Floor Statements

Thank you very much to my colleague from Florida. I appreciate you identifying this very important issue, the attempt of the Chinese Communist Party to gain influence at American universities in very concerning ways because it so clearly highlights the mentality and strategy of the CCP, that they understand where the battle lines are being drawn in the 21st century.

The truly concerning thing is that increasingly, China is beating the United States at its own game, outpacing us and the rest of the world in key areas of technological advancements.

Through their actions, the CCP has shown an understanding that the 21st century will belong to the most innovative Nation, the one that is able to harness the whole power of new technologies.

China has known for decades that Nation was unquestionably the United States. But what we have seen over the last 2 decades is that China has dramatically ramped up its own investment in research and development, cutting into America's traditional dominance.

From 2000 to 2019, China's share of global R&D quadrupled to nearly a quarter, while our share slid from 37 percent to just 27 percent.

China has increased its R&D spending by nearly 16 times over the same period and plans to compound its R&D investments by an additional 7 percent annually.

By contrast, Federal R&D investment in the United States has never surpassed .8 percent of GDP over the last decade.

Of course, spending isn't the only metric that matters. The United States is also increasingly losing the talent battle, and the trend lines are getting worse.

China has consistently graduated more STEM Ph.D.s than the United States, and of course, many are getting educated right here in the United States.

Looking at the publication of peer-reviewed articles and journals, Chinese scholars surpassed the United States in the last decade.

In 2020, China published 38 percent more peer-reviewed articles than the United States and is on track to extend this gap even further over the next 5 years.

This all puts into perspective the pervasive attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to gain leverage over American universities.

Even though colleges and universities are required to report foreign gifts and contracts under section 117 of the Higher Education Act, over $6.5 billion in unreported Federal money received by colleges has already been uncovered.

The Biden administration has done little to enforce this reporting requirement or open new investigations into how China is influencing our higher education system even though China wields the spending to co-opt innovative research. China has signaled that intellectual property is absolutely key to its long-term goals.

For years, the CCP sought to acquire IP through outright theft from U.S. companies or by gaining influence in our universities.

But what we also have to acknowledge in this discussion is that their strategy has gotten much more sophisticated.

In addition to outright theft, China has signaled its plans to, in fact, elevate the status of the China National Intellectual Property Administration to make it a top-level independent agency.

While President Biden didn't mention IP at all in his most recent state of the Union address, Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks about IP frequently.

``We will increase investment in science and technology through diverse channels and strengthen legal protection of intellectual property rights . . .'', he said in his speech at the opening of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last year.

So clearly, the United States is at risk of forfeiting our technological edge at a time when it is more important than ever to protect our national interests.

To outcompete China, we need to out-innovate China, and that requires policymakers to act with urgency, not only to protect our companies and universities from Chinese influence but also to change the policy environment in ways that promote and protect American innovation.

Unfortunately, recent policy changes have done just the opposite. For example, FTC Chair Lina Khan has proposed sweeping new rules to unilaterally ban employers from using noncompete agreements, something California, by the way, has already done.

This will hamstring employers in the most competitive, trade-secret- rich sectors: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and provision manufacturing, and render the United States less competitive than China.

Meanwhile, administrative processes at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are creating headaches and worse for innovators seeking to defend their patents.

A quasi-judicial administrative body within the USPTO, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board or PTAB, has become the favorite forum for companies to challenge the validity of patents they are accused of infringing.

This works to the disadvantage of innovators and small businesses who must defend their IP in court and the PTAB simultaneously, reducing the incentive to invent in the first place.

But here is the good news. The United States has a proven track record of beating authoritarian governments in strategic technological competitions. We didn't beat the Soviet Union to the Moon by chance. It required a generational investment in cutting-edge research and development, which was enabled by American citizens solving the toughest technological problems of their day.

We have that same capacity in the challenges we now face in the 21st century, but that requires a change in how

we approach intellectual property and innovation in this country.

I think that the issue that is being highlighted today, the outright attempts by the CCP to go to our centers of research, of higher learning, our centers of intellectual life in this country shows that they understand the stakes and it is time that we here in Congress and throughout our government understand that as well.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my fellow subcommittee chair for bringing this issue to our attention.

Madam Speaker, currently, California businesses are facing a significant tax increase, thanks in part to a high-ranking State official who allowed the tax dollars they had already paid to be stolen. It is an incompetence tax, a price private citizens are being forced to pay for their government's failures.

I would like to take a moment to explain how this happened, but I will lead with the punch line: The State official who squandered these funds, allowing a fraud of historic proportions, is somehow now up for a major promotion.

President Biden has nominated Julie Su, former head of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, to be the next U.S. Secretary of Labor.

The predicament that small businesses in California now find themselves in--facing double taxation to compensate for the government's singular negligence--is another example of why this nomination is so ill-considered. It is a warning as to what all Americans have in store if Julie Su is confirmed.

Stepping back, the California Unemployment Insurance Fund is the source for paying out unemployment insurance claims honored by California's unemployment office, known as the EDD.

The fund is ordinarily maintained through a tax levied on California businesses. New employers are assigned a 3.4 percent UI rate for 2 to 3 years. After that, a business' contribution tax varies. It is somewhere between 1.5 and 6.2 percent for the current year.

In times of economic duress, when the fund is paying out significantly more than is coming in, the Federal Government has the option of loaning money to States, including California, to cover the payment deficit.

California had to take out such a loan during the COVID business shutdowns and took on by far the most debt of any State. The current debt amounts to $18.8 billion. This was because of the huge volume of claims, yes, but also because of a staggering amount of fraud.

A coalition letter from dozens of Chambers of Commerce in California notes:

The Employment Development Department proved ill-equipped

for the rapid increase in claimants. After numerous oversight

hearings and analyses of EDD's failings, it is clear that

EDD's failings added further to the UI fund's insolvency in

two ways: by failing to prevent fraud and, instead,

distributing funds to fraudulent claimants; and by mistakenly

distributing overpayments to legitimate claimants. Although

EDD and local law enforcement have attempted to recover some

of these mistaken distributions, recovery rates appear to be

less than 10 percent of the mistaken distributions. In other

words, these mistakes at EDD added to the UI fund deficit.

The total scale of EDD fraud in California is estimated at $32.6 billion. This unprecedented loss was almost entirely preventable if Julie Su had taken basic fraud prevention measures.

A January 2021 report from the California State auditor notes that the EDD fraud occurred for three main reasons:

First, EDD waited about 4 months to automate a key antifraud measure.

Second, EDD allowed claimants to collect benefits even though they were using suspicious addresses. In one case, over 1,700 claims came from a single address.

Third, EDD removed a key safeguard against improper payments without fully understanding the significance of the safeguard.

Further, the State auditor reports that: ``Despite repeated warnings, EDD did not bolster its fraud detection efforts until months into the pandemic.''

``And it does not reliably track suspicious claims and resolution to determine the effectiveness of its fraud prevention tools.''

By the way, if you are wondering where all this money, $32.6 billion went, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions has this to say: ``Seventy percent of that money left California. It left this country. It went to transnational criminal groups that have used that money for nefarious purposes to harm our democracy. Some of that money has been used in sex trafficking, child extortion.''

At this point, California is one of only four States in the country that hasn't repaid its debt to the Federal Government. Now, taxpaying businesses are on the hook. In the case of fund insolvency for 2 consecutive years--as is the case with California--Federal law mandates an automatic increase in payroll taxes that amounts to $21 per employee. The tax continues to ratchet up by $21 per employee each year the fund remains insolvent, with a maximum tax increase of $434 per employee per year.

Now, one might ask, why did California not repay its debt to the Federal Government last year when it had a $97.5 billion surplus?

There is no good answer to that question.

I have actually joined with Representative Obernolte to call on California's Governor and legislature to repay the loan so the burden doesn't fall on employers, and I am calling on the United States Senate to consider this a case study in what we don't want for our country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act, which does something a little unusual for a piece of legislation. It actually does what it says it is going to do, the Lower Energy Costs Act.

It is going to lower costs for Americans and, in particular, my State of California, where we pay the highest energy costs in the country. It will do that by lowering utility bills, by reducing gas prices, and by reducing the cost of everyday goods by reducing the cost of transport.

It will do this by making our country more energy independent, enhancing our capacity for domestic energy production.

There are a number of other benefits to this, by the way. It will create jobs here in the United States. It will enhance our national security. It is much better for the environment than energy produced elsewhere.

It is the affordability facet that I really want to focus on because my top priority as a member of this new House majority is focusing like a laser on reducing the cost of living for Americans who have been crushed under the weight of runaway inflation.

As background, the first thing that we did in this new Congress was we voted to repeal the 87,000 IRS agents who were hired by the last Congress. This is going to spare countless Americans, middle-class Americans, from highly intrusive audits.

The next month, in February, I managed to secure an opinion from the IRS. This was specific to California taxpayers. This reversed guidance given by the California tax authority saying that you needed to pay taxes on those tax refunds that you got in the mail last year or early this year.

We managed to secure an opinion from the IRS saying you don't have to pay taxes on that, saving Californians several hundred dollars with that step alone.

It is H.R. 1, this bill, the Lower Energy Costs Act, that is the most important step yet to lower the cost of living for people in California and across the country. Here is exactly how the bill did this.

Number one, it is going to reduce your utility bills by repealing $6.4 billion in taxes on natural gas. This was part of the Biden administration's energy program last year, which, of course, caused gas prices to go over $7 a gallon in many places. Also part of that was a major tax that was placed on natural gas.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found that this tax is ultimately paid for by Americans through higher home heating costs and utility bills.

H.R. 1 repeals this tax, and consumers will pocket those savings through lower utility bills.

