Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on February, 5 2014, I was absent for rollcall votes 40 and 41.

Had I been present for rollcall vote 40 I would have voted ``yes.'' And had I been present for rollcall vote 41 I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order.

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, we have heard a lot about 3-inch fish in this debate. In fact, to hear my colleagues in the Republican Party tell it, this is a story of a 3-inch fish that is taking water away in this critical drought that should be allocated to people.

Well, the truth is, Mr. Chairman, you would have to have the brain of a 3-inch fish to believe that narrative. There is no such thing happening in this critical drought year. What is happening, however, is some people are cynically trying to capitalize on the worst drought in California history in order to steal water from some parts of the State and from other water users and give it to a few. In fact, if this bill were accurately named, it would be called the ``Massive Federal Preemption Overreach and Water Theft Act for the Elections of 2014,'' but it is, in fact, pretending to be something quite different.

We need to ask ourselves why the State of California is so passionately opposing this bill. Attorney General

Kamala Harris wrote a letter just yesterday following the same position that prior attorneys general have always taken on this issue, including Republican attorneys general, that the Federal Government should abide by the 100-year precedent of deference, of cooperative Federalism, letting California administer its own water rights and allocate that water instead of the sweeping preemption that we see in this bill.

This bill would upset the most basic tenets of California water law. The fact that the California constitution provides the State the ability to allocate water, the ability to administer things like the public trust doctrine, all of that is repealed and swept away by the preemption provisions in this bill. It doesn't have to be that way.

In a crisis like this, it actually is possible for Republicans and Democrats and people from all parts of the State to come together and solve problems. I know that because I was part of something just like that that happened in our last multiyear critical drought. I chaired the Water Committee in the State Assembly in 2009 when there was a historic water package passed, a package that was supported by Republicans and Democrats, signed by a Republican Governor, supported by people from inland Central Valley California, southern California, urban areas. National media like The New York Times called it the most significant water reform in California in 60 years.

Well, unfortunately, all of that, too, is repealed, just swept away by the overreaching preemption in this bill.

The amendment I am offering, Mr. Chairman, would say, at least let's save what the national media and just about everybody else in the water world had called the most important thing, the best thing to happen in California water in the last 60 years. Let's save that from preemption as this bill goes forward if the amendment is made in order, and I would request that my colleagues vote ``yes'' on it.

Mr. Chairman, the public trust doctrine and the coequal goals articulated in that 2009 California legislation are the centerpieces of California water. Without those coequal goals codified in that State law, the entire Bay Delta conservation plan is over. It is done. It has zero chance of success.

Without the public trust doctrine and other State laws in critical years where a fully allocated and appropriated system like we have in California, where tough balancing decisions have to be made by the State water board, without those basic tools for how to do that job, they can't do their job. They can't allocate a diminishing resource, and the entire system of water and water rights allocation is thrown into chaos.

So to hear my friend talk about his concern for litigation, I have to say, this is the recipe for endless litigation, confusion, and uncertainty in California. This is essentially throwing a grenade into California water that would ignite a water war unlike anything we have ever seen.

I reserve the balance of my time.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would simply request a ``yes'' vote. It doesn't have to be partisanship. It doesn't have to be taking water from one part of the State or from one set of users and giving it to the other, scapegoating the 3-inch fish.

There is actually a way to solve water problems, even in California where water is scarce. We did it in 2009. It was widely recognized as historic, important, and positive. Let's save those 2009 water reforms from being roadkill from this reckless piece of legislation and vote ``yes'' on this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for offering this motion to improve a deeply flawed bill.

California is home to over 100 federally recognized tribes, including over two dozen in my congressional district. Many tribes, including the Hoopa, the Yurok, and the Karuk in my district, depend on wild salmon as both a vital source of economic opportunity and a respected way of life.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Chair, some of the water impacted by this bill is critically needed by tribes in my district. This bill explicitly waives State and Federal law in a way that almost certainly would lead to additional diversions from the Trinity River, which would undermine tribal fishing and water rights.

The Yurok Tribe in my district has written about provisions in this bill that they would undermine the Federal Government's ability to meet its Federal trust obligation to protect, preserve, and enhance the trust resources of that tribe.

