Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to recognize the beginning of World Autism Month. I am wearing this blue pin to raise awareness for those impacted by autism around the country.

There are over 70 million people with autism worldwide, with more children diagnosed each year than with AIDS, diabetes, and cancer combined. This disease impairs the ability for folks to communicate and socialize. This April, it is my goal to join forces with my House colleagues to recognize what has become the fastest growing serious developmental disorder in the United States, one that early intervention can greatly help.

On average, having a child with autism costs a family $60,000 per year, an expense that many families cannot afford but are left with no choice. School-based services provide vital education and developmental tools for children with autism, but what happens when the schooldays are over? Once a child with autism reaches the age of 18, many families face a services cliff. They are no longer able to access the care they need.

As we work to reform health care in this 115th Congress, we must ensure that individuals have access to the affordable treatment they need and improve the outcomes for youth who are transitioning out of the school system as well. Go to autismspeaks.org, and let's deal with and work for quality of life improvements for these folks. I urge my House and Senate colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize that on this day, April 4, 49 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee.

We all know the story: the most prominent civil rights activist in the sixties, if not of our entire Nation's history, was shot dead in cold blood at the still very young age of 39 years old. It is a tragic tale of a man who had accomplished much and still had more to accomplish, but we should note this day as remembrance to honor the sacrifice he risked and he made during a very difficult time in our Nation's history.

He demonstrated to the world that it was not the color of a person's skin that we should be judged, but by the nature of their character. He led by example in an era of violence that violence was not the answer.

The peaceful protests he organized were an illustration of how to go about achieving social change in America, building bridges of understanding. The image of the Selma bridge comes to mind.

His strong Christian beliefs helped him to see what many others could not, and opened the doors for millions to follow in his path.

Mr. King's work is not done. It is very saddening to still see so many in racial strife in these days in our Nation, but he showed the right way to lead, the right way to peacefully protest, and the right way to inspire to fulfill his famous dream.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about several things to do with infrastructure in the United States and in California. I am a happy new member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee here in the U.S. House, and I am very interested and dedicated to things we can do to improve all of our types of infrastructure that are so important for the economy, for the people, for movement of goods, and for the people's own convenience in doing what they need to do in their personal lives, their business lives, et cetera.

So this is, indeed, a committee and issues that will affect all of our States and have a positive effect if we put good policy in place for all of our people. We have jurisdiction over quite a few areas. One of the important things we will be working on in the short term have to do with airports as well as reauthorization of the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration.

Airports, obviously, are coming more and more into play with the amount of passenger traffic that we are seeing. The FAA projects that by the year 2029 we could see 1 billion passengers using our airports per year, and that is just not that many years away. So airports will need to continue to have more upgrading, runway extensions, maybe additional runways, the infrastructure in them, the process for getting people through TSA. These are all things that we will be looking at within our committee as well as some of our other committees we partner with here in the House, because passengers are using more and more air service, whether it is urban or the rural airports that are very important to areas like my district, the First District of Northern California. They have equal weight to those that are using them in where they live and where they need to get to.

Obviously, a lot of discussion about infrastructure led by our President, Donald Trump, on highways being a key component of movement of goods and people and everything we need for our economy to be strong and the convenience for our people. Highways are breaking down. Bridges are breaking down.

We just saw the other day, in Georgia here, a fire caused by storage of things underneath that bridge. They are on the fast track trying to get that redone on I-85.

Now, was it a bridge that needed to be maintained?

Not sure. But certainly that is a situation that shows how acute the problem is when you lose one structure like that, what it can do to traffic, an inconvenience for people and commerce in an area like that.

So we have these problems all across the country with our bridges that are in dire need of repair. We need not have more accidents or more things that would endanger the public when they are not properly maintained or upgraded.

Just try driving in the right lane of a lot of our freeways here and with the truck traffic on them who pay weight fees and many other excise taxes, other forms of fees and taxes to be part of the solution. We see much damage to them because of the backlog of work that needs to be done on highways, on freeways, that have this traffic, that have this high flow that is really part of what we would expect for our highways and these systems.