The second effect of this legislation will be to reduce gas prices, and that is primarily done through reforming our broken permitting process. Now, this might sound like sort of an arcane issue, but it is fundamental to the high, out-of-control cost of gas that we have been dealing with in this country, where we have a broken permitting process that blocks projects for months, for years, often indefinitely, through never-ending Federal reviews, not to mention frivolous litigation.

This bill will streamline the permitting and review process by capping reviews at 1 year for environmental assessments and 2 years for environmental impact statements, more than enough time. There is also going to be a 120-day deadline implemented on filing a lawsuit on final agency actions concerning energy projects.

The bill also requires the Department of the Interior to resume quarterly sales of onshore oil and gas leases, among many other steps, which will unleash the American energy sector, create middle-class jobs, and increase the supply of gas available to reduce prices at the pump.

Finally, it is worth mentioning the other overall effect of this bill, which is to reduce the cost of everyday goods and services. By reducing the cost of gasoline, every good transported to a store, whether it is groceries, furniture, or any other everyday necessities are going to be cheaper to transport, and those savings as well will be passed on to consumers.

I am proud to stand with my colleagues in the new majority in supporting this legislation, in fighting to reduce inflation, and to making the American Dream accessible to more people.

Madam Chair, as we speak, a half million California students are locked out of school. Los Angeles Unified, America's second largest district, has shut down for the week. Taxpaying parents in this district have no place to send their kids to school.

Sadly, they have had to get used to it. This dysfunctional district and its union have lurched from one strike, one shutdown to the next, and seized on COVID-19 as a golden opportunity to close schools indefinitely. Kids in LA were without in-person instruction longer than anywhere in the country, a year and a half for most students.

Even when some high schools resumed, students walked into a Kafkaesque Zoom in the room setup where there were a few students and a teacher there instructing from a laptop sitting on a desk in the classroom. The eventual resumption of classes was anything but normal. You had kids who were forced to eat lunch on gymnasium floors or outside, even when it was raining. They would have to wear masks all day every day without any public health rationale. The district then imposed an illegal student vaccine mandate that the California courts had to intervene and strike down.

By the way, this was a failing school district even before COVID--on the brink of bankruptcy, with students testing several years behind grade level.

The hundreds of thousands of parents in this school district have been subjected to one abuse after another. Their experience is shared by many parents across the country who have lost the right to control their child's education at the hands of a corrupt education establishment driven less by student success than by special interests and social agendas.

Today's Parents Bill of Rights Act is a desperately needed course correction, shifting the paradigm of public education in this country back toward one that is student-centered and parent-directed.

My addition to this legislation is the school choice amendment.

The only parents in Los Angeles whose kids are not at home right now are those who have the resources for private school or the time and wherewithal to seek out a charter school or limited interdistrict transfer options.

My amendments will enable more parents to do the same, providing a clear path to find a school that better serves their child.

This will not only increase the educational outcomes of particular students but induce the sort of systemic change that we need to benefit all students.

Madam Speaker, we have had a series of very heavy storms in California. We have gotten a lot of water, and I wanted to take a moment to talk about what is happening to that water.

This is a photo I took a few days ago at the Folsom Dam; 20,000 cubic feet is being released per second where it is sent on its way to the Pacific Ocean. That staggering amount of water is not available to California farmers, businesses, or residents.

Meanwhile, State-sponsored billboards tell people to put a bucket in their shower so they can save that water for gardening. Restaurants are prohibited from serving their customers drinking water unless the customer specifically asks for it.

Here are some of the other emergency drought restrictions that have been in effect: Turn off decorative water fountains. Use an automatic shutoff nozzle on your water hose. Use a broom, not water to clean sidewalks and driveways. Commercial, industrial, and institutional decorative grass should not be watered; same for the common areas in homeowner associations.

Down here you can see all the enforcement, all the penalties if you don't follow this. It says here, for local jurisdictions, for urban water suppliers, if needed, exercise authority to adopt more stringent local conservation measures. Some local authorities have done just that.

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District began sending government employees into residents' homes to install flow restrictors. Once installed, you are also barred from watering anything outside, and you are not able to use two appliances needing water at once.

One resident said: ``You have to take what's called a Navy shower . . . 2 minutes. . . .''

In Los Angeles, they have the water police, where municipalities pay individuals to drive around and check for leaky swimming pools, green lawns, or other signs of water use.

This is just the beginning. In 2018, the California Legislature adopted a statewide limit of 55 gallons of indoor water use per person per day; so a single person living alone can't take a shower and do a load of laundry in the same day. Yet, last year, the legislature decided even this was too generous and reduced the allotted water to 42 gallons per day.

Then, of course, there is the impact on farmers. For both 2021 and 2022, surface water deliveries dropped by 43 percent. An estimated 752,000 acres lay idle in 2022.

The general manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District said: ``We typically plant 100,000 acres of rice in our district. And this last year we planted 1,000 acres. It is just a massive, massive impact,'' he said.

As a result, $1.7 billion in crop revenues were lost in 2022, and an estimated 19,400 jobs.

These drastic sacrifices have been required of Californians because of a supposed lack of water. We prayed for rain, and then the rain comes, and this happens.

Here is the overall impact of this image and others like it throughout the State. So far this year, October through mid-March, the net outflow, this is after pumping, from the delta into the San Francisco Bay is 11.6 million acre-feet.

Meanwhile, the State has only pumped 1.0 million acre-feet into the California Aqueduct, and the Federal Bureau of Reclamation has only pumped 826,000 acre-feet into the Delta Mendota Canal.

With this record precipitation, that means 13 percent of delta outflows have been captured. The rest is squandered.

If we were able to capture this water, we wouldn't have to worry about floods, and we wouldn't have to worry about droughts. Communities wouldn't be put at risk. Farmers wouldn't have to fallow their fields. Citizens wouldn't have to take shorter showers.

The reason we aren't capturing it isn't because this water is somehow inherently elusive. It is because there is simply no place to put it.

California has not seen a new water storage project in at least 30 years, despite many promising potential projects that have been in the planning stages since the 1950s.

In 2014, California voters said enough is enough and passed a $7.5 billion water bond. Build water storage, the voters said. Yet, nothing has been built. In the 9 years since, no significant project has materialized. Endless litigation, mind-numbing bureaucracy and, most of all, a lack of political will have been a recipe for inaction.

The executive director of the most significant project, Sites Reservoir, said: My experience is that for every 1 year of construction, you have about 3 years of permitting.

It doesn't need to be this way. The massive Folsom Dam, of which this is the auxiliary spillway, holds about a million acre-feet of water and took less than a decade in the late 1940s and early 1950s to build.

In addition to failing to build any new in-stream or off-stream reservoirs, California has also rejected all but one proposed desalination plant, and is taking advantage of a small fraction of the potential for water treatment.

Even now, amidst the current record precipitation, our State and Federal pumps still aren't operating at full capacity.

In short, this uniquely Californian absurdity of alternating or even simultaneous floods and droughts is not some inevitable by-product of our climate or geography. It is the direct product of political failure. We have more than enough tools at our disposal to have a sustainable, secure supply of water for all users.

This image needs to be a wake-up call for California's leaders at the State and Federal level. No more excuses. Let's solve this problem now. Let's end this era of floods and droughts, of shorter showers, and fallow fields. Let's liberate our constituents from this regime of enforced scarcity and give Californians the abundant supply of water they deserve.

This is California's problem, but it affects the entire country. California agriculture feeds the Nation and the world, and we could never have become the State that we are, or at least once were, a State that used to lead the country in so many good ways, without the dams, aqueducts, pipes, tunnels, canals, plants, pumping stations built by previous generations.

We need to summon the can-do spirit of our forebearers, and we don't even need their ingenuity. We just need basic competence.

Effective water management was indispensable to California's 20th century rise and is just as indispensable to reversing its 21st century decline.

Recent Court Decisions

Madam Speaker, this last week, two court decisions in California delivered a near-fatal blow to one of the worst laws that has ever been passed, the California law known as AB 5, that destroyed the livelihoods of countless people, wiping out hundreds of professions in our State.

These court decisions have significant ramifications for three matters of national importance: First, the recently re-introduced PRO Act, which seeks to nationalize California's ban on independent work; second, a proposed Department of Labor rule that seeks to do much the same thing through the bureaucracy; and third, the upcoming confirmation hearings for President Biden's nominee for Secretary of Labor, Julie Su, who, as California's Labor Secretary, was an architect and lead enforcer of AB 5.

The PRO Act, the Labor rule, Julie Su: It is a multi-pronged assault on the right to earn a living in America, a concerted strategy to limit or eliminate the gig economy, freelancing, independent contracting, self-employment, and other alternate work arrangements that entire careers are based on and entire industries have been built around.

If this strategy is successful, it will be devastating for the American economy and American workers. We know that because of the devastation California has already experienced.

When he signed AB 5 in late 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom rendered countless Californians, spanning hundreds of professions, unable to earn a living in our State. Videographers and caricaturists, transcriptionists and interpreters, technicians and engineers, analysts and consultants, musicians and conductors, artists and dancers, writers and editors, coaches and trainers, teachers and tutors, nurses and doulas, hardly an industry or profession is unscathed.

The consequences go well beyond just the affected professions. To take one example, thousands and thousands of truckers are at risk of being taken off the road, throwing supply chains into chaos.

AB 5 is a law so bad that California voters have repudiated it, and the legislature has granted over 100 exemptions to professions with enough influence at the Capitol.

These two developments, the clearly expressed will of California voters, and the scattershot exemption process, were the subjects of last week's court decisions.

In the first decision, the California Court of Appeal unanimously upheld Proposition 22, an initiative passed by California voters in 2020. Prop 22 repealed AB 5 for one category of independent contractors, app-based drivers.

