Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, this week, I announced legislation to rein in the California Coastal Commission, to strip the California Coastal Commission of the powers that it has been granted by Federal law.

The undeniable reality is that the commission is completely out of control and has veered far from its purpose of protecting the coast.

Mike Stoker, the former Southwest administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said this: ``The California Coastal Commission was created in 1972. For over 50 years, it has been one of if not the most overzealous, overreaching, and self-important regulatory agency I have ever dealt with at the local, State, or Federal level.''

This legislation has become all the more necessary in light of the tragedy that continues to unfold in Los Angeles. The task of rebuilding those communities, the imperative of recovery, is going to be difficult enough as it is, but it will be impossible as long as the California Coastal Commission continues to exercise its powers in such irresponsible ways.

My bill, specifically, will amend the Coastal Zone Management Act to remove the commission's authority to block national security-related activities, critical infrastructure projects, and activities with high economic impact, including post-disaster recovery and rebuilding.

We all got a very clear window into the manifest irrationality of this agency just a couple of months ago when there was a proposal by SpaceX, together with the Air Force, to increase the launch cadence out of Vandenberg Space Force Base to allow for more launches that are launching satellites for important national security purposes and launching other payloads, such as Starlink satellites.

I will note, by the way, that Starlink is right now, as we speak, being used by first responders in the L.A. area who have lost connectivity and would otherwise not be able to have the necessary communications for emergency response.

This was all known, by the way, at the time that this sort of use case for Starlink was part of its potential. I wrote a letter, at the time, supporting the request for more launches, and we specifically cited the use in fighting wildfires as one reason why this is important.

Nevertheless, at the time, just a couple of months ago, with this very clear bipartisan proposal supported by the military to allow SpaceX to do more launches, the California Coastal Commission rejected it and tried to stop SpaceX from increasing its launches, increasing its capacity to support our national security, to improve connectivity.

The reason that they gave was this--this is not just me sort of speculating about their reasons--this is literally what the commissioners said in a public meeting. They said that they do not like Elon Musk's political posts on X on completely unrelated topics, and so to punish him, they were going to reject the proposal that wasn't just from SpaceX but from the U.S. military itself in order to do more launches.

That told us everything about what the California Coastal Commission is all about. That was very recent, but this agency has a long history of decisions that defy all rationality, defy all measures of public interest, and that don't actually serve the purpose of protecting the environment and protecting the coast.

Indeed, when you look at the specific most problematic causes of the catastrophe in L.A., forest management and the water supply, the California Coastal Commission has been a major hindrance in both areas.

In 2019, for example, there was an ongoing project by the L.A. Department of Water and Power, where, through Topanga State Park, they were replacing these aging wooden power line poles that were almost 100 years old. They were in an area that had been identified as having an elevated fire risk. As a very important project, these wooden poles, 100 years old in a high-risk area, they were replacing them with steel and with more fire-resistant materials.

As the New York Post explained, the goal of the project was to improve fire safety for the Pacific Palisades area by replacing those wooden poles with steel. Also, they were installing wind- and fire- resistant power lines. Again, this is all in a high fire-risk area.

The California Coastal Commission caught wind of this, and they learned that there was a particular rare plant, a few of the Brauton's milkvetch, in the area, so they rushed in and said to stop. They brought the project to an immediate halt. It didn't get done, and then, in the process, they, in fact, collected $2 million in fines.

This is the sort of action that the California Coastal Commission has taken.

Consider just a decision from just 2 years ago, when the commission blocked a desalination plant in Huntington Beach that would have increased L.A.'s water supply. The commission denied a permit for Poseidon Water's proposed $1.4 billion desalination plant in Huntington Beach.

Of course, we have all seen how the lack of a sufficient water supply is one of the things that allowed the fires in L.A. to grow unchecked. We had an empty reservoir, for example. Here, just 2 years ago, you had the California Coastal Commission rejecting a major augmentation in the region's supply.

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned the issue related to SpaceX also undermined our national security, in addition to our ability to innovate and the ability to launch Starlink satellites.

The CCC, the California Coastal Commission, has also on several occasions rejected proposals from the U.S. Navy. For example, it rejected the U.S. Navy's proposal to increase sonar and underwater explosives training off of southern California.

In another instance, it filed a lawsuit against the Navy for proceeding with 14 major training exercises off of southern California, again harming U.S. national security.

Then, finally, there is the issue of housing because it is going to be a major undertaking in order to rebuild these beautiful communities. The California Coastal Commission is most assuredly going to stand in the way of that process. It has a long history of denying project after project. California has a massive housing shortage.

Yet, even when we have projects that have gotten all the necessary approvals, which have met all the very stringent requirements set out by the State, the California Coastal Commission will come in and spike the project.

They have done this so much that a group called Circulate San Diego issued a report recently highlighting how the California Coastal Commission has consistently taken actions that worsen California's housing crisis.

They highlighted examples of how even these very, what some would call, left-leaning set of requirements for

housing that the legislature has set, even projects that have met all of those things, they said: The California Coastal Commission ``has resisted, opposed, and delayed the construction of deed-restricted affordable homes that use programs like Density Bonus Law.'' They noted this is true even when all of the zoning approvals have been obtained.

The report documents examples where the California Coastal Commission opposes projects that the legislature encourages as part of California's efforts to combat climate change. Crosswalks, bicycle lanes, and infill development near projects, the report states, are all goals of recent statewide legislation, yet the California Coastal Commission opposes or delays many of these projects.

Mr. Speaker, the process of rebuilding and recovery in L.A. is going to be a long and difficult one. There are some things that we know we need to do right off the bat. Perhaps the easiest thing, the most obvious thing is to assure that the California Coastal Commission does not stand in the way.

That is why I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both Houses of Congress to move on this legislation as quickly as possible. This will be an important first step towards rebuilding Los Angeles and towards restoring some common sense in California.

Congratulating Blue Origin on Successful Orbit of New Glenn Rocket

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate Blue Origin on successfully reaching orbit in the first flight of its New Glenn rocket.

