherewithal and the tools to do it. That all seems to be taken away. Instead, they would rather burn down those forests.

So what kind of choice is that?

People would like to have choices where they can live as well as what we are talking about previously with energy choices and the energy using apparatus choices in those.

Americans deserve a little bit better than a government that prioritizes green ideology over their own quality of life. What you get right down to is that when these choices are taken away you don't really get that much greener of a lifestyle because there is an offset for taking away the power plants that we have. There is an offset of replacing them with solar panels that cover many, many acres, especially of prime ag ground like they are trying to do in central California in some of the richest ag ground anywhere in the world and products there that so many Americans have come to expect that come from California with these amazing vegetable crops, fruit crops, nut crops. Mr. Speaker, 90 to 99 to even 100 percent of those crops are grown in California, and they want to cover those areas with solar panels because those areas have had their water rights and their water taken away because of more green things and more environmental policies that put the needs of fish over the needs of people.

Instead, we need to go in the direction that puts energy policies that would actually lower prices, expand the consumer choices, and create opportunities for American jobs and an American economy and American prosperity and not have the continued stranglehold we saw under the Biden administration.

The work we are doing here along with President Trump is extremely important to bring these things back to the forefront of families having choices in the basics like their appliances, their automobiles, their ability to heat or cool their homes and just enjoy their life.

We will continue, and I look forward to being part of the battle here of pushing back against that out-of-touch agenda, whether you want to call it the Green New Deal or green ideology and move toward a future where families and not bureaucrats get to decide what works best for them.

Mr. Speaker, the previous administration, the Biden administration, spent most of its years forcing extreme energy mandates onto everyday appliances: our gas stoves, our water heaters, dishwashers, air conditioners, you name it.

These rules really aren't about efficiency, as the manufacturers have worked for decades to make them more efficient and meet already existing standards. No, it is more of a control situation. These drive up costs, limit the choice for consumers, and force everything onto an already overloaded power grid. Gas stoves, I know, are the preference for many people in their homes. Gas water heaters work well. It is a deal where the government wants to take away the choices.

Natural gas is, indeed, one of the most affordable, reliable energy sources we have. The previous administration was the enemy of that. They did everything they could to push it out of homes and businesses and the production of it on our open lands that have so much potential, especially in the Western States.

We have seen attempts to regulate gas stoves out of existence, and earlier this month we in the House voted to overturn one of those rules. Americans should be able to choose appliances that work best for them, not be forced into expensive, unreliable electric alternatives that they may not be able to afford that the government simply mandates.

The push to electrify everything is reckless. In my home State of California, for example, they want to take away lawnmowers, leaf blowers, even--get this--generators. Now, when the power goes off, that means the power is off, the electricity is off. What are you supposed to run a generator on, if you need to, especially for a couple days, to keep your freezer going, things like that? It doesn't make any sense.

The electric grid is already struggling to keep up. These mandates pile even more demand onto it while shutting down traditional energy sources that actually work.

Where is the electricity going to come from? In my home district in northern California, they have torn out four hydroelectric dams, and they have their sights on many others. In Mendocino County, they are looking at what is called the Scott Dam, Lake Pillsbury that generates some electricity and is also important for agriculture. It is a constant push to remove water storage.

In California, we lost one nuclear power plant due to an incredible amount of regulations to keep it going. That power plant was in San Diego, San Onofre. We are barely holding on to the one in San Luis Obispo, which represents 9 percent of the power grid. San Diego also represented 9 percent of the grid at that time. It has to be made up for with solar panels or windmills, which the solar one that they have in Ivanpah they are going to decommission pretty soon because it is not working very well. When we are forced into this electricity grid need, we will find that we are going to be running out because at the same time they mandate this, they mandate taking away the generation.

We have rolling blackouts in California, skyrocketing energy prices, and warnings--get this--not to charge electric cars that have been mandated by the State because the grid can't handle it at certain hours. Our Governor came out saying, well, we need to do this thing, and at the same time they are warning people, better not plug your electric car in.

As we know, wind and solar energy aren't enough to power the country. They are a tiny percentage of the overall pie. Wind power seems to work for a few years, and then they have to dispose of it, hauling the blades to some landfill in Utah because they don't have a way to recycle it.

Mr. Speaker, we need a reliable, balanced energy approach. That includes natural gas, which is so abundant in this country with the miracle of hydraulic fracturing. We have much that we can develop here and also be a good exporter to Europe so they don't have to rely on the Russian bear to import through their pipeline. Isn't that something.

Natural gas is affordable and efficient. It keeps costs down for families, businesses, and our economy. Instead of eliminating it, we should use it to strengthen our grid and keep energy reliable and cost- effective.

The regulations previously were nothing more than government overreaches disguised as environmental policy. They don't make life better for working Americans, for the economy, or for U.S. strength and readiness. They make it more expensive, less reliable, and less efficient.

It is time to roll these regulations back and put the power literally back

in the hands of the people. It has been shown these mandates do not make things better; they are less efficient. Let industry and innovation catch up to make more efficient systems. The government can't do it.

Mr. Speaker, for decades, Washington has poured trillions of dollars into the education system of America with actually very little to show for it.

Since the Department of Education was created by Jimmy Carter in 1979, it has spent over $3 trillion, yet student achievement hasn't actually improved. It has only gone down in that time.

After Federal taxpayers spent another $200 billion on education during the COVID era, all we have to show for it is math and reading scores that are at the lowest levels in decades. Per-pupil spending has skyrocketed by 245 percent since the 1970s, proving more money doesn't always achieve better results.

The Federal Government has only added red tape, forcing schools to waste time and resources on compliance instead of teaching. I am married to a teacher who, at the time, was frustrated by additional requirements that were coming down on trying to do her job.

The Biden administration alone added nearly $3.9 billion in regulatory costs and millions of hours of paperwork and funneled over $1 billion into grants pushing radical ideologies instead of core academics.

President Trump's executive order directing the closure of the Department of Education returns control over education to the States, parents, and local leaders. Instead of Washington bureaucrats trying to dictate how kids learn, we should have those decisions be made locally. This shift will cut waste and eliminate overreach.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, March 10, 2025. I was unable to vote on Roll Call No. 63 due to unavoidable circumstances. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 63.