Uber, to take one example, was going to have to terminate up to 80 percent of its drivers because of AB 5, and nearly had to stop operating in our State altogether. Their drivers, who prize the flexibility of being able to switch on the app whenever they want to work, were appalled at the prospect of being assigned to fixed shifts, minimum work hour requirements, and more, if they were able to drive at all.

So Prop 22 was proposed to preserve the independent contracting model for these drivers and enable services like Uber and Lyft to continue in California.

In November of 2020, Prop 22 passed overwhelmingly with 59 percent of the vote. This is the one time that AB 5 has been subject to a direct vote of the people, and California voters decisively rejected it.

Yet, tellingly, the special interest groups behind AB 5 then tried to defy the will of voters, tying up the initiative in arcane legal challenges; but last Tuesday, a State Appellate Court put an end to this anti-democratic nonsense. The Court respected the will of voters and upheld the initiative.

The Justices acknowledged the people of California had chosen to overturn AB 5 and protect independent contracting. So, for the dozens of Democrat Members of Congress sponsoring the PRO Act, take notice: your position is at odds with the voters of even my own very blue State.

There was a second decision on AB 5 last week of perhaps even greater significance. This one, also a unanimous ruling, was from a Federal Appeals Court. Overruling a district court decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held in favor of independent contractors who alleged AB 5 violates the United States Constitution.

Specifically, it is an Equal Protection violation. By granting over 100 exemptions to AB 5, the Court wrote, the legislature has not only refuted its own justification for the law, but it has picked and chosen who is allowed to work and who isn't, without any rational basis.

Indeed, the court referred to the ``. . . piecemeal fashion in which the exemptions were granted,'' saying this ``lends credence to Plaintiffs' allegations that the exemptions were the result of the `lobbying' and `backroom dealing' as opposed to adherence to the stated purpose of the legislation.''

The court wrote that who is subject to the law, and who isn't, could plausibly be ``attributed to animus rather than reason,'' and that the State's policy of now enforcing AB 5 on some but not others, borders on corruption, pure spite, or naked favoritism.

For this reason, the court found that the constitutional case against AB 5 passes the rational-basis test, which is notoriously difficult to pass. Under that standard, a court will only strike down a law if there is not ``any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for'' it.

In this case, the court explained that ``even under this `fairly forgiving' standard of review, we conclude that . . . Plaintiffs plausibly alleged that AB 5 . . . violates the Equal Protection Clause.''

Why in the world would a law that, per the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, lacks any rational basis be transformed into national policy, ensnaring millions of Americans in its web of corruption, animus, and economic failure?

Why would we take a law so bad that legislatures felt the need to unconstitutionally award 100 exemptions to their friends and say this is our model for the American workforce?

There is no good reason at all, no good reason why a law that the voters of deep-blue California rejected should be the template for national labor relations, as the PRO Act seeks to do.

There is no reason why a law that cannot be justified by any reasonably conceivable state of facts should be imposed by executive fiat nationwide, as the Biden administration's labor rule would do.

There is no reason why an architect and ruthless enforcer of that law, former California Labor Secretary Julie Su, should be elevated to the highest labor office in the land.

Julie Su's historic failure to deliver unemployment checks to millions of Californians, along with her allowance of the largest fraud of taxpayer dollars in history, are easily disqualifying from the standpoint of competence, but it is her mistreatment of California workers through the ruthless enforcement of AB 5 even during the COVID shutdowns that truly makes her unfit for this position.

The voters of California repudiated Julie Su with the passage of Prop. 22. Two separate appeals courts repudiated Su with last week's decisions.

It is time for President Biden to withdraw this nomination. If he refuses, I urge the United States Senate to join California voters, California judges, and Federal judges in rejecting this nominee.

Honoring the Life and Memory of Rex Hime

Madam Speaker, in recent weeks, my district has lost several of its most distinguished citizens. I want to share a few words about their lives and the legacy they have left in our communities.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment to honor the life and memory of Rex Hime, a committed public servant, veteran, native Californian, and friend to many.

Rex's life was guided by a commitment to serving others and a work hard, play hard attitude that endeared him to people across California. In fact, Rex's habit of regularly walking the halls of the California State Capitol in Sacramento and testifying in a Hawaiian shirt rather than the customary suit and tie was by some accounts singlehandedly responsible for relaxing the dress code at the capitol building, which is appreciated by many.

Rarely would Rex let a meeting or conference call end without making everyone laugh and lightening the mood of the conversation. Rex also spread joy to others through serving as the chair, vice chair, and board member of the Cal Expo & State Fair for over 20 years. His passion for bringing joy to others through the fair was widely recognized, as five different Governors from both political parties continued to appoint Rex to the California State Fair Board.

Rex's service to his community and country extended far beyond the fair. He served in both the Army Reserve and California National Guard, retiring as a major in 1990. Rex was also a member of the California Task Force on Violence Prevention, a regent of the University of California, and president of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association.

Apart from his community work, Rex worked as president and CEO of the California Business Properties Association for 37 years and was often instrumental in protecting taxpayers and helping craft legislation that served as models for States across the country.

I am honored to have known Rex. He was a devoted husband and father, and our community and California will never forget the impact that Rex Hime had and continues to have on our lives through his service and advocacy work throughout his 75 years.

Honoring the Memory of Martin Harmon

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the memory of Martin Harmon, a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and beloved member of the Roseville community who passed away in February at the age of 88.

Martin lifted the lives of thousands of members of the community through his charitable foundation, which supported hospitals, churches, cancer research, substance abuse recovery programs, the arts, disaster relief efforts, and children's programs throughout the Sacramento area.

He impressed upon his family the importance of making a positive difference and is survived by his cherished wife, Kathryn Harmon; 9 children; 33 grandchildren; and 29 great-grandchildren.

Martin also embodied the American entrepreneurial spirit. He started his career at age 9 by selling cookware door to door during World War II and later parlayed his experience working behind a butcher's counter into opening his own market and meat-packing company as a teenager.

At the age of 27, Martin purchased his first nursing home in Auburn, which presaged his future as a developer and contractor. Martin's wide- ranging developments, from medical office buildings and shopping centers to subdivisions and apartments, leave behind a profound legacy for his children and grandchildren.

I was honored to know Martin, and our community will never forget the impact that Martin Harmon has had and will continue to have on our lives for many years to come.

Honoring the Life and Memory of Paul Dugan

Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment to honor the life and memory of Dr. Paul Dugan, a committed physician and pillar of the Roseville community who sadly passed away in February at the age of 92.

Dr. Dugan served countless members of the Roseville community and Sacramento area through his work as a physician. His passion for caring for others through medicine, sparked by an early affliction of polio, is abundantly clear through his life's work. Ever since moving to Roseville in 1963, Dr. Dugan regularly spent weekends doing house calls, serving uninsured patients and friends of patients, and tirelessly advocating for public health awareness.

Paul and his wife, Olga, even started the first-ever mass CPR training program, Start-A-Heart, in 1978. The program ran continuously for 19 years and was later replicated as CPR Saturday across the country and internationally by the American Red Cross. Dr. Dugan doubtlessly saved countless lives through his leadership in organizing and executing the Start-A-Heart program and his service as a physician.

Dr. Dugan's passion for serving others extended beyond medicine and beyond Roseville. Dr. Dugan served on the Roseville Planning Commission, helping shape Roseville into the city it is today. He served as president of the Roseville Chamber of Commerce and was recognized by community members as Roseville's Citizen of the Year in 1978 and 1992. Dr. Dugan was also selected to serve on the California Board of Medical Examiners by both Governor Ronald Reagan and Governor Jerry Brown, and he assisted in credentialing the UC Davis School of Medicine.

I was honored to know Paul, and our community will never forget Dr. Paul Dugan and the tremendous impact he has had on his patients and residents of Roseville through his service as a physician and leader in the community.

Honoring the Memory of Greg Van Dusen

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the memory of Greg Van Dusen, a pillar of the Sacramento-area community.

Greg was born in Sacramento in 1950 and, from an early age, had a passion for serving others and for sports. Greg's service and leadership were recognized by his peers after he served as student body president in 1968, and he later served a 12-month combat tour in Vietnam.

After returning from Vietnam, Greg combined his passion for service and sports by working tirelessly to facilitate the move of the Sacramento Kings from Kansas City to Sacramento in 1985. As a result of Greg's efforts, generations of Sacramento-area residents have become diehard Kings fans, although, admittedly, it has been pretty tough in many recent years. The team's somewhat unexpected success this season, I think, is a tremendous tribute to Greg.

Greg was also a devoted father and grandfather, helping shape his three sons into the men they are today. He always looked forward to visits from his grandkids, attending their sporting events and teaching them life lessons. His son Brett remembers him as ``a brilliant mind; a hardworking, compassionate father and grandfather; and always willing to help anyone who asked.''

I was truly honored to know Greg. He was a good friend. Our community will never forget the impact that Greg Van Dusen has had and will continue to have on our lives through his passion for serving others.

Honoring the Life and Memory of Allan Zaremberg

Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment to honor the life and memory of Allan Zaremberg, a beloved member of the Sacramento- area community and a kindhearted public servant.

Allan's impact has been felt over 40 years at the California State Capitol, including for 23 years as president of the California Chamber of Commerce.

Allan held a deep commitment to forging constructive compromise with anyone willing to help deliver results for the people of California, listening respectfully and kindly to everyone's opinions and building trust through honest dealmaking, the very embodiment of how politics ought to be practiced.

His work, among many other results, helped ensure that significant investments were made in infrastructure and in caring for Californians' mental health. Allan also served several California Governors in a variety of roles, including Governor George Deukmejian and Governor Pete Wilson.

Allan also served our country as an Air Force officer during Vietnam. During the war, he was a captain and flight navigator in the KC-135, responsible for refueling spy planes. His time in the Air Force informed his approach throughout his life's work, from calmly managing a crisis to learning how to get the job done, no matter the obstacles at hand.