New Glenn is a 320-foot rocket that is taller than the Statute of Liberty. It has 7 engines, and it can carry 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit.

According to a report from Blue Origin, in the flight that left at, I believe, 2:03 a.m. this morning, the first stage burned for more than 3 minutes before the second stage separated at an altitude of 70 kilometers. Then the report states the upper stage's two engines appeared to perform flawlessly, pushing what is called the Blue Ring Pathfinder payload toward orbit.

This is an apparatus that is going to allow for the adjustment of other payloads that are in orbit and bring them into different orbits, adjusted orbits, from using that device. Apparently, it is now working properly and is registering data. So far so good is the report.

It goes on to state that the engines burned for nearly 10 minutes before shutting down, having reached an orbital velocity of 28,800 kilometers per hour.

As a spokesperson for Blue Origin states: ``The vehicle underpins our efforts to establish sustained human presence on the Moon, harness in- space resources, provide multi-mission, multi-orbit mobility through Blue Ring, and establish destinations in low Earth orbit. Future New Glenn missions will carry the Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander and the Mark 2 crewed lander to the Moon as part of NASA's Artemis program.''

We also have another launch scheduled in just a few hours. I believe this is flight seven for SpaceX's Starship which is the largest rocket ever built, the largest space vehicle ever built. I happened to have the chance to watch launch six which was truly an awe-inspiring experience. I wish them the best of luck today for flight seven.

Both of these developments serve to underscore that we are living in a very exciting time where for decades we didn't see much progress when it came to space exploration. We now have a commercial space industry which has picked up the baton and pushed us towards new frontiers.

In order to enable that, I have introduced the New Space Age Act which is designed to encourage and catalyze the growing commercial space industry by streamlining the process for getting launch approvals and getting the FAA out of the picture because they have tried to unnecessarily hold back progress.

I think this will be a great piece of legislation to enhance America's competitive advantage. We are far outpacing the rest of the world right now when it comes to space and will facilitate many, many more flights in the future which have the capacity to not only enhance our national security and bring about further innovations but also to capture the imagination of Americans as well.

Honoring the Life of Don Brewster

Mr. Speaker, today I honor the life and legacy of Don Brewster, the cofounder of Agape International Missions, who sadly is no longer with us.

As we reflect on the life that Don led, we also celebrate the inspiring 20-year legacy he built. After many years of service as an executive pastor at Adventure Christian Church in Roseville, California, Don and his wife, Bridget, visited Cambodia on a mission trip.

When they returned home, they learned about the horrors of child sex trafficking in the country they had just visited. This led Don and Bridget Brewster to establish Agape International Missions, also known as AIM, to combat child sex trafficking.

Don's heart wasn't just for girls to be rescued but to help them find true healing and to live in freedom. During Don's 20 years of leadership, AIM developed a holistic model to rescue, heal, and empower survivors of sex trafficking in Cambodia and beyond.

With the help of dedicated partners and their mission, Don began a SWAT team to partner with local authorities in shutting down brothels and prosecuting traffickers.

Beyond rescue, survivors received refuge and trauma-informed counseling at AIM's restorative homes, as well as access to education and vocational training through their employment center in Cambodia.

Seeing the need to target the issue at the source, Don went on to establish prevention programs that have transformed communities and continue to protect future generations from ever knowing the horrors of sex trafficking.

Don Brewster worked tirelessly to spread love and compassion wherever he went. We thank Don for the legacy he built and his devotion to the global fight against sex trafficking.

As AIM moves into its 20-year anniversary, Agape International Missions will continue to spread Don's legacy and his transformative work. He had a heart for service that seemed to fill the world. Don Brewster will be deeply missed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to stress the importance of providing prompt relief to the victims of the ongoing disaster and nightmare in Los Angeles.

The relief measure should include direct support for rebuilding and recovery along with safeguards to assure that that support gets to victims as quickly and as efficaciously as possible.

Mr. Speaker, there will also need to be a thoroughgoing Federal inquiry into the causes of this catastrophe and into political failures that enabled this catastrophe.

We will need to use every tool that we have to inject some common sense into how California manages its forests and water supply, but that should not stand in the way of getting immediate relief to the victims. These folks have already paid an extraordinarily high price for the failures of their government, and they should not be punished again.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to commemorate the life of Anthony Pescetti, of Granite Bay, who passed away unexpectedly in early December.

Anthony Pescetti lived a life of service. He was an elected member of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, serving 7 years, from 1987 to 1994.

Later, he served two terms in the California State Assembly, from 1998 to 2002.

During his time in public service, Assembly Member Pescetti was well- regarded for the level of communication that he brought to the office and was considered fair and easy to approach. He took pride in listening and keeping in touch with his constituents, holding monthly breakfasts for the public in each community of his district.

Assembly Member Pescetti was also an advocate for his district and secured various victories, such as for public safety and recreation, during his tenure.

Assembly Member Pescetti followed his internal compass. He decided not to run for reelection in 2002, and after 4 years of training, he was ordained deacon with the Sacramento Catholic Diocese. He went on to serve at St. Mel Parish, St. Ignatius Loyola Parish, and later at Presentation Parish in Sacramento.

Anthony loved people, and people loved him. He put a tremendous amount of work and effort toward his community to improve their quality of life.

He also enjoyed his family life with his wife, Kathy, and their son and daughter, Anthony and Sarina. The world was a richer place with Anthony Pescetti, and we will sincerely miss him.

Recognizing Chief Rick Bartee

Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize retiring Roseville Fire Department Chief Rick Bartee for his years of service in the Roseville area.

Rick Bartee's devoted career of service to the Roseville community and his country has spanned over four decades, including the last 9 years as chief of the Roseville Fire Department.

Chief Bartee's longstanding commitment to public safety goes back to the age of 18 when he first joined the fire service. He built a strong educational foundation, earning his bachelor's of applied science degree, studying public safety and emergency management at Grand Canyon University.