But when we are not doing the work to maintain, when we are not putting the investment in there, when people pay their gas tax, when they pay the tax on diesel, when they pay their weight fees, when all those forms of compensation that are in place to help keep our highways and roads and bridges and all of our transportation structures up, when the money isn't getting there, then we have a real problem.

Again, being from California, we see that some of our highways and road systems are in some of the worst shape in the whole country. Right now, as they contemplate raising taxes on people at the State level, a gas tax increase, a per-car tax increase to get your license plate sticker, people are going to be wondering where are we going to make ends meet on that, because probably at least the average cost to a family would be somewhere around $500 in new gas and new fees to register a vehicle and get their kids to school and go to work and things that they need to do.

We need to be part of the solution on that. I don't think more taxes, more fees upon working people who are trying to make ends meet--you know, $500 out of a family's income is a pretty tough deal when we see that the jobs are not coming back as rapidly, especially in the State of California, that they need to for average working families, especially inland, that aren't part of the coast where most of the wealth seems to be centered in California.

We see that the drive in California is still pushing forward on the high-speed rail project, one that was passed all the way back in 2008 just under a $10 billion bond by the voters of California, and supplemented a few years later by ARA funding, stimulus funding from the Federal Government, about $3.5 billion.

Well, at this point, here in 2017, they have hardly even done anything on the construction of the high-speed rail, which is probably a blessing, because this a boondoggle of epic proportions. The original cost, as sold to the voters of the State of California, would be $33 billion to put a high-speed rail system from San Francisco to Los Angeles going through the Central Valley.

Just a couple of years later, the true numbers started coming in on that, and they finally admitted that it was going to cost $98.5 billion was the estimate, this in the fall of 2011.

So they scurried back, went to the drawing board once again and found a

way to downsize the cost by using local transit, local projects in northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area and in southern California, trying to bring the cost down to then an estimated $68 billion, which is still double of the original budget--the original cost that was sold to the voters in proposition 1A in 2008.

Much of the funding was supposed to come from private concerns, private investors, because when you add it up, $10 billion from the State bond, $3 billion-plus of Federal money, you are only a little over $13 billion.

And if they are projecting it is a $68 billion cost, where is the other $55 billion going to come from?

Where are the private investors that have had nearly 9 years now to line up to be part of this profitable enterprise?

They are staying away in droves.

There are no guarantees of income which the State cannot do under proposition 1A which is illegal. There is no subsidizing of the high- speed rail allowed under the proposition 1A bond. Yet it keeps going on and on. We have these infrastructure needs we have all over the country. I don't see any more money coming from Congress, not coming from the Federal level, to help boost this boondoggle in California. We will work hard to make sure that doesn't happen.

Unfortunately, when they seek new funds for other things such as electrification of the rail in the bay area, they were seeking $647 million of brand new money from a different pot federally to electrify the existing train route they have in the bay area that is run by diesel trains presently. So it is not like they don't have train service for commuting in the bay area, indeed, one of the richest areas of the country. They come to Congress here and ask for $647 million of new money maybe to electrify but mostly to help facilitate the high- speed rail boondoggle as part of that.

We need not be part of that. They can go to the funding they have already set aside within the bond or the $3.5 million that we don't seem to be able to capture back from the stimulus package. Go to those sources of money if you want to electrify the rail.

That said, part of the problem with building the high-speed rail is people don't really want to cooperate. When the first segment was being contemplated, it was going to go from San Francisco halfway down into the valley or L.A. halfway up to the valley. One of the reasons they chose to start building in the valley was that was the cheapest area to build one, the most wide open. One of the quotes at the time from one of the spokesmen for the authority was they would find the least amount of resistance to build the rail in the valley because there are not that many people there compared to the cities.

Well, there is plenty of resistance there, too, because, at this point, I don't know exact statistics, but they have less than half of the parcels even in their control that they would need to lay the route out through the valley because people are resisting. They don't want this thing coming through their neighborhoods, knocking out their farms, and cutting up their property in sections into little triangles and little bits that they can no longer farm or even transport their livestock or equipment to because it is going to be cut off by this rail that will be fenced on both sides because you have got a 220-mile- per-hour train supposedly running through it. So there will be a lot of damage to the economy and the fabric of the Central Valley.