This House has an obligation to clarify that this cynical bill would not diminish any protected tribal water and fishing rights, and so I urge a ``yes'' on this motion to recommit, and I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, on January 27, 2014, my flight was cancelled and I was absent for rollcall votes 24 and 25.

Had I been present for rollcall vote 24, on passage of H.R. 2166, I would have voted ``yes'' and had I been present for rollcall vote 25, on passage of H.R. 3008, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to recognize Mr. Scott Downie on the occasion of his retirement from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Mr. Downie's long commitment to the conservation of fisheries and watersheds of the North Coast has improved the environment for all Californians.

Mr. Downie's service to the North Coast includes 14 years as a commercial fisherman, 10 years as a habitat restoration coordinator for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, and 23 years as a fish habitat supervisor and senior environmental scientist with Fish and Wildlife. Mr. Downie is also a co-founder of the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project and of the Eel River Watershed Improvement Group.

Mr. Downie's vast experience and understanding of fisheries has helped preserve Northern California's vital salmonid populations and has inspired many others dedicated to this cause. His accomplishments and leadership will undoubtedly leave a legacy for many years to come.

Please join me in expressing deep appreciation to Mr. Scott Downie for his long and impressive career, and his exceptional record of service.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to recognize Mr. Gary Flosi on his recent retirement from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Mr. Flosi's dedication to the North Coast's fisheries and watersheds has been a tremendous service to the state.

Mr. Flosi began his career as a wildland firefighter with the California Ecology Corps in October 1975, then moved on to work with the California Conservation Corps. When he joined Fish and Wildlife, he helped develop the fisheries technician program with the CCC and led the state's peer review committee for Fish and Wildlife's Fisheries Restoration Grants Program. Mr. Flosi co-founded the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project and has served on its Advisory Committee for 20 years.

Through 4-H and FFA, the CCC and AmeriCorps, Mr. Flosi has passed on his understanding of the importance of fisheries to many who follow in his footsteps. His example will continue to inspire those who wish to restore the environment and fisheries that are so vital to California.

Please join me in expressing deep appreciation to Mr. Gary Flosi for his long and impressive career, and his exceptional record of service.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to recognize Ms. Susan Stompe on the occasion of her recognition as the Novato Citizen of the year. Residing in the City of Novato for four decades, Susan has been actively involved with an extensive list of community organizations and her stellar service has resulted in many impressive awards including the Sierra Club's Resource Conservation Award, Marin Conservation League's Volunteer Award, and the City of Novato's Outstanding Leadership Award.

Ms. Stompe's passion and commitment to Novato and to the wider Marin community has been characterized by her enduring spirit of volunteerism. She has devoted her time to educational, environmental and civic organizations, providing leadership and passion to a wide array of public projects.

Ms. Stompe has been an exemplary citizen of Novato, striving to improve the city for all of its residents. Her inspiring commitment and dedication will have a lasting impact on her community for many years to come.

Please join me in expressing deep appreciation to Ms. Susan Stompe for her long and impressive record of service.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to recognize Ms. Barbara Heller on the occasion of her retirement from the San Rafael City Council. Ms. Heller's two decades of service on the San Rafael City Council have been marked by her dedication to improving the quality of life for those who live and work in the City of San Rafael.

Ms. Heller's commitment to San Rafael and the wider Marin community has been characterized by her leadership on a wide array of groups, as President of the Marin County Council of Mayors and Councilmembers, President of the Marin Transit Board of Directors, the San Rafael Planning Commission, the San Rafael Sanitation District, and many other committees.

Throughout her service, Barbara demonstrated a fundamental and deep understanding of the many ways in which the entire San Rafael community would benefit from vibrant, civic-minded economic development. She has set a prime example of caring, insightful, and pragmatic governance focused on the people whom she served.

Please join me in expressing deep appreciation to Ms. Barbara Heller for her long and impressive career, and her exceptional record of service.

Madam Speaker, improving the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks is one of the most important things that we can do to fight climate change.

Thanks to an executive order signed by President Obama, the Federal vehicle fleet is becoming more efficient. By 2020, it will reduce petroleum use by 30 percent, saving money and cleaning the air.