Before embarking on his service to the city of Roseville, Chief Bartee had a decorated career in several capacities, including his over three decades of service for the Phoenix Fire Department.

Over the course of his tenure, Chief Bartee conducted the duties of engineer, captain, battalion chief, shift commander, managing the Homeland Defense Bureau, deputy chief, and many others.

Chief Bartee's dedication to public safety also went beyond his department and region. Throughout his time in the fire service, he also served on FEMA's urban search and rescue team.

Chief Bartee was onsite at some of the most destructive disasters our country has seen, providing much-needed response and relief. He sifted through the rubble at Ground Zero after 9/11, responded to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, aided along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, and responded to many other catastrophes during his service to the task force. He has demonstrated selflessness in his deployments, locating and extricating disaster victims.

Chief Bartee's experience and scope of duties over his accomplished career, in conjunction with his devotion to service, enabled him to be an exemplary leader as chief of the Roseville Fire Department.

Over the last 9 years, Chief Bartee has been steadfast in his leadership in overseeing 130 firefighters in the department.

During his tenure as fire chief, Rick also performed the duties of Incident Support Team Leader of the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force. Chief Bartee's expertise in specialized training and disaster relief has truly brought invaluable knowledge and experience to the region.

Chief Bartee's lifetime dedication to service and public safety will leave a longstanding legacy, as his selfless leadership will benefit the Roseville area for many, many years to come.

The unwavering commitment to the public and leadership by example of people like Chief Rick Bartee ensures the Roseville area will remain a wonderful and safe place to live.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, it is a great honor and privilege to recognize Roseville Fire Chief Rick Bartee for his career in public service. I join the Roseville community in wishing him the very best in retirement.

Optimism for California

Mr. Speaker, near the beginning of last year, I rose on the floor of this House to say a few words about my home State of California and how it was on potentially a path back to sanity, and how that opportunity lay ahead of us.

The reason for that optimism was that there were two potential policy changes then being considered that could set our State on an entirely new course when it comes to the key issues of public safety and homelessness.

California voters were about to consider Proposition 36, an initiative to make crime illegal again in California by largely reversing the disastrous proposition known as Prop 47.

Then there was a case before the United States Supreme Court, which I wrote an amicus brief for, called the Grants Pass case that would potentially liberate our communities from a Ninth Circuit decision that made it virtually impossible for them to clear out homeless encampments.

These two opportunities together presented a path back to law and order,

sanity and livability in California, especially in our major cities. Of course, we were victorious on both counts.

With respect to Prop 36, despite the Governor, the supermajority doing everything they possibly could to stop it from passing, California voters gave it a smashing victory, almost 70 percent of the vote, passing it in each and every one of California's 58 counties.

The U.S. Supreme Court in the Grants Pass case overturned the Ninth Circuit's existing Boise decision and said that our communities once again have the ability to regulate encampments and to stop homeless from camping in our parks, on our sidewalks, around schools, and in our public spaces.

I am very pleased at this point to be able to say that the prediction as to the potentially transformative nature of these changes that I made back then is turning out to be true. I want to cite just a few examples today of how the passage of Prop 36 and the decision in Grants Pass are already serving to turn California around.

Here are just a few recent headlines. From KRON San Francisco: Fremont police credit Prop 36 for nine shoplifting arrests.

CBS San Francisco: Petaluma theft suspects arrested, one with prior convictions subject to Prop 36 charges.

KTLA-TV in Los Angeles: Man charged with drug possession now facing consequences of recently passed Prop 36.

From the San Francisco Examiner: Shoplifter at Brawley Walmart faces jail because Prop 36 passed.

KTLA-TV in Los Angeles: Southern California woman facing enhanced charges with Prop 36 now in effect.

Victorville Daily Press: San Bernardino County theft suspects face potential increased penalties under Prop 36.

KXTV Sacramento: Folsom police arrest 30 people in retail theft sting, including two with possible Prop 36.

KRON, San Francisco: San Francisco DA files charges in city's first Prop 36 case.

KXTV Sacramento: Crackdown on retail theft continues after passage of Prop 36.

KCRA Sacramento: Yuba City police say man caught stealing packages will face felony charges, citing Prop 36.

The list goes on and on. One sting operation resulted in 110 arrests of people who will now finally face consequences because crime is once again illegal in California. Keep in mind, the law has only been in effect now for a few weeks.

There was even an example where there was dash cam footage of a suspect who had been arrested and then was surprised to learn that stealing was once again a felony in California and expressed dismay about these new laws.

Let this serve as a public service announcement to potential thieves in California that crime is illegal once again in our State, and there will be consequences for criminal activity.

On top of that, in the wake of the Grants Pass decision on homelessness, we have seen a number of communities actually start to clean up encampments and to reclaim their public spaces.

For example, in Stockton, homeless under an overpass were given 72 hours' notice of a clearing and were notified they would be arrested if they refused to leave.

In San Francisco, multiple clearings are now occurring every day. Much of the debris being removed, by the way, is either drugs or human waste.

In San Jose, around 100 people were removed from the airport.

In Santa Ana, homeless were cleared from private railroads, and five were arrested. It turns out the arrestees had prior convictions for drugs and murder.

In L.A., 50 to 60 people were removed from a beach and healthcare workers arrived with police to assist with any medical issues the homeless were having.

The benefits of this are twofold. Number one, it is restoring a sense of order to our public spaces so that people feel safe going there again, so they don't serve to spawn further criminal activity; and, number two, it is giving us an opportunity to get homeless individuals into shelters, get a roof over their heads, and get them the help that they need.

With these two developments, with crime now being illegal again in California and with our communities reclaiming our public spaces, I am more optimistic about our State's future than I have been in a very long time. I can tell that the people of California are truly ready to move our State in a new direction.

California Legislature Special Session

Mr. Speaker, as we speak, the California legislature has gaveled in a special emergency session of its legislature. You might say, well, of course they have, L.A. is burning to the ground right now.