The people in the urban areas aren't that excited about it either. In the high-value properties in the south bay area, they are not really excited about having this causeway 20 feet above their neighborhoods there. So they are talking, put this thing underground. So they are doing that part last. In the meantime, they are going to try and electrify the commuter train they have, which is a low-speed rail and doesn't fulfill the goals of a high-speed rail which is just required from San Francisco to Los Angeles. As well in southern California, they want to take over part of the system there to use that commuter rail as fulfilling part of the obligation to have a high-speed rail system that is electrified from one end to the other.

Now, they haven't even really contemplated what it is going to cost as they talk about drilling a hole, drilling a bore, through the Tehachapis down there in southern California, to the tunes of billions and billions of dollars that isn't really comprehended in the cost of doing the system.

So this is an issue, this is a dream, and this is a project that really needs to be scrapped. Where is the money going to come from? It is not coming from the Federal Government, and it is not coming from investors. The cap-and-trade dollars that they were counting on in the State of California from auctioning off CO2 allotments to large businesses, that has withered as well. They are not getting the billions they were hoping to get from auctioning off this new commodity created by government in California of CO2 allotments to large businesses that produce CO2.

So the funding isn't available anywhere. Still they hold on to this dream of building this high-speed rail project that is at least $55 billion, probably a lot more than $55 billion short of being completed.

Do you know what? This isn't even a priority for most people. Are they going to be able to afford to ride that rail? Are they going to be able to afford to ride that train and afford the ticket? Because if it is not going to be a subsidized ticket, it is probably going to be close to $200 or $300, not the $80 that they projected 9 years ago.

Then should that really be the priority? Now, California, until this year, we were blessed with so much rain and snow pack--there is an incredible amount of snow pack up on the mountains that I just flew over yesterday in my commute to Washington. We had suffered about 5 years of drought previously to that. We didn't have the infrastructure in place to store water that we should have with a State of 40 million people that, in the good old days, we used to plan for with the Central Valley Project built in the thirties and forties, the State water project built in the fifties and sixties.

Why have we been sitting all these decades since not really doing the things to stay forward and stay ahead of the curve on a population, on the needs of an economy of agriculture and municipalities of people? Instead, we are chasing these utter boondoggles like high-speed rail.

Our water infrastructure still has a lot of needs. Our rivers, when we have the high flows, many of our levees are in danger of not holding up in really high flows. We see that issue on the Feather River on the south end of my district and the adjacent district to the south of there with the levee systems in Yuba County and Sutter County, which a lot of folks have worked really hard in recent years on, and they are trying to locally upgrade these levees and keep it going.

This year, they had to spend a lot of dollars on upgrading the levees just to get through the season by laying gravel and mat down so that the boils that would be potentially coming through the levees wouldn't give out and have a blowout in those areas. What is going on with that? The money has been put aside, and the work is ready to go, but delays have cost the ability to get more miles of those levees done during the good weather last year so that we would ensure the safety of these areas, whether it is south Butte County, Yuba and Sutter Counties, and many other areas in the north State leading all the way down to Sacramento and the delta.

We need to be getting that work done immediately. Why should we endanger our communities by not getting the work we know we need to get done, the funding has been more or less put aside for, yet needless delay and bureaucratic red tape have caused delays in endangered places like that? Or like Hamilton City up in my area that I share in western Butte County and Glenn County.

This is the type of infrastructure that produces jobs--but even more importantly, after the jobs are done, the safety to a community, the ability to invest there, to build homes there, and to have that 200- year flood protection on the levees that is necessary to be insurable and, again, ensure the public safety. So this is part of the water infrastructure we desperately need in California and many of our other States, too, as well.

So serving on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, we could advance these. We can have this debate.

We can have this discussion and hold accountable the agencies that are supposed to be getting it done and not looking for more ways to delay it with paperwork sitting on the desk for projects that could be going out this year that might be delayed yet another year.

Coming back to dams, that is one of our most important components in flood control because we can control the water as it comes down from the higher elevations and have that ability to store water at the level we decide to let it out of the dam instead of whatever might be coming in uncontrolled with the high flows you can sometimes get from a massive amount of rain like we saw in the Sierras this year and the snow pack that is still sitting up there.