But the United States Postal Service, which owns and operates the world's largest civilian fleet, is exempt from this critical effort; and it is headed in the wrong direction on fossil fuel consumption as 141,000 of their vehicles, nearly three-quarters of their delivery fleet, are aging Grumman LLVs, the old mail truck that we see in our neighborhoods every day. Most get less than 10 miles to the gallon, and they are reaching the end of their operational life span. To save money and cut emissions, the postal service desperately needs a modern, efficient fleet.

That is why I am introducing the FLEET Act, the Federal Leadership in Energy Efficient Transportation, in order to close the fuel efficiency gap between the postal service and other modern, fuel-efficient fleets. A quarter of our Nation's greenhouse gas emissions are emitted from the transportation sector. It is time to take our worst fleet and make it into our best fleet.

Mr. Speaker, the weather outside is frightful; and if you listen to certain conservative media networks, you hear something not so delightful. You hear that, because it is snowing, there must not be climate change. This is unscientific, it is reductive; but that is what climate deniers say this time of year.

Well, Mr. Speaker, winter happens every year, and the fact that it is snowing simply means that it is snowing.

Instead of looking at December snowflakes, we should be looking at the science. Since 1970, not that long ago, winter temperatures have increased an average of .55 degrees per decade, reducing snowpacks and creating water shortages across the country.

If you want to look at something immediate, look at California, where we

are experiencing the driest year on record, and that is why we need to start getting serious about our response to climate change.

We need to adopt new policies and adapt to the changes that are happening. And one place to start is how we operate our reservoirs. Instead of relying on old-school water manuals that are decades out of date, we should be using modern science and modern weather forecasting.

Our water supply, our food supply and our future will be impacted by climate change, so let's lead.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 612 and No. 613: my flight from California was delayed and I arrived after votes. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes,'' on both.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Neal Sanders for his 33 years of faithful service on the Board of Directors of the Open Door Community Health Centers.

Originally from Covina, California, Neal Sanders has demonstrated a life-long commitment to community service, including a successful career as one of the most highly respected and desired criminal defense attorneys of Humboldt County. A graduate of California Western in San Diego, he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree followed by his Juris Doctorate at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. Neal Sanders is a member of the California State Bar, lifetime member of the Traynor Society, and recipient of the American Jurisprudence Award. His passion for helping others extends beyond his career to his roles as former chair and commissioner of the Human Rights Commission, former board member of the Humboldt Arts Council, former board member and chair of Redwood Legal Assistance, and current board member of the Open Door Community Health Centers.

When Neal Sanders joined the Open Door Board of Directors in 1980, he joined an organization committed to expanding access to quality health care on California's north coast, regardless of age, income, or ability to pay. Through 33 years of unprecedented growth, he has served in a variety of positions including chair of the board. Neal Sanders helped guide Open Door from a small storefront operation to being the largest primary care provider in Northern California. He was instrumental in securing the USDA loan that helped build the Humboldt Open Door Clinic in Arcata--the first fully functional health center in the Open Door system. Neal Sanders continues to share his time, talent and commitment as an active board member and leader in health care access for all residents of the north coast.

Mr. Speaker, Neal Ingall Sanders' dedication to serving his community, and specifically his decades of service to the Open Door Community Health Centers, is commendable and worthy of recognition. I urge my colleagues to join me in recognition of his many contributions to the people of Northern California.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the late Robert Morris, a respected outdoorsman, engineer, and passionate advocate for the protection of the Trinity Alps Wilderness.

Robert Morris was born in Weaverville, California, on January 4, 1935, a descendent of pioneer families who came to Trinity County during the state's Gold Rush. After graduating from high school in Weaverville, he attended Stanford University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in engineering. From there, Robert earned a master's degree in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He returned to Stanford for his Ph. D. and worked with laser science and technology pioneer Anthony Siegman on the development of masers and their relationship to quantum physics.

Robert Morris' heart was always in the mountains surrounding his hometown. On a pack trip in 1962, he met his wife-to-be, Susanne Twight, whom he married in 1963. The couple moved to Weaverville in 1964, and Robert worked as a manager for The Western Telephone Co. He became president of the company after then-president Gil Snyder died unexpectedly. He also volunteered with the Trinity County Historical Society and began restoring the old Lower Waldorff Ranch, where two children were raised.