However, it turns out that is not actually what this special session is about. No, no. The legislature has gaveled into a special session called by Gavin Newsom to provide millions of dollars in funding for filing lawsuits against the incoming Trump administration. That is what their priority is at this very moment.

Mr. Speaker, there could not be a starker illustration of the abject political failure that has gotten our State to this point and that has served to bring about the horrifying scenes that the whole country is seeing on their television sets right now and that folks in Los Angeles are suffering through.

I want to go over a few of the failures that have gotten us to this point, but I do want to say first that my prayers are with the people in L.A., the victims of this horrifying apocalyptic set of fires, with over 100,000 people under evacuation orders, with at least five--sadly, probably more--people who have lost their lives and their families, and with our firefighters and first responders who are working around the clock doing everything they possibly can to get this blaze under control.

I am truly grateful for all of the communities in California and across the entire country that have come together to try to help the L.A. area in this hour of dire need. It is appreciated beyond measure, and I thank them.

After we do manage to get the fire under control, there are going to be a lot of questions that need answering. Indeed, even though we don't know the specific cause of each fire, we can already identify the failures that we know have contributed to these conflagrations, these catastrophic events that have hit our communities time and time again.

Our politicians have obsessed over things like banning lawnmowers, banning leaf blowers, all the while neglecting our forests and leaving our communities vulnerable. In fact, when it comes to the forests, it is worse than neglect. The State and, frankly, the Federal Government have put up unnecessary hurdles to doing proper forest management, to clearing vegetation, to doing prescribed burns, which has turned many of our forests and areas adjoining residential areas in many cases into tinderboxes and caused fires that have in many cases become truly catastrophic, community-destroying events, and we have seen it happen, sadly, time and time again.

The perversity of it all is that these restrictions on being able to manage our forests--which have decimated the timber industry, by the way--are imposed in the name of the environment, but nothing could be worse for the environment than a catastrophic wildfire.

Indeed, when you look at all of the emissions that are saved by every single emissions reduction program that California has, all of that gets wiped out many times over when you have a catastrophic wildfire, so there simply could not be a more backwards policy.

In fact, last year, in the fall, a decision was made to halt prescribed burns. Now, we don't yet know if that would have made a difference here, but we do know that the lack of doing prescribed burns in a systematic, efficient, and timely way has contributed to this problem.

To make matters worse, Governor Newsom, when he came into office, started claiming that he was doing forest management, but he wasn't telling the truth. An investigation by Capital Public Radio, the local NPR affiliate, found that Newsom had exaggerated the amount of forest management work that had been done, the number of acres treated, he had exaggerated that number by a staggering 690 percent.

Our political leaders in California have allowed millions of acres to become overgrown and thereby left our communities in a vulnerable condition.

Not only that their mismanagement of our water supply has, among other things, diminished our capacity to respond to wildfires.

First of all, it has been decades since California has built significant new water storage, not since the State water project. Secondly, even the water that we do have, when it comes down, much of it gets diverted intentionally into the ocean, again, supposedly for environmental reasons.

I can tell you that in 2023, when we had record storms in California, I visited the site of the Folsom Dam, and you had water cascading out of the dam, 10,000 cubic feet per second, almost all of it going eventually into the ocean.

At that time, by the way, we had a flood emergency declared, of course. Yet, somehow we were also still under a drought emergency. Californians were told, you are not allowed to water your lawn. The legislature was passing draconian restrictions on indoor water use to 25, 30 gallons a day.

Businesses were banned from having lawns in front of their property. In some parts of the State, you had to have a low-flow device for your shower head, and then they would punish you if you used too much water when you took a shower, if you didn't take a 5-minute shower.

All the while, we are sending staggering amounts of water into the ocean, and we are failing to build the storage that would actually catch the water and preserve it for when we need it.

Another example, relevant to the situation in L.A., the California Coastal Commission actually rejected the building of a desalination plant just a couple of years ago.

California, over the course of many years, has, in a political way, chosen to allow its forests to become overgrown and to impose artificial scarcity on its water supply.

At the same time, our State, and many of our municipalities, such as Los Angeles, have had completely backward priorities and have demonstrated a total failure of just basic competence when it comes to government performance and the provision of services.

That was highlighted very clearly in this case. When you had the Los Angeles Fire Department telling the city, do not deprive us of our funding. Yet, the city decided to do it anyway. The fire department said that the reduction in funding would severely limit the department's capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large- scale emergencies.

As the city council, the mayor, were deciding not to fully fund the fire department, they had plenty of time for things like passing a resolution reaffirming Los Angeles as a sanctuary city. It was already a sanctuary city. It is already a sanctuary State, but they decided that was their priority, not to prepare for the risk of wildfire, not to fully fund the fire department, but to pass another resolution making itself a sanctuary city, yet again.

We will be learning more, I expect, about how it possibly could be that we have fire hydrants that are not working, that water isn't coming out of them, and how we didn't have the necessary personnel on hand despite the high wind conditions. It serves to underline on the one hand the misguided priorities, and on the other, the lack of basic competence.

Additionally, Los Angeles and California, more generally, have continued to lead the Nation in homelessness. California has roughly half the unsheltered homeless in the United States. There is a whole host of reasons that this is not a good thing, but one of them is that encampments tend to lead to a lot of fires.

In fact, in just one year, in 2023 alone, there were almost 14,000 fires related to homelessness. Again, we don't yet know exactly what caused the set of fires that are still ongoing, but we do know that this city has been as bad as any in terms of letting homelessness proliferate, allowing encampments to go unchecked, and, thereby, creating more dangerous conditions for its residents because of the risk of fire.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I will point out that California has an insurance crisis that has been growing and growing and growing, year after year after year, and our State's political leaders have simply allowed it to happen.

They have done not nearly enough to mitigate the risk of fire that is the underlying cause of the increased rates. They have done essentially nothing until recently to stabilize the situation, to stabilize the markets. As a result, you have insurers that have now pulled out of the State entirely, and millions of people are losing coverage.