Lake Oroville, which many people have heard about across the country in recent weeks, is right in my district, right in my backyard. It has been a great project. It is a jewel of the State water project in California, built primarily in the sixties. Well, there was a big problem with the spillway. It gave way in early February, and so they had to assess what was going on with that and temporarily shut it down, in case of so much--an amazing amount of rain coming in during some of those same days actually caused the lake to top out and some of the water to start coming over the emergency spillway, which became another issue requiring an evacuation because erosion happening underneath that emergency spillway structure was unpredictable. Nobody knew what would happen as the dirt field below that eroded.

Why is it still a dirt field? That will be an interesting thing for us to hear about in hearings that are going to be going on at the State level as well as at the Federal level here. Why was it allowed to stay that way? A dirt field. The erosion nearly came up. Who knows what the effect might have been on that emergency spillway structure. Thankfully nothing happened. The dam structure is sound, the emergency spillway structure is sound. The main spillway needs much work, and a Herculean effort since then has cleared the river channel so the river can properly flow from the power plant, which is an important regulator of State level, the water that can run through that power plant. So a really good effort was done to do that after this emergency has occurred.

The evacuation really worried deeply many people in the north State. 180,000 people were evacuated. It was the right call by our Butte County sheriff to do so because of the unpredictability of that situation. So Sheriff Honea deserves much kudos for making the correct call on that and making people safe, keeping people safe.

But, nonetheless, we have this infrastructure issue we need to come back to and is being contemplated right now with a plan to replace the spillway. Can it be done in 1 year? It doesn't look like it. But measures will be taken to upgrade that and make it work. It can be a long-term structure that will be durable for many decades. That is what we need. We need that predictability so the lake can be regulated and water stored properly in a fashion that provides for flood control during the high rain season and high snow pack season, as well as storing water for those drought years that we hopefully didn't let too much water get away from. We still have an obligation to meet water contracts and grow agricultural products and meet the needs for municipalities as well as all the environmental needs that are being demanded these days as well.

So we need to rebuild our spillway at Lake Oroville soon. That project will soon be underway. In the meantime, we still have a massive snow pack up there that has to be modeled and watched and carefully contemplated as to what the releases from the lake will be in the interim until the point where they can know what the predictability is of the amount of snow, the amount of rain, and the amount of water that can come down from the Sierras and affect the river system all the way down basically to where it meets up near Sacramento.

We need to have that predictability for people to be secure in their homes, at the same time finding that balance of storing the water that is needed to make a State run because we never know what the next drought year will be. Will it be next year? Or will we get a massive amount of rain this coming year? So we need to find that balance to make sure that we are keeping those communities safe, modeling very carefully what is up on the slopes still in snow pack and storing water for California's long-term needs this coming year and following years.

So with the repairs to Oroville that will soon be underway, I think people can be confident that that system will be sound. The dam is sound, the emergency spillway is sound, and the repairs that will be going underneath the base of that should make--if it is ever needed-- which the goal is to never use the emergency spillway, but, should it be needed, it would be a sound piece of that infrastructure. And with a new spillway that will be built at Oroville within 1 to 2 years, that will be sound as well. People need to have that confidence.

I was speaking with people around the Oroville area, several of the businesses there that are concerned that having to move in an evacuation obviously is a horrendous expense, but also it is a concern for those others that they do business with, maybe outside of the area, that they can continue to supply the things that they produce for the contracts they would have. Indeed, that was expressed to me at a meeting a few weeks ago that maybe they are vendors for others in other parts of the State or the country that if they have the perception they can't rely upon them to keep producing those components that go into other assemblies, then they may not do business with them anymore.

We need to ensure those folks that Oroville is going to stay, is in business to stay, and that those manufacturers can count on those components to be produced and made available to them because we will keep working to make sure that that infrastructure is sound with the water storage and the levee flood control system that we have. In just a few short weeks, we will see that, with the snow pack properly accounted for and that flood season past us, in the rebuilding of that infrastructure, then we can assure everyone that Oroville is strongly here to stay and here for business.