Apart from his service, Allan is also remembered as a kind individual, often making pizzas from scratch for friends at his home in Loomis.

I was truly honored to know Allan and to work with him. People throughout California will never forget the impact that he had and will continue to have for many, many years to come.

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

Mr. Speaker, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh has announced his intention to leave the Biden administration, and reports suggest Deputy Secretary Julie Su is the leading candidate to replace him. As chair of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I am urging President Biden, in the strongest terms, not to appoint Julie Su to this important cabinet post.

Prior to joining the Biden Labor Department, Su was California's Secretary of Labor under Governor Gavin Newsom. To say she failed the people of California in that role would be an extreme understatement. I was serving in the State assembly during her tenure. I witnessed firsthand failures on a scale that no State in this country has ever experienced.

I have already sent a coalition letter from Members of the California Congressional delegation to President Biden urging him to nominate someone, anyone, other than Su. Today, I will expand on the points we raised in that letter.

The amount of suffering Su's labor department inflicted on my constituents and millions of Californians needs to be understood by the President and by every Senator who would be voting on her nomination.

Specifically, I will be discussing three main failures in her tenure in California, each of which is independently disqualifying.

First, under her supervision, California's unemployment office, known as the EDD, failed to deliver benefits to millions of Californians.

Second, at the same time, thanks to Su's gross negligence, the EDD allowed the largest fraud of taxpayer dollars in history.

Third, Su helped destroy the careers of thousands of California freelancers as an architect of a labor law that effectively bans independent work.

Let's start first by looking at the EDD's staggering failures under Su's watch to perform its basic function of delivering benefits to the unemployed.

California had the highest or second-highest unemployment rate in the entire country through most of the COVID-19 era. This in itself could be seen as a significant failing of the State's secretary of labor. What was even worse is that those people who lost their paychecks on the government's orders, millions of Californians, had to wait weeks, months, or in some cases indefinitely for the unemployment benefits they were entitled to by law.

Now, in fairness, the COVID shutdown presented unemployment departments with unprecedented demands, and a number of States struggled to keep up. What happened in California under Su's management is simply without comparison.

An estimated 5 million claims were delayed, many for months on end. An estimated 1 million people were wrongfully denied benefits. As a result, many of my constituents were left helpless with no income, no ability to provide for their families. Many became dependent on food banks and had to cut back on basic necessities. They had to dip into their lifesavings or take on debt.

For example, in late April 2020, my office received a call from a woman named Emily, who was inconsolable, saying she was on the brink of giving up hope. She was out of work and her EDD claim had been pending for a month. She had no money, no way to pay her bills or put food on the table. I just can't do this anymore, she said, adding that she couldn't hang on the Governor's promises anymore. We later learned the agency had made a basic processing error, denying her claim and not even telling her.

I could provide hundreds of other stories just like this. At times, during 2020, my office would open dozens of new cases every day from constituents who could not get their benefits. We heard from folks who would call the EDD hundreds of times with no answer, who received notices with someone else's Social Security number, someone else's employer, someone else's earnings, who would wait weeks, months, or forever for their benefits.

The level of service was worse than anything I had ever seen in government, eclipsing the very worst horror stories of bureaucratic ineptitude. By one estimate, only one in a thousand people would reach a live person when they tried to call the EDD.

Sometimes, after finally getting through, the caller would be abruptly hung up on. The callback option routinely failed with people requesting a call back and then not getting one.

Often, no reason was given for benefit denials, and when one was given, it often didn't make sense. One claimant had an electronic application denied as illegible--an electronic application.

San Francisco Assemblyman David Chiu, a Democrat, started a hashtag featuring the worst of these incidents. He called it #EDDfailoftheday.

Months went by with no progress made. You don't need to take my word for it. In July 2020, 61 of the 80 members of the California Assembly, mostly Democrats, wrote as follows:

``In our fifth month of the pandemic, with so many constituents yet to receive a single unemployment payment, it is clear that EDD is failing California. Millions of our constituents have had no income for months. As Californians wait for answers from EDD, they have depleted their lifesavings, have gone into extreme debt, and are in deep panic as they figure out how to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.''

The lawmakers went on to explain how the EDD, time and again, failed to take responsibility and failed to correct its mistakes. They wrote that they had been met with longwinded excuses, fumbling non-answers, or unclear and inconsistent data, along with a ``lack of transparency and accountability,'' even ``obfuscation and dishonesty'' in their dealings with the agency.

We have exhausted all avenues at our disposal, they said, as the agency had addressed only a few of the many issues we have highlighted for months and was only scratching the surface of the disaster that is the EDD.

Those are the words of the Democrat supermajority in the legislature: the disaster that is the EDD. The legislators lamented ``how little has improved at EDD over the course of the pandemic.''

Independent reports would soon confirm the extent of the agency's mismanagement and deception. While the EDD had said in July 2020 that its claims backlog would be cleared by September, a report found 1.5 million claims remained unresolved and the backlog was increasing by 10,000 each week.

The independent Legislative Analyst's Office found the EDD mischaracterized the crisis repeatedly to the legislature. For instance, the EDD claimed that 705,000 claims were denied when the real number was 3.4 million.

Under Julie Su, California's unemployment office became the national poster child for government failure. Su failed to prevent avoidable problems, failed to address the crisis as it spiraled out of control, and failed to honestly acknowledge problems after the fact.

Millions of Californians paid the price. It bears emphasizing that these were people who had lost their jobs on the government's orders and had been paying into the very system that was now failing them.

Even allies of the Governor and Secretary Su concluded that she was responsible. Democrat Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, who is chairwoman of the Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee, said that Su has not done a

good job at running the Employment Development Department, saying that Su's mismanagement caused heartache for millions of Californians.

That is the first reason, that heartbreak for millions, why President Biden should not even consider elevating Deputy Secretary Su. The second independent basis for disqualification is the historic fraud of taxpayer dollars that occurred on her watch.

As so many hardworking citizens waited in vain for the checks that they were owed by the EDD, there was one group of claimants for whom the delivery of benefits was swift and seamless: prisoners and fraudsters who were not entitled to them.

In the largest fraud of taxpayer dollars in history, an estimated $32 billion was wrongfully paid out from the EDD to State prison inmates and international crime syndicates. Payments were made to murderers, rapists, and child molesters, and 133 death row inmates collected over $400,000. These hardened criminals didn't have to try hard. They used names like Dianne Feinstein and John Doe without raising an eyebrow. The district attorney of Sacramento County called the scheme ``relatively easy.''

The scale of this fraud boggles the mind. It equates to over $800 per person in California. The amount of money wasted was enough to pay the annual salary of 330,000 teachers in California. You could end world hunger with this kind of money.

Where did the money go? It went to the worst of the worst, funding organized crime both domestically and internationally. This $32 billion was used not to help citizens who had lost their jobs or to pay teachers or to end hunger but to fund further criminal activities.

It was easily preventable. Nothing even close to this happened in any other State. The reason it happened in California was Secretary Julie Su. She made the inexplicable decision to forgo a basic fraud prevention system. She ignored the Federal Government's guidance that claims be crosschecked against the prison rolls, which was standard practice in other States. The agency sent hundreds of benefit cards to the same address, sent cards directly to correctional facilities, and issued benefits to infants and centenarians.

The district attorney of Sacramento County called the EDD's response to the fraud ``slow and nonexistent'' and advised to look to other States for solutions.

Fresno County's district attorney said the administration did nothing until the elected district attorneys brought it to the media, adding that she did not think the State ``has a handle on it.'' Riverside County's district attorney said: ``I don't know who was at the wheel.''

The chairwoman of the State Assembly committee responsible for overseeing the EDD, a Democrat, decried the failure to follow ``simple and obvious steps that are implemented across the country.'' She added: ``It is absurd. This is outrageous.''

Perhaps most outrageous of all, as the district attorneys who uncovered the fraud put it: ``Fraudulent unemployment claims deny those who have lost their employment, many due to COVID-19, who are legally eligible for benefits and are truly in need from getting the financial assistance they need.''

Assemblyman David Chiu, a Democrat from San Francisco, summed it up this way: ``It is egregious that my constituents make a single typo that holds up their EDD benefits for months while an inmate on death row can use a fake name and still get benefits paid out.''

As if these first two reasons were not enough--the heartbreak for millions and the waste of billions--Deputy Secretary Su should not be elevated to the Biden cabinet for a third independent reason. As California's secretary of labor, she championed and ruthlessly enforced a labor law that has been called one of the most destructive pieces of legislation in the past 20 years.

It wasn't me that called it that. This quote came from Gavin Newsom's own former deputy chief of staff, Yashar Ali, who added: ``It is truly horrific how many people have been negatively impacted by the law.''

That law, AB5, effectively bans independent work of any kind. While it was promoted as a way to convert rideshare drivers to the status of W-2 employees, the law has ensnared hundreds of professions: videographers and caricaturists, transcriptionists and interpreters, technicians and engineers, analysts and consultants, musicians and conductors, artists and dancers, writers and editors, coaches and trainers, teachers and tutors, nurses and doulas. Hardly an industry or trade is unscathed.

It is a law so bad that affected industries have had to lobby the legislature for exceptions, over 100 of which have been granted, but only to those with enough influence. Countless other Californians, spanning hundreds of professions, remain subject to the law and have lost their ability to earn a living in our State or had their professional options severely restricted.

In fact, many national companies now explicitly disclaim on their applications that they can no longer work with California freelancers. In many professions, independent contracting is the only viable business model. In others, it is much preferred, thanks to the flexibility and freedom it affords. Regardless, the blunt instrument of AB5 forbids it.

Most devastated by this law are the most vulnerable: seniors, caregivers, students, reformed convicts, single mothers, people with disabilities or health issues or mental health needs, all of whom rely on independent contracting to balance work with their personal life circumstances.