In my district, we have whole communities where everyone has lost coverage, and they are kicked to the California FAIR Plan, forced to pay three times as much, four times as much, five times as much as they were paying before. The FAIR Plan is now on the verge of collapse, accounting for the absolutely catastrophic losses that we are seeing in Los Angeles.

Mr. Speaker, what is happening and is still ongoing, sadly, in Los Angeles is a truly unimaginable tragedy in terms of the images that we are seeing, in terms of the dislocation that it is causing. I expect that we will learn that, at least to an extent, it was an avoidable one.

This should serve as a major wake-up call that our State needs to start doing things differently, that we need to get back to basics. We need to get back to basics in California: Build our roads; manage our forests; store our water; maintain our grid; fund our police and our fire departments; do the things government is supposed to do, do them well, and do nothing else.

If we can get back to basics as a State, then we can stop catastrophes like this from happening in the future. Perhaps someday, in the not too distant future, we can start leading the Nation in the right ways again.

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 3 o'clock and 37 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, January 13, 2025, at noon for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Never Again Education Reauthorization Act of 2023, a bill of which I am a cosponsor.

For years now at college campuses, we have seen an alarming rise in anti-Semitism that in far too many cases was allowed by university faculty administration, sometimes even encouraged.

Even though this trend has been years in the making, nothing could have prepared us for the horrifying scenes that we have seen over the last year, ever since the attack of October 7 where these tendencies and this rise in anti-Semitism came out into the open.

We saw scenes unlike anything we ever thought we would see in this country. You had students setting up checkpoints on campuses and saying that if you are a Jewish student, you are not allowed to pass. You had encampments set up for the specific purpose of harassing Jewish students and extracting anti-Semitic concessions from faculty that in some cases were, in fact, agreed to.

Our committee, the Education and the Workforce Committee, began an investigation into these incidents. We brought in university presidents, some of whom are now former university presidents. We heard from students who lived through this horror and who no longer feel safe on their own campuses.

This culminated in a report that laid out exactly what has been going on at campuses across this country. This alarming normalization of anti-Semitism in higher education must not continue. It demands swift, decisive action, and the Never Again Education Act responds to this crisis.

The bill reauthorizes funding for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to develop and distribute educational resources on the Holocaust, how it happened, and why it must never happen again.

These tools equip educators to combat prejudice, apathy, and complicity. It empowers students to recognize anti-Semitism, reject its resurgence, and to see an echo of our most painful history when it occurs.

By passing this legislation, we will assure that ignorance does not prevail, and I encourage a strong bipartisan vote to assure that it is passed into law.

Mr. Speaker, I am truly grateful that today the House is taking up my legislation to honor a truly extraordinary constituent of mine whom we lost earlier this year.

My bill would rename the Auburn VA facility after Grass Valley resident and World War II veteran Lieutenant Commander Lou Conter.

It is notable that in order to advance this legislation, we actually had to get the signatures of each and every member of the California congressional House delegation. That is 52 people who came together and all signed on to this bill. I think it speaks to what a true American hero Lou Conter was.

He was, in fact, the last survivor of the attack on the USS Arizona during Pearl Harbor. On that fateful day in 1941, Commander Conter heroically evacuated shipmates who were blinded, wounded, or burned, even restraining some of his fellow shipmates from jumping overboard into the burning sea. Then, on the day after the attack, he helped in recovering bodies and putting out fires.

Lou Conter's heroic actions saved the lives of many of his shipmates. Not only that, but he also continued to serve our country for decades following Pearl Harbor. He flew over 200 combat missions.

On one of those missions, Commander Conter would be awarded with the Distinguished Flying Cross for actively taking part in the rescue of 219 Australians trapped by Japanese troops in New Guinea.

He later served in the Korean war and retired from the Navy in 1967 after 23 years as a lieutenant commander. He resided in Grass Valley, California, until his death earlier this year at the age of 102.

Lieutenant Commander Conter dedicated his life to the service of others and sacrifice for our country. His courage, along with that of so many from the Greatest Generation, has left an indelible mark on our country and defined our national character in so many ways.

Following his passing this last April, there really could be no better way to honor Lieutenant Commander Conter and his enduring legacy than naming a veterans healthcare facility in his honor.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Bost for his work on this legislation as well, and I look forward to seeing it pass with unanimous bipartisan support.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate California State officials, as tomorrow is the big day when the State's election results will be certified--tomorrow, December 13.

Of course, I say this in jest. There is absolutely no congratulations in order for finalizing election results 5 weeks after the election.

Because of California's glacial pace of counting votes, several races for Congress and the State legislature remain unresolved weeks following the November 5 election, not to mention countless local races--city council, school board, board of supervisors. Candidates had to wait in torturous suspense, unable to effectively begin a transition if they were on their way in or make plans for another job if they were on their way out.

Just to give you a sense of what folks who are waiting on election results had to go through, they would have to wait for these batches of votes to be unveiled maybe once a week, maybe twice a week, maybe three times a week, depending on the county, maybe hundreds of votes at a time.

Then you had to ask: What kinds of votes is it that are being counted right now? Is it the late absentee votes? Is it the voting center votes? Is it the drop box votes? Is it the provisional ballots? Is it conditional ballots? Is it cured ballots?

What do I mean by cured ballots? Well, you are familiar with precinct walking where you go out and knock on doors to try to convince people to vote for you. In California, that actually happens after the election, as well, because if signatures are deemed not to match the voter file, then there is an added amount of time to submit a new signature to cure your ballot. People actually go door to door saying that we need to get you to sign again to cure this ballot.

California also allows for votes that arrive at elections offices to be counted up to a week after the election. Folks who are on the ballot and their families and their supporters and everyone else are watching this process with tabs left open on their computer for different counties, having to wait to find out whether they have won or lost their race.

The implications go much further than those who are on the ballot because for a time, the entire balance of power here in Washington was left in doubt with control of the House of Representatives in doubt because of California's extremely slow vote counting.