We have the operations of the lake. Indeed, there are a lot of things to balance with this infrastructure: recreation, electricity generation, agricultural and municipal as well as environmental waters. These are all things that have to be balanced. But, indeed, balance needs to be brought to it so that no one side is pushing too far the other so that we don't meet all these goals that are needed.

Energy is an important component of that as well. Generating that with hydroelectric power helps meet a reliable baseline load for electricity generated in California. It is much more reliable than solar or wind power. Why hydropower isn't seen as an even more important component of the renewal energy portfolio is kind of silly and arbitrary to me, but it is, indeed, very, very valuable.

As we wind through all the different needs we have for infrastructure in this country--some of these examples in my own backyard--they are also needed elsewhere. Folks in all parts of the country have needs for a strong infrastructure, whether you are riding the train from New York to Washington, D.C., which I have a couple of times--that is a very important part of that infrastructure for those folks. We need to support them as well and make sure it is as modern and as safe as it can be. It affects everybody, the highway system that goes from the East Coast to the West Coast or North to South. It is a positive for all of us.

We need to stay ahead of the curve. President Trump has a very ambitious plan for rebuilding and adding to our infrastructure. It isn't all just about ribbon cuttings on new infrastructure. It is, indeed, the less glamorous that is a very important part of rebuilding what we have: upgrading our bridges, repaving those lanes, adding additional lanes to our freeways. That helps make it more convenient for all of us, better for commerce, better for safety.

With so much consternation in Washington, D.C., about what we are doing, these are some of the positives that we can point to in moving forward on infrastructure that everybody can use. It will be positive for the jobs in construction while it is being built and,

longer term, for the type of commerce that will make the United States a place to locate factories once again and have that manufacturing and that predictability of energy sources, water sources, safety of the infrastructure, and the ability to move these goods down our freeways to our ports, wherever they need to go.

With that, I will be looking forward to what we can do in California to have better infrastructure that is something people can actually use, actually access, and certainly afford without being hit with more taxes, more gas tax, more vehicle fees, and more ideas for taxes that may come from the Federal Government.

I don't see that happening here, but the people pay enough. As it is, it is already difficult enough for middle-income families to make ends meet if they have dreams of buying a home, paying off college debt, or sending their own kids to college a little later and maybe even, once in a while, going on a vacation that they would like to save up for. People need to have these choices. We are here at the Federal level to help be part of facilitating their ability to have those choices.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all the folks in northern California to hang in there. We are going to get through this season here. To the people of Oroville, we will make sure our systems are very sound. I think already, with steps that are taken, we will weather this difficult winter with a sound dam and infrastructure that will be able to have predictability and the assurance that, when you go to sleep at night, these systems are going to be serving us well and providing for our safety. I think we are well onto that track already.

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 19 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, April 5, 2017, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, tonight I am pleased to announce the Electric Reliability and Forest Protection Act of 2017, cosponsored by my colleague Representative Schrader of Washington.

Thousands of miles of electric utility transmission lines run through our national forests, key infrastructure that literally keeps the lights on across the West. Unfortunately, existing Forest Service rules hinder effective removal of hazardous trees and safe management of transmission rights-of-way. In too many cases, the inability to address hazards in a timely fashion results in blackouts, damaged infrastructure, and even forest fires, something we have too much of in the West, as you know. This all could be prevented if electric utilities were allowed to remove the dangers in a timely fashion.

This bill will reform that broken system by streamlining the process for

utilities to receive Forest Service approval for long-term transmission maintenance plans, allowing them to take immediate action to remove hazardous trees as soon as they are identified, before they cause a fire.

This is a widely supported rule by rural communities, rural electric cooperatives, and many others. It is a good bipartisan effort. Let's get it done.

Mr. Speaker, this week was the first-ever celebration of National Vietnam War Veterans Day.

Over 40 years ago, after the last remaining Vietnam veterans returned home, many faced poor treatment from the country they were fighting to protect. These brave men and women are getting the welcome home finally that they deserve.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate introduced a bill that was passed, which introduced the Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act, which unanimously passed both the House and Senate, and President Trump signed it into law earlier this week.