Consider just a few testimonials of Californians whose lives have been upended by the law.

A woman named Jodie said: ``I worked years to gain my skill as an American Sign Language interpreter. It was my goal since I was 9 years old. After AB5, I lost all three of my agencies. The dream I worked for is lost. I can't provide for my family and thousands of California's deaf won't be serviced.''

Andy said: ``I work with underserved artists of color. None of my career as an artist, technician, designer, and producer would have been possible under AB5. Artists of color will be less able to create their own work.''

Megan said: ``I am a nurse practitioner. AB5 is widening the gap in healthcare as small rural practices that can only be staffed with contractors shut their doors. Setting my own schedule has allowed me to spend time with my children that I will no longer be able to.''

Daniel said: ``I am a chiropractor in California. I was just terminated from my wonderful independent contract, 10 hours per week job. The company cited AB5. I have had this job for 10 years. The job allowed me flexibility to take care of my three special needs kids. Now it is gone.''

Jared said: ``AB5 forced me to shut down my business. I went from making $80,000 per year in home services to a minimum wage employee. My family trade is gone. I have gone from working 4 days a week to spend time with my kids to not knowing if I can make ends meet working 7 days.''

Kathi said: ``I am a 71-year-old transcriber. I raised six kids and went to work in my forties, but I had to retire at 62 due to health issues. I depend on my at-home transcription pay to survive and pay my bills. For 8 years I did okay, until AB5.''

Barbara said: ``I am a proofreader. Competition is fierce, and it is hard to get clients, but I did it. I was thrilled to choose jobs I was best suited for and to work when I wanted. After AB 5, Californians need not apply.''

Julie Su has been called an ``architect'' of this law. After its enactment, she used her position as California Secretary of Labor to ruthlessly enforce it.

Here is what Su said in her own words: ``The way to enforce AB 5 is just doing investigations and audits. That will be on both wages and tax. So we will be doing investigations and audits so that those who want to comply with the need to reclassify can do so, and those who don't will understand that is not the kind of economy we want in California.''

Think about how callous those words are, Mr. Speaker.

Just wiping out hundreds of professions of countless people, ``that is not the kind of economy we want in California,'' she said.

She went on to say: ``So we can issue citations and demand both wages and taxes and other kinds of penalties.''

Su shamelessly kicked this harassment strategy into high gear after the COVID shutdowns began. She even defied the will of Congress in the process. It was one of the most disgraceful episodes of the COVID era in California. Congress had provided benefits to independent contractors through the CARES Act and put States in charge of distributing those benefits. Yet under Julie Su, the EDD wrongfully withheld those benefits as she aimed to exploit this sudden need that independent contractors had to interface with her department.

A website called The People v. AB 5, run by four self-described ``Democrats who support unions'' but were opponents of the law, explained Su's scheme. They wrote that EDD ``attempted to weaponize the COVID-19 crisis by leading out-of-work Californians into a trap.''

Instead of giving them access to the benefits Congress had included for independent contractors in the CARES Act, the EDD tried to shoehorn them into the regular unemployment system where they would then have to name the names of their business partners. Then, once it had that list, EDD would pounce, launching audits of the named businesses for allegedly violating AB 5 and hitting them with fines ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 per ``misclassification.'' This would be applied retroactively to before the law even existed.

The website gave an example of a small ``princess for your little girl's birthday party,'' business whose owner was audited and fined $60,000 dating back several years.

Incredibly, as small businesses were on their last legs, the EDD plowed ahead with these harassing audits using personnel that could have been processing unemployment claims or detecting fraud. The worst consequence of all this was that countless freelancers who were forced out of work by AB 5, COVID, or some combination of the two, had to wait weeks or months for benefits as Su's department played its political games.

You don't need to take my word for this, Mr. Speaker. California Congressman Adam Schiff wrote a letter to Secretary Su in April of 2020 rebuking her for failing to release the benefits independent contractors were owed under the CARES Act.

Schiff wrote as follows:

I represent thousands of independent, freelance contract,

and gig workers, including many in the entertainment

industry, who often do not qualify for standard unemployment

benefits. The CARES Act, which was signed into law 2 weeks

ago, dramatically expands unemployment coverage, and I led an

effort in the House to extend this coverage to nontraditional

and independent workers.

As States are now working to implement these expanded

benefits, I am hearing from many of my newly eligible

constituents who are concerned because they are not yet able

to apply and are increasingly worried as their financial

responsibilities continue to mount without anticipated

income.

It is little wonder that the coalition behind AB 5 has issued a letter endorsing Su to be President Biden's new Secretary of Labor. The letter signed by the California Labor Federation, SEIU California, and the California Teachers Association, among others, begins: ``There is no one more qualified to help lead.''

They know exactly where she would lead the country: down the same disastrous path as California--something her former boss, Gavin Newsom, has explicitly called for, saying that California is a model for the Nation and promising to highlight California's ``policy innovations'' so they can be scaled up nationally.

Given Julie Su's role as an architect and enforcer of AB 5, there is no doubt that as U.S. Secretary of Labor she would do everything in her power--and likely things not properly in her power--to nationalize the law and its destructive consequences.

In fact, there are already two vehicles for doing so. The PRO Act, which passed the House last year would cost at least 350,000 freelance workers their ability to earn a living, and at this moment, the Department of Labor has a proposed rule that would similarly threaten the livelihoods of independent contractors nationwide.

This is not a trivial matter. Fifty-seven million Americans engage in freelance work. They deserve a Secretary of Labor who defends their freedom to work and respects them as professionals. Julie Su's track record suggests she would be a Secretary who does just the opposite.

President Biden faces a very clear choice: Does he want a Secretary of Labor who will fight for workers, taxpayers, and citizens, or does he want the hand-selected rubberstamp of special interest groups?

This is a moment of vital importance for the American workforce. We are coming out of an era of unprecedented upheaval and heading toward an era of unpredictable transformation.

The position of Secretary of Labor cannot be treated as a gift to special interests. It cannot be occupied by someone who has harmed so many workers in so many ways. It cannot be consumed by the incompetence and corruption that Californians are all too familiar with.

Mr. Speaker, I urge President Biden to cease consideration of Julie Su for Labor Secretary and to appoint a new Secretary who is competent and qualified, who is pro-worker and pro-small businesses, who will work with Democrats and Republicans alike, who will unleash our economic potential rather than suppress it, and who understands that it is ingenuity and hard work--not the heavy hand of government--that has made the American workforce the greatest engine for progress the world has ever known.

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 8 o'clock and 51 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, February 28, 2023, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, as chair of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I will take a moment today to address a grave threat to American workers that is coming from Washington, D.C., right now. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are at imminent risk of losing their livelihoods because of an anti-worker agenda that certain politicians and special interests are pushing by any means necessary.

The Department of Labor is currently considering a proposed nationwide rule that would severely limit the gig economy, freelancing, independent contracting, self-employment, and other alternate work arrangements that entire careers are based on and entire industries have been built around.

The rule has a similar objective to the PRO Act, which is supported by President Biden, and even passed the House in the last Congress.

The devastating consequences of these policies are not a matter of speculation. In California, we know all too well what is in store for the rest of the country if this rule is adopted and if

the PRO Act passes because the model for these policies comes from our State, a law called AB 5 that passed the supermajority legislature in 2019 and has been ruthlessly enforced by Governor Gavin Newsom ever since.

AB 5 has been absolutely devastating for countless independent professionals in California. You don't need to take my word for it. Governor Newsom's own former deputy chief of staff, Yoshar Ali, called it ``one of the most destructive pieces of legislation in the past 20 years,'' adding, ``It's truly horrific how many people are negatively impacted by it.''

Newsom's political mentor, the former mayor of San Francisco and former speaker of the State Assembly, Willie Brown, said that the law made him want to ``picket'' against the ``bastards'' at the Capitol and the special interests that ``took advantage'' of them.

Andrew Cuomo rejected a similar law in New York, saying he didn't want to ``make the same mistake'' as California.

The liberal Daily Kos likewise warned other States: Don't make the same mistake California's Gavin Newsom did--with the site's founder calling the law disastrous and asinine and its supporters shameful.

The NAACP assailed it as a ``terrible law'' and a ``gut punch to our community.''

The CEO of the Black Chamber of Commerce called it a catastrophe responsible for enabling, defending, and propagating systemic racism.

Mr. Speaker, 200 Ph.D. economists, including a Nobel Laureate, reported that the law is doing substantial and avoidable harm to the very people who now have the fewest resources and the worst alternatives available to them. One commentator called it ``the most malicious and harmful law ever passed in California.''

AB5 effectively bans independent work of any kind, being your own boss. With a single stroke of his pen, Governor Gavin Newsom rendered countless Californians, spanning hundreds of professions, unable to earn a living in our State--videographers and caricaturists, transcriptionists and interpreters, technicians and engineers, analysts and consultants, musicians and conductors, artists and dancers, writers and editors, coaches and trainers, teachers and tutors, nurses and doulas, the list goes on.

Many national companies now explicitly disclaim on their applications that they can no longer work with California freelancers. Hardly an industry or trade is unscathed.

Most devastated by AB5 have been our most vulnerable: seniors, caregivers, students, reformed convicts, single mothers, people with disabilities or health issues or mental health needs, all of whom rely on independent contracting.

Many of my own constituents have been ensnared by the law. Right here, you see a photo of Ildiko Santana, an immigrant, a naturalized citizen, who worked as a freelance translator for over 20 years in Loomis. It took decades for her to build up her clientele, and then she had a single law cause her to lose it all. After AB5 went into effect, not a single one of the over 50 agencies she did business with will hire her unless she incorporates or leaves California.