Imagine if California were a swing State. The Presidential election could remain undecided for a month after election day. We could relive the 2000 recount experience every single election.

Adding to the absurdity, the California State Legislature actually began its new session, swearing in new Members on December 2. These are both in State law. We are going to swear in our new Members on December 2, but we are going to finish counting votes on December 13.

This farce has made California a national laughingstock. It is one thing to fail at basic governance tasks like building roads, storing water, or keeping the lights on. We should at least be able to expect our government to conduct the elementary arithmetic of tallying ballots on which democracy depends.

As this process dragged on over the last several weeks, you had elections experts and people on all parts of the political spectrum calling for reform in California.

For example, one left-leaning election analyst said this. He said: I always vote straight ticket Democrat, but I will actually vote for any Secretary of State candidate, red or blue, who promises to streamline the election process in California and facilitates getting our ballots counted and reported faster. I am so done, he said, adding that the tabulation process is a joke.

I am working with Congressman Jay Obernolte to set clear deadlines for counting votes. For example, 90 percent have to be counted within 3 days of the election. This will force State officials to make the necessary changes to meet those deadlines in a way that every other State, by the way, has already done. All 49 other States, red or blue, managed to count their votes much faster and more confidently than California.

This is a necessary change to restore trust in our election process, and I look forward to getting this legislation passed and signed into law in time for the 2026 election.

Ending Federal Funding for California's High-Speed Rail Project

Mr. Speaker, this week I announced legislation to end all Federal funding for California's high-speed rail project. This bill will make the project ineligible to receive any Federal funding going forward.

Simply put, it is time to stop throwing good money after bad. Currently, there remains a $100 billion funding shortfall for the train. This is in the estimation of the High-Speed Rail Authority's own officials.

There is no viable plan for making up this gap other than continuing to demand it from taxpayers. There is simply no way to justify further expense to State or Federal taxpayers when even The New York Times reports that the project isn't on track to be completed this century. Not on track to be completed this century.

The billions in Federal funding that have gone to the nonexistent train is all the worse, considering the condition of California's roads and other transportation infrastructure which rank among the very worst in the country. Once we have high-speed rail off the table, we will be able to focus on our real transportation needs when it comes to Federal funds.

We can also abandon the pretense that this is somehow a high-tech, inspirational, visionary enterprise. The reality is that even if the train were to magically spring into existence at this very moment, it would fail to impress.

As we speak, Waymo is providing thousands upon thousands of driverless rides every week in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Tesla has autopilot and self-driving software deployed on millions of vehicles.

When it comes to trains, China is working on one that they expect to be completed this decade that will go 1,000 kilometers per hour. That is three times longer than California's high-speed rail is supposed to go.

We need to stop pretending that the technology of 1990s is somehow futuristic, but we need to plan for the future that truly awaits us. In the meantime, we need to spend tax dollars on things that will actually benefit taxpayers, like drivable roads.

That is why I am introducing this legislation to end California's high-speed rail disaster once and for all.

Honoring the Life and Years of Service of Colonel Joseph Peterburs

Mr. Speaker, I wish to honor and congratulate Colonel Joseph Peterburs, a decorated veteran in Placer County, on his 100th birthday. The great American Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, wrote: ``Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men but is a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.''

The life and actions of Colonel Peterburs not only illustrates the longing for freedom but the dedication of service and sacrifice required to maintain it.

Colonel Peterburs began his service to the defense of the United States as a pilot in World War II. During his deployment in Europe, he was tasked with escorting B-17 bombers and protecting them against enemy aircraft. During World War II, he flew an astounding 49 missions with 269 combat hours.

On April 10, 1945, Colonel Peterburs had to bail out of his aircraft at 300 feet during an air battle. He was burned and injured, then captured and placed in a Nazi prisoner of war camp. Overcoming unimaginable adversity, Colonel Peterburs escaped as the camp was being evacuated by the Germans. He and other escapees temporarily joined a Russian tank unit before being reunited with American Forces.

After World War II, he continued his service to the United States by contributing to the country's defense during the Cold War.

Throughout this period, Colonel Peterburs served in Korea, Vietnam, and Europe. Highly decorated, Colonel Peterburs was awarded the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the POW Medal, the Purple Heart, and many other medals and decorations. He is highly respected by his family and members in the community for his courage, resilience, and selflessness.

It is a true honor to represent heroes like Colonel Peterburs in Congress. He is a living testament to the American spirit, patriotism, and embodies the sacrifices made by those who have served our country.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am honored to celebrate Colonel Joe Peterburs not only for his centennial birthday but also for the life he has led in years of service to the United States of America and its citizens.

Honoring Outgoing Roseville City Councilmember Scott Alvord

Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize outgoing Roseville City Councilmember Scott Alvord for his years of devoted service to the Roseville area community.

Councilmember Alvord has been a leader in the local business community for nearly four decades and has served the Roosevelt City Council for the last 8 years.

Councilmember Alvord earned his bachelor's degree in computer science at Pacific Union College and went on to earn a master's degree in business administration from California State University, Sacramento.

While an undergraduate, he founded Advanced Development Concepts, LLC, a business consulting company which is headquartered in Roseville.

Prior to his service on the Roseville City Council, Scott represented the local business community by serving as president of the Downtown Roseville Merchants for nearly a decade.

Councilmember Alvord's business expertise and devotion to service proved essential in his advocacy for the revitalization of downtown Roseville, as his leadership prompted integrating infrastructure into the area, allowing for economic and recreational growth and prosperity.

This experience, alongside his time as a city councilmember, helped Scott Alvord impart his knowledge to the next generation of business students as an adjunct business professor at Jessup University.

In his tenure as city councilmember, Scott Alvord was steadfast in his commitment to public safety. His efforts to support full staffing of both Roseville's Police and Fire Departments were accomplished in conjunction with his vital work in the development of Roseville Fire Station 8 and expanding the Roosevelt Police beat.