I was proud to join my colleagues in supporting this bill. The overwhelmingly bipartisan support is proof that finally the perception of Vietnam veterans has shifted over the years as folks begin to better understand the sacrifices they have made.

Over 9 million Americans served in the military during the Vietnam war, and over 2.7 million actually served in Vietnam. I personally know many who came from my district and now live in northern California.

Over the course of the war, the United States of America suffered

58,000 casualties, with hundreds of thousands more wounded and disabled. We need to remember the sacrifice they made, whether it was from Agent Orange or disabilities, or even the 22 veterans we lose each day to suicide.

We welcome home the Vietnam veterans. I am glad we could have this recognition for them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith for yielding time here today, as these issues affect my constituents in northern California as well. So being here to support H.R. 1430, the HONEST Act, really pleases me because we haven't had a lot of honesty the way the EPA has applied new interpretations of new rules to some of the folks in my district here, that farm and ranch and other activities that use their resources and their land in the way they see fit.

We need to ensure that the EPA rules and regulations are made using verifiable, publicly available data and science.

A fundamental tenet of our Nation is that citizens have the right to know how and why the government makes decisions and, just as importantly, have the ability to challenge those decisions. However, we have seen an increasing tendency of Federal agencies to refuse to disclose the data they have based decisions on, claiming it is too sensitive to share. Really, now.

For example, the Obama administration's waters of the U.S. rule, which would have inserted the Federal Government into local land use decisions across the Nation, directly conflicts with publicly available data prepared by the Army Corps of Engineers, yet the EPA refused to release data it claimed supported its conclusion.

Farmers, in some cases, cannot even use their land under the threat of litigation, fines, or even arrest. Even the Army Corps of Engineers disputes the EPA's refusal, noting, in 2015, that EPA provided no scientific basis for its jurisdictional power grab.

Under waters of the United States, we have heard interpretations that

people plowing their fields could be interpreted now as a regulatable land because that could be seen as a watershed because you now have furrows that are new watersheds.

This is the kind of thing that needs to be heard publicly in review of Congress and the people, not made in a back room of the EPA somewhere. That is not an honest way of doing business. That is why H.R. 1430 is an honest way to bring them back to the accountability we need to have so people can have their day and have a right to dispute nonscience-led decisions made by the EPA.

The Obama Administration did not even rely on peer-reviewed science or on publicly available Scientific Advisory Board determinations despite EPA claims that its effort was backed by science.

The tendency for Federal agencies to develop regulations based on secret data is even more insidious when we note that these are not even elected officials. They don't have to stand for election. These are career bureaucrats who cannot be removed or even sometimes met up with by the voters, by their constituents.

Mr. Speaker, when Americans face regulations imposed by unelected bureaucrats and based on secret science that cannot be verified or even viewed, how can they employ their First Amendment right to petition their government? The answer, colleagues, is simple. They can't.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for this bill to protect every American's right to know how and why their government makes decisions, to protect their First Amendment rights, to protect their property, and their ability to thrive.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time, and I thank you for bringing this effort and for your battle.

Madam Speaker, tonight I rise to commend the House for passing H.R. 1430, what is known as the HONEST Act. This would put more of the onus on to the Environmental Protection Agency, sometimes known as the employment prevention agency, to disclose where they get their science or where they get their reasoning when they are going to make a regulation upon the people that produce in this country.

My own constituents have suffered from that in my district in northern California, where arbitrary rules are put in place without even the opportunity to face their accuser of what kind of science they are using or what kind of reasoning they are using to put a regulation in place that they have to fight, and fight sometimes for many years, in order to have the opportunity just to use their land, just to use their land for planting crops or for grazing or for other things that would help them with their livelihood, with their economy, like they have been using for so many years, even decades, in their families.

The HONEST Act will put accountability back on the EPA to say you have to come forward with reasoning, with logic, and with science that is publicly available and not hidden from the public so that we can see what you are using to regulate the people.

Mr. Speaker, as we contemplate the American Health Care Act, here are a few things we do know:

The Affordable Care Act, as it is called, has driven premiums for working families up and up each year. There are fewer choices of plans, especially in rural America, and 8 million and rising people are choosing not to opt to be enrolled at all, paying the penalty instead.