Across the State, thousands of hardworking people are in exactly the same position. Take, for example, Heather Mason, who said: ``I am a conference producer. I had to move; went to Utah. I can't hire many of our freelance folks back in California either.'' She said: ``I am heartbroken to leave LA.''

Elizabeth Adger said: ``AB5 is why I had to pack up my very ill husband with stage IV cancer and autistic son and leave the State. There is no way I can take care of our family and work a `traditional'- type job. I have always worked for myself and paid my taxes. I was terrified of becoming homeless. Now I am moving to Florida, where my business is welcome.''

Here is the thing. That just isn't going to be an option if the PRO Act or this proposed rule from the Department of Labor goes into effect because this suffering will be taken nationwide.

It is estimated that the PRO Act would cost over 350,000 freelance workers their ability to earn a living, and even just the Department of Labor rule in and of itself would cause significant losses.

Unlike State laws, independent businesspeople will have nowhere to turn if these policies go into effect. What is going to happen to folks like Ildiko and Heather and Elizabeth? In fact, Ildiko will be forced to leave the United States and return to her home country in order to make a living.

Mr. Speaker, I am calling on President Biden to see the reality, to see the harm that these policies are causing. I am calling on President Biden to rescind his proposed rule and to stop supporting the PRO Act, to listen to independent contractors and freelancers whose lives have been upended in California, to have compassion and to stop advocating for policy changes that would inflict this suffering nationwide.

As chair of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I will promise you this. I am going to work in every way possible to defeat the PRO Act. Our committee will fight for workers. There is an agenda out there that is working against workers. We are going to fight for workers, for small businesses, and for economic freedom.

If the proposed Department of Labor rule does take effect, I will immediately act to pass legislation to repeal it. More than that, I will use the gavel of this subcommittee to shine light on the unparalleled damage that has been wrought by AB5, and I certainly will make sure that the freelancers who have lost everything in California are not forgotten.

In a broader sense, AB5 is truly a case study in the decline of the State of California. We used to be the State where anyone could get ahead. Now, we are the State that so many can't wait to leave behind.

We are the Golden State and have always served as a beacon of opportunity for well over a century. We have attracted innovators and adventurers.

We are a State that has so many blessings, endowed with unbelievable natural beauty. Yet, somehow, we have gotten to the point where California just achieved a historic three-peat, where for the third straight year, we led the Nation in one-way U-Haul rentals.

In fact, with the recent redistricting, we lost a seat in Congress, and if the lines were redrawn today, we would lose another seat. It is precisely because of policies like AB5.

California's Governor is saying again and again that our State is a model for the Nation. President Biden has been all too quick to believe him by supporting policies like AB5 and the PRO Act.

The sad reality is that, in many ways, our State is not a model for the Nation but a warning to the Nation about what happens when humanist values give way to brute political force.

Today, I am urging the President and my colleagues in Congress to heed that warning.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate Zach Didier, a beloved member of our community in Rocklin who tragically passed away from fentanyl shortly after Christmas Day a little over 2 years ago, in 2020.

I would also like to take a moment to introduce the American people to Zach's parents, Laura Didier and Chris Didier, who are with us today in the gallery. I was honored to have Laura and Chris as my guests for last night's State of the Union. They have worked tirelessly to honor Zach's life through raising awareness of the fentanyl crisis and have undoubtedly saved many lives.

This is Zach. He was 17 years old, a senior at Whitney High School. He was an Eagle Scout, soccer player, star of the high school musical, and straight-A student. He had just applied to college, and his parents had to go through the gut-wrenching experience of watching acceptance envelopes arrive from California's leading universities.

I would like to offer a moment of silence to honor the memory and life of Zach Didier.

Mr. Speaker, Zach had no history of drug use. He was the type of young man that parents hope their child would become. I know how proud of him Chris and Laura are.

His story shows that the poison of fentanyl is a risk to everyone. No community is safe from it. No family can be unaware of the danger.

Fentanyl has become the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45, more than car accidents, more than suicides, more than anything.

Over 73,000 Americans died from fentanyl this past year. That amounts to 200 deaths a day, about 1 every 7 minutes.

Though lethality of fentanyl is unlike any other drug, it is about 100 times more potent than morphine. Two milligrams, or the amount that fits on the tip of a pencil, is a deadly dose. It is now very commonly added to street pills, such that 98 percent of pills on the street are fake, and by some estimates, 60 percent have the potential to be lethal.

Many of the victims are teenagers, young people, people with no prior drug use. There are many causes connected to this, of course: mental health, teenagers who are just stressed with the stresses of school, and certainly the isolation during the whole COVID era.

They often purchase these fake pills on social media over the internet. The dealers sometimes drive and deliver them straight to the victims' homes.

What can we do? Well, the first and most important thing, perhaps, is to continue to raise awareness. Many Americans aren't aware of the severity of this crisis until it is too late.

Chris and Laura Didier have done 45 school assemblies this year alone, reaching tens of thousands of students and families, and have saved many lives, I know, in the process. Every school across the country needs to have a strategy for making students and families aware of the dangers.

Secondly, we need to do much more to prevent fentanyl from flowing into this country. We know that the southern border is a primary source. In 2022 alone, the DEA seized 379 million lethal doses of fentanyl. That is enough to kill every single American. Securing the border would diminish the availability of fentanyl and make it more difficult to traffic into the United States.

Finally, we need to hold dealers accountable. We need appropriate criminal laws to punish those who peddle life-ending pills to unsuspecting victims. We need to have consequences that are commensurate with the gravity, the evil, of this offense to deter those who would prey on innocent Americans. This requires State and Federal governments to revisit their drug laws in many cases. It also requires prosecutors to make full use of the tools at their disposal.

I applaud Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire, from my district, who has provided a roadmap by charging fentanyl dealers with murder because that is what it is.

The good news is we are seeing growing momentum for addressing this crisis with the seriousness that it deserves and requires. I am grateful that President Biden devoted a portion of his State of the Union Address to addressing it.

I am grateful that Chris and Laura Didier were here last night to see that because they have played such a large role in working with many other families who have lost loved ones and are raising public consciousness.

Mr. Speaker, now is the time that we need to follow words with action. I look forward to working with the President and everyone in this Congress, on a bipartisan basis, to help our country turn the corner on this crisis.

Article I, Section 1:

``All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.''

Section 2:

``The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

``No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

``The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

``When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

``The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.''

Mr. Speaker, this week the House passed the Pandemic is Over Act, terminating the national COVID-19 state of emergency.

Now, of course, the pandemic is over. It has been over for some time. Americans are well aware of this. It seems only the government has not been aware of it at the national level and in certain States in this country.

The House of Representatives passed this bill ending the state of emergency, ending the national emergency, and the President responded in a very interesting way. He agreed with us. He said: Yes, the emergency is over on May 11, which is a very interesting concept. An emergency that you can schedule to end in advance.

This is a page out of Gavin Newsom's book in California where the state of emergency there had continued month after month, year after year, and as the absurdities piled up, as California last year hosted the Super Bowl during a state of emergency.

As, by the way, the Governor refused to abide personally by the dictates issued pursuant to that emergency, eventually he was forced to say, okay, I will end it, and he decided to end it 6 months in advance. The state of emergency in California will now be lapsing on February 28, for those keeping score at home, and the national emergency will be lapsing on May 11.

This is inherently against the very concept of an emergency, to say that we can schedule it to end at a specific date in the future. It is also against the very concept of an emergency to say that it can last for 3 years.

We have in this country for now almost 3 years experienced our form of government being turned on its head. At the national level, and in particular certain States, our entire separation of powers, checks and balances, and representative government collapsed under a one-man rule.

Now that we have moved on from most of that--although there are still some remnants of the controls that were put in place still in effect-- we are in a position to assess what was the outcome of all this. Yes, there was some uniformity in terms of Federal policy, but there was a great degree of difference in terms of how different States responded.

In my State of California, we had the highest level of government coercion and control throughout the entire COVID-19 experience. We had the most onerous business shutdowns, the longest school shutdowns, the worst church shutdowns. We had the most onerous mask mandates and vaccine mandates and vaccine passports.

Each and every step of the way, California had the highest level of government coercion and control, generally done via executive orders without the say of the people, without the say of the legislature, without meaningful judicial review, with 40 million people of our State expected to simply comply. That was the California experience. That was the experience to a lesser extent of many other States.

But then you had States like Florida that decided that citizens could be trusted to make decisions for themselves, that empowered local communities to govern themselves, that focused on disease control rather than population control.

We can now look, having been through this for a few years and having had very different approaches, what was the result of this difference in policy?

Well, economically speaking, California had basically the highest unemployment rate in the entire country throughout the COVID-19 state of emergency, whereas Florida had just about the lowest unemployment rate in the country throughout the state of emergency.

California has experienced student learning loss unlike anything that has ever been seen before in this country. There has been a 6 percent decline in third graders reading at grade level over the last few years, a 7 percent decline for fourth graders in meeting ELA standards, whereas Florida achieved the highest national assessment of educational progress ranking in their history across math and reading for fourth and eighth graders in 2022.

In California, to take another example, in L.A. our students lost an equivalent of 6 months of math in terms of their overall education in that period of time. We will be grappling with the consequences of this for a long, long time. California experienced an economic and educational calamity that States like Florida did not experience.

What did we get in return?

We were all told this was done for the purpose of safety. It was done in order to save lives. We can now assess that claim.

When you look at the actual numbers, there was no difference. Age- adjusted COVID mortality rates between California and Florida were a wash. It was the same, despite the unbelievable toll that the lockdowns and related policies took on the people of California.

You can also make comparisons within our State. I represent a number of counties that did everything possible to take the approach that Florida did despite what we were dealing with at the State level.

In Placer County, for example, we were the first county in the State to end the local state of emergency. We had our kids back in school earlier than anywhere else in California. We were among the first to end mask mandates and to challenge vaccine mandates, and we did everything possible to enable our businesses to remain open. All the while, we took the steps that were necessary to give vulnerable individuals the tools that they needed to protect themselves.