Additionally, Scott promoted regional recreation and well-being. He facilitated the introduction of 25 new parks, enabling greater health, recreation, and leisure for the community.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Councilmember Alvord established the Roosevelt Volunteer Force where he assembled and mobilized over 2,000 volunteers who selflessly heeded the call of hundreds of service requests from those in need.

It is because of the leadership and example of people like Scott Alvord that Roosevelt remains such a great place to live, work, raise a family, and retire.

Scott Alvord's commitment to service in Roosevelt leaves a well- established legacy as his influence provides enduring support to the region.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, it is an honor and privilege to acknowledge Roseville City Councilmember Scott Alvord for his career in public service, and I join the people of Roseville in wishing Scott the very best in his next chapter.

Recognizing Nevada County Supervisor Ed Scofield

Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize the retiring Nevada County Supervisor for District 2, Ed Scofield, for his lifelong commitment to service to Nevada County.

Ed was born and raised in Grass Valley, graduating from Nevada Union High School and Sierra College, and has been devoted to serving the region for the past five decades.

In 1975, Ed began his career in public service in the city of Grass Valley when he was elected to the city council. In 1982, he began his tenure as CEO of Nevada County Fairgrounds, a position he held for 26 years. Ed's leadership was felt in the region as he helped the fairgrounds to become visible as one of the top ten outstanding rural fairs in the United States.

He served as president of the Western Fairs Association in 1996 and was later inducted into Western Fair's Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Nevada County Fair's Hall of Fame in 2009.

Ed served as a community leader in several other significant roles, building teamwork and promoting positive recreation of the youth in the region as president of the Grass Valley Little League, engaging with the business community as a former president of the Grass Valley/Nevada Chamber of Commerce, and putting service above self as a president and leader of the Rotary Club of Grass Valley South.

Ed was elected to the Nevada County Board of Supervisors in 2008, further exemplifying his dedication to public service.

Supervisor Scofield consistently exhibited thorough fiscal responsibility in his supervisorial duties of financial reporting and budget allocation for the entire county.

Ed was an advocate for the housing and business industry within the region and also focused on transportation by supporting improvements for the Highway 49 corridor and for his entire district.

Moreover, throughout Supervisor Scofield's tenure on the board, he served on the California State Association of Counties as Nevada County's representative, taking on a role of fiscal leadership by serving as the treasurer on its executive committee.

The lifelong commitment to service and leadership of inspirational individuals like Supervisor Ed Scofield ensures that Nevada County is an amazing place to live, to work, to raise a family, and to retire. The impressive legacy Ed built in his career will be felt for years and will continue to benefit Nevada County.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, it is an honor to recognize Supervisor Ed Scofield for his life of service to the people of Nevada County, and it is a privilege to join the Grass Valley area in sending him my best wishes for a happy retirement.

Congratulating Google Quantum AI

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate Google Quantum AI on an astonishing accomplishment in the field of quantum computing. Its new Willow chip performed a computation that is truly mind-boggling, that is otherworldly, literally otherworldly, according to some. On the performance benchmark known as random circuit sampling, it performed a computation in under 5 minutes that would take one of today's fastest supercomputers 10 to-the-25th years. That is 10 septillion years. You can see the number here, 10, followed by 25 zeros, years. By the way, that is way longer than the age of the universe. That is how long it would take one of today's fastest supercomputers to perform the calculation that the Willow chip did in 5 minutes.

The chip was built in California in Santa Barbara as part of Google Quantum AI's goal of: Building a useful, large-scale quantum computer that can harness quantum mechanics--the operating system of nature--to benefit society by scientific discovery, developing helpful applications, and tackling some of society's greatest changes.

How do they do it?

The key breakthrough here was something known as exponential quantum error correction. One of the major challenges to making a viable quantum computer has been the issue of errors, which occur when the units of computation, known as qubits, exchange information with their environments and that contaminates the information that is actually needed for a computation.

The problem with building a quantum computer is that when you add more qubits, you get more errors and you lose the special quantum quality that can be so powerful if properly harnessed.

What is truly amazing about the Willow system is that the opposite has occurred. The more qubits that are used, the fewer errors there are. Indeed, as the grid of qubits scaled up in tests, there was actually an exponential decline in errors. This breakthrough has brought practical applications of quantum computing within sight.

It has been recognized for some time now that probably the two most world-changing technologies in development right now are AI and quantum computing, but they have sort of been proceeding at a different pace, at a different level of visibility.

AI is already transforming the world around us. We have hundreds of millions of people around the world using LLM, chatbots, and other systems. We have AI-powered driverless cars and countless other applications.

We have new releases from the leading labs every day. Indeed, Google released several new offerings just in the last few days when it comes to AI and Gemini, which is its LLM. ChatGPT, or OpenAI, is in the middle of a 12 days of Christmas, where they do a new release every day.

People can see the progress that is happening with AI before our eyes. Whereas the work in quantum computing has been done in labs in Santa Barbara, what they call the coldest place in the world because of the conditions they have to have there to try to make advances and to perform tests.

We haven't yet reached the stage of practical application, but that could be changing soon. Indeed, you could start to see where these two fields, quantum computing and AI, intersect in truly spectacular ways.

I was intrigued by the words of Hartmut Neven, who is the founder of Google Quantum AI and actually worked in AI before. He was asked why it is that he changed fields. He said this: My answer is that both will prove to be the most transformational technologies of our time, but advanced AI will significantly benefit from access to quantum computing, noting that quantum algorithms have fundamental scaling laws on their side and this allows for the modeling of systems where quantum effects are important.

Some of the applications that he cites are helping us to discover new medicines, designing more efficient batteries, and accelerating progress in fusion and new energy alternatives.

I think that this is important, for those of us who are here in Congress making policy, to be mindful of extraordinary developments like this because we need to be attending not just to the needs of the present but also thinking about the future.