Premiums will keep going up, as projected. Even more will drop out, and more will pay the penalty instead. More will become uninsured.

This death spiral is not choice; it is not an American value.

Mr. Speaker, as the American Health Care Act moves forward, we know the Democrats will not be helpful, as they are clinging to the failing ACA at all costs. We know that middle-income families are begging us for relief and more choices. We know this bill represents the best chance to achieve cost relief, actual choices, while also keeping the commitment under Medicaid to children in need with reauthorizing the bipartisan SCHIP later this year.

More affordable options come about with unshackling what the ACA has wrought. It is this or that.

Mr. Speaker, we must keep this dialogue, this option, this bill, the American Health Care Act, as a way forward to bring choices and relief to Americans who have worked for the American Dream and are feeling like they are losing it.

Let's keep our pledge and help President Trump keep his pledge by taking this one of three important steps with the American Health Care Act.

Mr. Speaker, this past Saturday, in my own First Congressional District of California, we had the first of our series of townhall meetings--this one in Nevada County at the Grass Valley fairgrounds.

It was a good meeting. A bit raucous at times. There was disagreement, and there was some agreement as well. But I think it was a good dialogue to get started with the dialogue we need to have in northern California on the very important issues that we are working on here in Congress.

There was agreement and disagreement on where we should go with the ACA treatment and where we should go with the funding of EPA. But what I am happiest about is that at least we were able to come together, 1,400 people and me and my staff, and have a dialogue that, again, at times was a little loud, a little raucous, but also people looking forward to being able to hear each other and listen to each other on the issues that are important as we go forward in this Congress.

I commend people in Nevada County for reaching out and for helping us get started with our outreach that we are going to have in northern California. Upcoming next will be Butte County, Shasta County, and the farther reaches a little bit later.

Mr. Speaker, this is a good dialogue I need to have.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the House's efforts this week to improve the employment standards at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In recent years, complex bureaucratic processes can take up to a year to remove or discipline a VA employee for misconduct or subpar performance. The VA has even had trouble firing one employee who participated in an armed robbery and another who participated in a veteran's surgery while intoxicated.

Just last year, VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson testified at a hearing that it was too difficult to fire bad employees. That is why I was happy to vote in the House this week for the VA Accountability First Act of 2017. This legislation provides the VA Secretary more flexibility to demote, suspend, or remove employees for misconduct or subpar performance.

Additionally, the House has passed a second bill today to make the hiring process more efficient, allowing the VA to recruit and retain the best in the field. As a result, the VA can fire bad employees and replace them with good ones who have a passion, and we can retain at the agencies we want to work hard for our veterans. This will lead directly to higher quality care for our veterans, which is the whole reason and purpose we do this.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to applaud the President's decision to halt new EPA fuel mileage restrictions on the auto industry, also known as CAFE standards.

Speaking to auto industry workers in Detroit today, President Trump promised to reexamine stringent fuel efficiency rules that were hurried into place in the final days of the previous administration.

After committing to a review in 2018, the Obama administration changed course just before leaving office and decided to keep the requirements in place for model year vehicles 2022-2025. According to reviews by independent economists and engineers, these requirements would add at least an average of $3,800 in costs per vehicle, even after supposed fuel savings were considered.

Even more, this vastly limits consumer choice, whether someone wants to buy a minivan to move their family or soccer team around, a farmer or contractor that needs a three-quarter-ton pickup to do his or her job, or maybe somebody that would just like to buy a sporty car.

Even worse, it is entirely unclear whether existing technology even allows the 60 percent jump from the 2016 requirement of 34.1 miles per gallon to reach the almost 55-mile-per-gallon requirement in only seven model years to 2025 without sacrificing safety and, yet again, eviscerating consumer choice.

The President's decision to fully review these requirements will result in lower vehicle costs, allow safer vehicles, and boost our U.S. economy by supporting domestic manufacturing.

Mr. Speaker, we see more and more that ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act is, indeed, unsustainable.