Now, all the while, those of us who favored trusting citizens, who favored freedom, were attacked viciously by the likes of the Governor of California, who personally attacked me by name and said that I believed it would have been better to let Californians die.

Again, you can look at the results in Placer County as compared to other parts of California. Our students did much better, our employment rate was roughly half the State average, and our public health outcomes were much better, with a COVID mortality rate about two-thirds that of the rest of the State.

The evidence now is very clear as to what approach worked and what approach didn't. Those States that tried as much as possible to maintain the structure of our constitutional form of government did a lot better than those

States that decided an emergency could be used to effectuate an indeterminate one-man rule.

But there are some who are now saying, as a recent headline in The Atlantic magazine put it, that we should simply declare a pandemic amnesty at this point. We should move on, we should forget about all of the damage that was done to our kids, who may never get the education, may never make up for the learning loss that they experienced. We should forget about the damage that was done to businesses that in many cases have been permanently lost, 200,000 businesses throughout the country that were shuttered. We should simply move on and forget about it. Forgive and forget.

Look, I am all for letting bygones be bygones, and I am willing to work with anyone who is interested in creating good policy going forward. But we do need to pause and consider how it is that this happened in our country, how did we get to a point where the appearance of a virus could cause our entire form of government to collapse?

Our Founders were not unfamiliar with emergencies. After all, they had just been through a war of independence and yet, they still believed that combining the executive, legislative, and judicial powers in a single set of hands, as James Madison put it, was the very definition of tyranny.

So how, well over two centuries now after the founding, did we get to a point where our institutions were so susceptible to collapse?

I think that is a question that merits serious scrutiny because it could point us in the direction of getting back to some of the founding principles that we have lost touch with.

The fact is that we have seen governmental power become more and more centralized and consolidated in recent decades in this country, and it simply became all too easy to fast-forward that process to its logical endpoint of one-man rule.

We have seen our political institutions become less and less representative, less and less self-governing institutions, and it became all too easy to make them not representative at all. Or we have seen more and more of our levers of power in government controlled by special interest groups, especially in California, my State, and so it became all too easy to let special interests completely run the show as it did when it came to the school shutdowns.

So I don't believe that we can simply move on and turn the page and forget about what happened in this country for the last few years. I think we need to give serious thought as to what led us to this point and how we can move ahead and actually now get the pendulum swinging in the other direction. That is a far more in-depth conversation than my time today would permit, but I simply would like to offer a few ideas.

The first is that we need to definitively end the emergency, not on May 11 but now, not in California on February 28, but now, and any other States that are retaining the altered legal forms that were put in place through the emergency. Along with that, we need to end all remaining mandates that exist.

We took a major step in that direction yesterday in this House by passing legislation to end President Biden's vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

We also need to look at reforming our emergency laws, to make it so you cannot so easily declare an emergency that lasts for years and is allowed to continue indefinitely without any serious review of whether the conditions of the emergency continue to exist.

In a broader sense, I think that this is a moment where we as a country need to look at the consolidation and centralization of political power in this country. Yes, at the State level but largely at the Federal level, and especially in bureaucracies that operate outside any sort of accountability on the part of voters.

We simply have seen this happen over the course of decades in this country, and it has veered us farther and farther from the idea of self-government that was the great American innovation: the institution of self-government.

Now I am seeing encouraging signs in many ways that this is beginning to happen. For example, I am starting to see at the school board level, parents are getting involved like never before. Parents are running for school board and changing the way that local school districts operate and trying to fight against mandates from the State level that tell them how they should run their schools.

The beauty of this is that it gives parents a direct access point in terms of how their local schools are run. That is the idea of self- government, and I think that is something to build on going forward.

Finally, on the note of education, I do think we need to get much more serious in this country about civic education which used to be something that was not simply some addendum to one of your classes but was part and parcel of your entire education: what it was about, to prepare you for active citizenship, to be well grounded in what has made America such a unique country in our Nation's history, the greatest country in the world's history; what the Constitution is about; why we have institutions like freedom of speech; why the separation of powers and checks and balances are important.

I think if we start to teach these things more meaningfully in our schools, then it would reinforce our civic institutions. It would leave them less vulnerable to the sort of transformation that they were put through over the course of the last few years. And should we ever face another pandemic or whatever other threat that may come our way, I think we will be much better prepared to get through it in the way that Florida did and in the way that Placer County did. And not, unfortunately, in the way that California and many other parts of this country had to suffer through with such a high cost to so many people.

Mr. Speaker, this week, we celebrate School Choice Week, and it certainly is something to be celebrated.

Across the country, school choice has been an abundant source of opportunity and force for good, lifting the life prospects of millions of students.

It is important to recognize at the outset that for a particular group of people across this country, school choice exists to the fullest extent. Those are the families who are fortunate enough to have the financial means to create choices for themselves by moving into a community that has good public schools or by sending their kids to private schools. This form of school choice exists in all 50 States.

When it comes to everyone else, there is a stark difference among the 50 States. You see, there are some States that have decided that school choice should be available not just for some but for everyone.

For example, you have States like Florida that have offered a variety of different school choice options. In fact, Florida is ranked number one in the country when it comes to educational freedom and, not coincidentally, also ranks near the top when it comes to the performance of their kids ranked among the States across the country.

But then there are other States that have opted to have a two-tier education system, where they say we will have school choice for those that can afford it, but everyone else, they say, we are going to tell you where you will send your child to school. You will have one option, and they will go to that school whether your child is learning or not; whether they are learning how to do math or not; whether they are learning how to read or not; whether they are being prepared for success in life or not.

This is the two-tiered education system that prevails in far too many States in this country, and perhaps nowhere more so than in my home State of California, where it has become a business model--a perverse business model of keeping kids trapped in failing schools, which each year is further entrenched by politicians and the special interests that support them.

No individual personifies this two-tiered education system more than the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom. Soon after taking office, Governor Newsom enacted an aggressive, anti-school choice, anti-parent, anti-student agenda that went after charter schools, and was condemned by civil rights groups like the NAACP and the Urban League.

After the COVID-19 shutdown began, Newsom and the California legislature went even further trying to reduce the number of options that parents had from one to zero.

At the beginning of the shutdown, with schools not operating at all, many lacked even a distance learning option. Parents started enrolling their students in charter schools that already had well-developed, personalized learning models.

Newsom and the California legislature passed a bill to stop this: to defund these charters, to deny them funding for any new students so that kids would remain trapped in schools that weren't even offering Zoom school at the time.

In the months ahead, Newsom, and his allies in California realized that the

COVID shutdown presented an opportunity to further entrench their business model of keeping kids trapped in failing schools without even having to run schools at all, all the while taking in billions and billions of extra dollars in funding.

California would have the longest school shutdown of any State in the country. Newsom as Governor assured California was 50 out of the 50 States in resuming in-person instruction.

He claimed again and again that it was necessary to keep schools closed for the safety of students, but he knew that wasn't true. The reason we know that he knew it wasn't true is that at the same time he was sending his own kids to in-person private school.

This, by the way, is a pattern across the country, where some of the most strident, anti-school choice politicians embrace school choice for themselves: President Biden, Vice President Harris, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker, as well as, of course, Newsom. They all fight against education options for families while enrolling their own students in private schools.

The consequences of California's school shutdown, as well as other States that kept their kids out of school for far too long, are starting to come into focus. The National Assessment of Education Progress, a test administered by the Department of Education, released scores in the fall of 2022, showing that students in California had a five-point drop in reading and a seven-point drop in math.

California already had among the worst education outcomes in the country. Before COVID, we ranked 49 out of 50 when it came to education outcomes for kids in low-income communities. Now, thanks to the longest school shutdowns in the country, those achievement gaps have been widened significantly.

This doesn't even account for all of the other dimensions of harm that were done to kids in terms of their mental health and in terms of their social development and so much more.

We have so much work to do now to try, as much as we can, to help students recover from learning loss and get them back on the road they need to pursue their goals and to have success in life.

The good news, though, is that the experience of the last few years has catalyzed a movement of parents across the country that is starting to develop into a Renaissance in school choice, as we are seeing more and more pro-school choice, pro-kid, pro-parent legislation pass in States all across the country.

California has been an exception. If anything, there has been a retrenchment, as those who are currently in power see the threat that this movement of parents proposes or presents to their business model.

As we pause for a moment this week to celebrate and commemorate School Choice Week, I would want to offer a few ideas for the forms of school choice that this movement of parents can be channeled into.

The first is choice within the traditional public education system, which isn't discussed as much in the context of school choice, but which is very important and very powerful.

So this means, number one, allowing schools within a district to have the freedom to present different types of offerings, different types of schools, such as vocational schools, or emergent schools, in order to serve different types of students and to cater to the learning modalities of different types of students.

Allowing enrollment freedom within the district so parents can choose a school within the school district which is right for them, as well as offering the option of transferring to another school district if there is a school in that district that serves their child better.

Even in California, where we have among the worst school choice offerings in the country, one of the few options that does exist is called the District of Choice program, which enables families to transfer into a neighboring school district.

A study by the State's nonpartisan legislation analysts showed that for students who participated in the District of Choice program and transferred to a neighboring school district, their education outcomes improved. But not only that, the districts that they were transferring out of realized they needed to take action to prevent students from leaving. They started offering new courses. They started offering AP courses, and the level of achievement in their schools improved as well.

That is the beauty of school choice, it lifts all boats. As we develop more programs for choice within the traditional public education system, it should be coupled with ease of enrollment, transparency to parents as far as what options are available, and easy websites where you can see the schools that exist within a district and can see your enrollment options. There are many districts across the country that develop these platforms that serve students and families very well.