When the Wilderness Bill passed Congress in 1964, Robert Morris saw an opportunity to re-designate the then-Salmon-Trinity Alps Primitive Area as a wilderness. For the next 20 years, Robert organized supporters to map and plan the boundaries of the Trinity Alps proposed wilderness and began lobbying Congress. In 1982, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Public Lands and National Parks held a public hearing in the Trinity High School gym, followed by a helicopter tour of the Trinity Alps for Members of Congress that he led. On September 28, 1984, Congress passed--and President Ronald Reagan signed--the bill to designate the Trinity Alps Wilderness. The importance of Morris' efforts to protect this incredible landscape cannot be overstated.

Mr. Speaker, Robert Morris was a pioneer in conservation whose education and passion has enriched the community where he was raised. I urge my colleagues to join me in recognition of his tremendous achievements and contributions to Northern California.

Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues want to go back to the old way of doing business on health insurance. We can't go back to the days when people with preexisting conditions were denied coverage and women were asked to pay more simply because they are women.

We know the ACA rollout has not been perfect. We knew all along a reform of this magnitude would require some adaptive management. It happened with Social Security and Medicare, but we worked together to improve those cornerstones of our social safety net, not tear them down.

So let's work to fix the problems of the ACA, but let's tell the whole story, including the good parts of this law. In California, we are on track to meet our enrollment goals--tens of thousands of people already enrolled. I am hearing countless good news stories about the ACA: a mom whose son was hospitalized with a brain tumor who would have hit a lifetime cap, but now they have coverage and they can focus on that child's recovery; a constituent in Trinity County who just emailed me--he and his wife are buying a car with the savings they are achieving thanks to the ACA. There are dozens and dozens more success stories because of this law.

I hope my Republican colleagues will join in fixing the problems with this law and give it a chance to work. There are too many good things happening because of health care reform to go back to the old way of doing business.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2655, the so- called ``Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act.''

This is a misleading title and a misleading bill. A plaintiff courageously seeking to stand up to civil rights violations, equal protections violations, or voting rights infringement IS NOT abusing anything: she's exercising her rights enshrined in the Constitution.

When I practiced law in California, I know that those I represented-- from victims of workplace discrimination to women athlete scholars looking for equal opportunities--would have been hurt by this bill, and their cases may never have been heard.

Ordering sanctions should be at the discretion of the judge, not Congress. This bill would reverse the good judgment and counsel of the Judicial Conference of the United States and the Supreme Court, both of which recommended the change twenty years ago.

Our Courts are a great equalizer; the courtroom is often the only place that a plaintiff can find a fair and equal footing with employers, corporations, and even their government.

This bill would have a chilling effect on the ability of Americans to find justice for civil rights violations, employment discrimination claims, privacy suits, equal protection violations, voting rights claims, consumer protection claims, and so much more.

The changes proposed in this bill would negatively impact cases where the bulk of the evidence rests with one party, disproportionately impacting plaintiffs in civil rights and consumer protection litigation.

This bill would also negatively impact civil cases that involve new legal theories, meaning that landmark cases in our nation's history may never have made it to the Supreme Court; cases like Brown v. Board of Education, Griswald v. Connecticut, Massachusetts v. EPA.

If my colleagues are serious about reforming the legal system, I would be very interested in working with them. There are abusive litigation tactics by both plaintiffs and defendants, and we could work in a responsible, bipartisan manner to address those. But this bill is not a serious attempt to level the playing field or to curb real abuses. Instead, it puts Congress' thumb on one side of the scale of justice.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to once again speak about the issue of climate change that is affecting every country, but as the World Bank has found, the impacts are not distributed equally. It is likely that the poorest nations on Earth will be the hardest hit.

The U.N. ranks the Philippines as the country that is third most vulnerable to the effects of climate change because of its geography, its poverty, and the state of its infrastructure.

As all of my colleagues know, one of the most powerful storms on record tore through Asia this past week--and the Philippines in particular. In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, many thousands are dead and hundreds of thousands more are homeless and desperate for help.

As we learn more about the devastation, I ask my colleagues to pay careful attention to the words of Yeb Sano, head of the Philippines delegation to the U.N. climate talks:

What my country is going through as a result of this

extreme climate event is madness . . . Typhoons such as

Haiyan and its impacts represent a sobering reminder to the

international community that we cannot afford to

procrastinate on climate action.

He is right.

The Philippines tragedy is the latest wake-up call on climate change. So let's wake up.