Today I rise, once again, to share another story or two about some of the highlights that some of my constituents are feeling back at home.

Last night, I hosted a telephone townhall to have an opportunity to hear from people in my district, once again, about some of the unsustainable, horrible stories that they have to tell about the experiences they have had with the ACA: sky-high premiums; poor access to health care; options that are less and less, especially in rural California and rural America; deductibles that have risen so high that insurance isn't really affordable for them to use at all.

Recently a physician within my district contacted my office and said that, after more than 30 years of a successful practice with happy clients, he is no longer able to provide the type of care his patients need due to the overburdensome paperwork requirements. This is providing less choices for people, especially the middle-income families that have to choose between the things they want to save for for their future and for their dreams and now happen to have much higher premiums, less choices, and a deductible that makes their insurance almost useless to them.

The American Health Care Act will give back more options for families and other Americans that desperately need this help and to meet all the goals that we are setting out to do.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you one of the countless stories my office has received that highlight the hardships faced under the Affordable Care Act, primarily by middle-income families. This one came in on January 17. Joe writes:

``Mr. LaMalfa, I was penalized $850 on my 2015 tax return for the transgression of not having been enrolled in the Affordable Care Act.

``I simply cannot afford the now $895-per-month premium, double, to insure my family of three. I have been forced into what's called self- pay for our doctor visits.

``Cancer biopsies, Z-Packs, dental, and eyeglasses all come out of my paycheck . . . it sure would have been nice to have that extra $850 penalty to pay for all this.''

He ended his message stating, simply: ``ObamaCare needs to be repealed and replaced with free market policies that can be purchased across State lines.''

His testimony highlights one of the primary issues with the ACA: fewer choices, increasingly expensive premiums, deductibles that are out of sight that are forcing citizens into paying out of pocket for services they need.

Another one of my constituents told me they were ultimately forced to choose between paying their mortgage and paying their monthly premium. That is not a choice at all, and one that should not have to be made.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California (Mr. Yoho), a good friend here, and my other colleagues here, to allow me the moment to speak.

Mr. Speaker, I am really excited about the opportunity with this new administration for relief for regular Americans from the Affordable Care Act. I think the intentions may have been good when it was passed, but we see the devastating effects from the many emails, letters, calls, and the communications my office received from middle-income families. They are the ones that are the most negatively affected by this act. We have seen their premiums and their deductibles go out of sight. They may not even need to have the insurance anymore because the deductibles are so out of reach for them on cost, so insurance means nothing to them.

Indeed, with most Americans having health insurance before the ACA that they were at least reasonably happy with, they have had that choice taken away from them. They have had choices taken away. My wife and I were sitting there in December 2013, being forced, just like everybody else, to enroll in a plan with a broken website trying to get it to go through. We knew at the time we were going to have big problems with that.

We even agreed with the Republican conference when we were on the eve of this taking effect. The President decided that maybe we need to have a 1-year pause for this for employers of 100 people or more. We agreed with that. We offered legislation because you are not supposed to just do that with the stroke of a pen. Indeed, it was duly passed legislation with all Democrat votes, no Republican votes, just a few short years before. We agreed, let's lay this for a year, if nothing else, for those larger employers.

But we also said: Mr. President, we should also delay it for everybody else because we know it isn't going to work. We know this is going to do nothing to curb costs. That really is the bottom line. It is the middle-income families that I am really worried about in this thing because, again, we received so many communications from them saying: Please help us. We can't afford it. We are putting off being able to buy a home because we are seeing these costs go up. We are putting off college savings for our kids because our costs are spiraling out of control.

So if we do nothing else in the process, again, are we going to come up with the perfect bill?

There is no perfect bill when you have this many years of the type of government takeover of health care that we have seen here. But we are going to do the best we can because it is those folks out there-- middle-income Americans--that we are trying to help to bring relief from the ACA so they can go back to doing the priorities they see: having affordable insurance, doctors they can choose, a plan they can choose, and being able to go off and do the things like saving for their kids' college and maybe buying that home that is part of the American Dream instead of the American nightmare they see it has been.

So I appreciate my colleague, again, having this time this night and for allowing me to speak for a few minutes.