The second form of choice that is continuing to expand across this country are charter schools, which are about 30 years old now in the United States.

What charters do is they essentially flip the typical education paradigm on its head. They enable a great degree of freedom to school leaders to run the school however they see fit, and free the charter school from the constraints of the State's education code. They are far less regulated and have far fewer mandates.

In turn, charters are not assigned students like your typical neighborhood school is, they have to attract students to proactively enroll, and then not only that, but they also get reviewed every few years and assessed on the bases of their learning outcomes, and that determines whether the school will continue to operate.

Now, this combination of innovation and accountability has a tremendous track record after just a few decades in existence. For example, one study by Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes showed that after 4 years in a charter, urban students learn about 50 percent more than demographically similar students in traditional public schools.

New Orleans, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, became a 100 percent charter district. You saw test scores, graduation dropout rates, college-going rates, independent studies, all showing that the city schools have doubled or tripled their effectiveness over the course of a decade.

Charter schools are another key tool in the school choice toolkit, and should continue to be encouraged as an option for parents and families outside of the traditional public education system. Although, it is important to note that charters are public schools, they are free. They have to have a blind admission system that is non- preferential, where if they are oversubscribed then they are subject to a lottery.

A third form of choice then is opting out of the public education system altogether. It should be noted again that this right does exist in every State across the country, but the means to do so only exist for a certain segment of society.

Again, it is the Gavin Newsom's of the world that have the ability to withdraw their kids if they so choose from the public education system. But a lot of families just don't have the financial resources to do that, even if they believe that that is the option that is right for their kids.

So what you are seeing to solve this problem and to tear down this two-tiered education system and have one where school choice is open to all is many States are passing legislation to create education savings accounts or other mechanisms where funding follows the child.

You take the amount of State-funding that is given per pupil--and in some California districts this is over $24,000 per pupil--and at least give a portion of that to the parent to send their child to a private school or to hire a tutor or to find the option that is right for them.

It should also be noted, by the way, that protecting homeschooling is now more important than ever. We have a wonderful homeschool community in the district that I represent. Given the experience of public education in California and across this country in recent years you have seen, by some estimates, homeschooling doubled just over the last few years.

This is an option that needs to be available to every family in this country as a matter of right and as a matter of giving parents the ability to control the education of their child.

Those are just a few of the exciting things that we see going on across this country in at least some States when it comes to expanding school choice, to having not a two-tiered education system, but one where opportunities are available for all.

I actually worked as a high school teacher in inner city Los Angeles where I worked on a direct level on a small scale to try to close the achievement gap for my students. I am now honored to have been appointed to the Education and Workforce Committee here in the House of Representatives, where I am going to be working to do that on a larger scale to expand school choice as much as we can, and to pursue the goal of assuring that every child in this country has the opportunity for the education they deserve.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that kind introduction. It is an honor to represent California's Third District.

Madam Speaker, I would like to raise an important issue regarding aid for my constituents harmed in the Caldor fire, which I had the chance to discuss with President Biden yesterday.

The Caldor fire tore through El Dorado, Alpine, and Amador Counties in August of 2021. The community of Grizzly Flats was leveled and 800 homes were destroyed. With 20,000 residents under mandatory evacuation orders, further devastation was only narrowly avoided.

Americans may remember the surreal images of ski slopes set aflame, smoke billowing from the foothills, and ash raining down on cities across the Sacramento Valley. Entire communities in the Lake Tahoe area had their survival hanging on a razor's edge and could well have been consumed by the flames if not for the heroics of our first responders.

By the time the blaze was extinguished, it ranked among the most destructive fires in California's recorded history.

I had the chance to walk through the hollowed out streets and roads of Grizzly Flats just days after the fire. To his credit, President Biden visited the following month as well. President Biden traveled to California in September of 2021 to survey the damage. After landing at Mather Airport, President Biden joined Governor Newsom, California Office of Emergency Service Director Mark Ghilarducci, and other State and Federal officials for an aerial tour of the smoldering remains of Grizzly Flats, and the surrounding area.

After landing, CAL OES Director Ghilarducci thanked President Biden for the relief that had been provided to victims of the recent Dixie and River fires, and the relief that would soon be provided for victims of the Caldor fire.

At that point, President Biden interjected. He said: ``We are going to take care of them.'' ``. . . there's a lot we can do, and it starts off being a Federal responsibility, in my view.''

These are President Biden's words as he was present shortly after the fire: ``We are going to take care of them.'' ``. . . there's a lot we can do, and it starts off being a Federal responsibility, in my view.''

Yet, well over 1 year later, President Biden has yet to fulfill that promise and provide individual assistance through FEMA to hundreds of people--hundreds of my constituents--who lost everything. In fact, FEMA has twice denied individual assistance, even though this same Federal aid was provided in similarly destructive wildfires such as the 2021 River fire.

Yesterday, I spoke with President Biden. I reminded him of his visit to Grizzly Flats and of the promise that he made. The President was receptive and seemed genuinely troubled that the residents of Grizzly Flats have not received relief. He said that he would get to the bottom of it, and I thank him for that.

The reality is that the President has the power with the stroke of a pen to grant this aid to the residents of Grizzly Flats. In fact, just a few years ago, President Trump did precisely that, providing individual assistance to victims of another California fire, the Creek fire. So I am calling on President Biden to keep his word and to give victims of the Caldor fire the relief that they deserve.

Now, while we must remember the debt that is owed to the community of Grizzly Flats, we also need to reflect on how we got here. The fact is that these catastrophic wildfires that ravage California year after year are not inevitable. They are a direct result of failed policies and of neglect, and Grizzly Flats is a perfect example.

The United States Forest Service actually had a fire mitigation plan that was announced in 2013 that would create a 15,000-acre fuel reduction buffer east and south of Grizzly Flats. Now, although that project began in 2014 and was scheduled to be completed by 2020 before the fire, it became mired in delays, and by the time of the fire in 2021, only 14 percent of the work had been done.

By the way, the Forest Service exaggerated this. They overstated the amount of work that had been done. They claimed that it was twice that, and it took an investigation by Capital Public Radio to reveal the truth.

Wildfire experts believe that if the project had been completed on schedule, it could well have saved Grizzly Flats.

A key architect of the mitigation project, former El Dorado National Forest District Director Duane Nelson, said that if the project had been completed, then there would have been a high probability that Grizzly Flats would not have burned in the Caldor fire. He continued that it could have meant survival.

So even though the damage was caused in part by Federal negligence, we still have not gotten Federal aid. That is what makes this such a bitter pill to swallow for my constituents, that it was neglect on the part of the Federal Government that led to the fire, and then after the fire, the promises of the Federal Government for relief have gone unfulfilled.

More broadly, as we do everything we can to get assistance to the community of Grizzly Flats, we need to do everything we can to assure that other communities don't suffer the same fate. This means taking the simple and scientifically backed steps that we know reduce the risk of wildfires: actively and responsibly managing Federal forests, clearing underbrush and dead trees that serve as ladder fuels, conducting controlled burns, and selectively harvesting mature trees for logging to ensure healthy forest density.

Those are just the beginning of the steps that we can take to make sure that this doesn't keep happening again and again. I am calling on all of us to work together across the aisle to take the steps to do the work that needs to be done.

In the meantime, I am calling on the President to please, today, tomorrow, as soon as he possibly can, with the stroke of a pen make good on his promise and give the residents of Grizzly Flats the relief they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the powerful winter storm systems that are currently impacting my district and much of the State of California.

Rainfall in recent weeks has been several times above average, which, along with severe winds, has had devastating and cascading impacts. This includes flooding in Folsom and Lincoln, avalanches, and mudslides. The Tahoe area and Mono County are currently under avalanche warning. There are localized mudslides occurring in Plumas County.

There have been road closures from downed trees, hundreds of downed trees that have disrupted travel plans; power outages affecting roughly 345,000 Californians, 4,500 people in the Third District; and hundreds of school closures, including all schools in the Lake Tahoe Unified District.

There have also been, tragically, at least 17 deaths in the State, including 5 in the Sacramento area.

I extend my most sincere sympathies to everyone who has been affected, who has been harmed, and whose lives have been disrupted.

I also extend my most heartfelt gratitude to all the first responders who are working tirelessly to mitigate these impacts and to protect life and property.

My office is working to ensure the greatest measure of Federal assistance is available to the affected communities. FEMA has issued an emergency declaration for most counties in California now, including Placer, Sacramento, El Dorado, and Yuba.

My office is in constant communication with FEMA, and I have spoken personally to FEMA Regional Administrator Bob Fenton, who briefed me on the State Operations Center in California.

We are also in close contact with local authorities, including members of the boards of supervisors in affected counties, and continue to closely monitor developments as more storms are expected.

Mr. Speaker, California now finds itself in both a flood emergency and a drought emergency at the same time. That absurdity underscores a fundamental failure of governance.

Citizens are told to take shorter showers. Farmers are told to fallow their fields. All the while, they watch water flow abundantly into the ocean. An estimated 8 billion gallons of water from these storms will flow into the ocean in the Los Angeles Basin alone.

Cycles of wetness and dryness are nothing new to our State. Joan Didion, in 1977, wrote: ``California summers were characterized by the coughing in the pipes that meant the well was dry, and California winters by all-night watches on rivers about to crest.''

Yet, since that time, we have done little to build the storage capacity that is needed to stabilize our water supply. That is why I am cosponsoring the WATER for California Act to expand our storage capacity. We must also strengthen our flood defenses to be better prepared for extreme weather events in the future.

Our focus right now is on the days ahead. These storms are impacting different areas very differently, so it is important to be closely attuned to the advisories of your local government.

On my website, we have a comprehensive emergency contacts document that constituents in affected areas can access for resources and phone numbers. You can find that at kiley.house.gov.