Based on exciting developments like the one Google Quantum AI has just announced, there is every reason to expect that the future may look very different in many ways than it does right now. It behooves all of us to start thinking about how we start to prepare for it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to report that the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency has homed in on perhaps the single-greatest example of government waste in United States history, and that is California's high-speed rail boondoggle.

Here are the facts that the DOGE X handle cited, all of which are true.

The high-speed rail project was originally projected in 2008 to cost $33 billion. It is now projected to cost up to $127.9 billion.

Its estimated completion date was 2020. Of course, we are past 2020 now. As of 2024, zero passengers have been transported. Indeed, the majority of the system has not even been fully designed, yet it has received $6.8 billion in Federal funds, and they are requesting an additional $8 billion in Federal funds.

In short, the cost has quadrupled, and nothing has been built. Actually, I am being a little bit unfair. There was an announcement earlier this year in May where the High-Speed Rail Authority, which really has to strain to come up with milestones to advertise to the public--there was a lot of hoopla surrounding the unveiling of an $11 billion bridge to nowhere that took 9 years to build, which is about the only thing that the High-Speed Rail Authority has to show for its efforts over the last 16 years.

A few years ago, The New York Times did an expose, reporting that at the current pace, the high-speed rail project will not be completed this century. I actually asked Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg whether he agreed with The New York Times' assessment. He said that, yes, it will be completed this century, although I gave him several opportunities to give his own estimation of when it will be completed and he declined to do so.

To give you a sense of how bad things are, in the early days of the project, the lead operator abandoned the project to go build a rail system in North Africa because they said that it was less politically dysfunctional there than in California. That operator, by the way, brought a high-speed train online in Morocco in 2018.

High-speed trains are not impossible to build. Californians and Americans travel abroad, and they ride them. They ask why we can't have them here. It is just impossible in California because of stratospheric levels of political incompetence.

Indeed, the head of the California High-Speed Rail Authority testified last year that the project is $100 billion short in funding. In spite of all the billions that have been poured in by California taxpayers and through Federal support, there is still a funding gap of $100 billion.

This was the former head of the California High-Speed Rail Authority because they have since gotten a new one, and they are now up to five CEOs throughout the life of the project. The number of CEOs outnumber the number of passengers five to zero.

What are some of the things that some of these past leaders of the high-speed rail project have had to say about it? Well, you can ask Michael Tennenbaum, who was the first chairman of the California High- Speed Rail Authority. He said, ``I realized the system didn't work. . . . I don't know how they can build it now.''

There is also Dan Richard, the longest serving chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, who said, ``I don't think it is an existing project. It is a loser.''

Rich Tolmach, the head of the California Rail Foundation, said, ``It will never be operable.''

Former Governor of California Jerry Brown, perhaps the biggest supporter of the project, has derided opponents of the train as small- minded people, but this is an incredibly small-minded project. In fact, it is a nonexistent project at this point in time.

Even if built, even if the high-speed train magically materializes by the end of the decade, it will still be yesterday's technology.

China, right now, is working on a train that they are planning to complete by the end of the decade that will go up to a 1,000 kilometers per hour. At this point, it is past time to stop throwing good money after bad. We should end all Federal support for the high-speed rail project because that Federal support is keeping the project on life support, and is then forcing California taxpayers to continue to pay billions and billions of dollars more.

Meanwhile, our roads are among the very worst in the country despite us paying the highest taxes in the country. That is the very definition, by the way, of inefficiency, when you pay the most and get the least in return.

The high-speed rail, in short, is a staggering waste of taxpayer dollars that fails to meet the transportation needs of either today or tomorrow. I look forward to working with the new DOGE commission and my colleagues here in the House to see that we bring this boondoggle to an end once and for all.

Protecting California's Values

Mr. Speaker, this last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom called a special emergency session of the legislature for the purpose of Trump proofing California or protecting California values.

There is a question of whether this session is even legal given that the State constitution allows for a special session to be called under extraordinary circumstances, and you might wonder whether the result of a dually conducted Presidential election could truly constitute extraordinary circumstance.

More than that, it is clearly a farce despite the Governor's claims that this is an emergency situation. It was such an emergency that they gaveled in for about an hour and then went home for a month without passing any legislation.

We should just examine the Governor's claim that we need to protect California values, protect the status quo in California against any forces of reform that may be coming from Washington, D.C.

What exactly is the Governor aiming to protect? Is it California's national lead when it comes to homelessness, the fact we have half the unsheltered homeless in the entire country? Is that what Governor Newsom is aiming to protect?

Is it our poverty rate that is the highest in the Nation? Is he looking to protect our lead when it comes to poverty? When it comes to retail crime, does he want to maintain the number one record for the worst retail crime in the country?

Does he want to maintain the number one spot when it comes to antibusiness regulations, or when it comes to frivolous lawsuits, or when it comes to unemployment.

Actually, we are now only the second worst in the country when it comes to unemployment, so perhaps his protective measures are aiming to get us back in the lead.

Is he looking to protect our standing as the worst State in the country when it comes to an increase in wages--wages have stagnated in California more than any State in the country--or when it comes to restrictions on workers and the right to earn a living?

Is he looking to make sure that California maintains its lead in gas prices, well above the price of gas in any of the other 49 States? Well, we know he is looking to do that because his own car board just passed regulations that are going to raise gas prices about 60 cents a gallon more.

Is he looking to protect our standing as number two in the country in housing costs; number two in the country in water bills; number three in the country in energy and electricity costs; number three in the country in inequality; number one in the country when it comes to income taxes? He certainly wants to protect California's lead in that respect.

Does he want to protect our budget deficit which was reported last year as number one in the country; or our standing third in the country in road disrepair; or maybe it is the fact that California has the highest illiteracy rate in the entire country?

Perhaps that is the value that Governor Newsom is aiming to protect. Or relatedly, the fact that we are second out of the 50 States when it comes to educational inequity.

If we were still in the COVID days, he would certainly be looking to protect our national lead when it came to school shutdowns, business shutdowns, and COVID mandates. We know that he is looking to protect our national lead when it comes to illegal border crossings for the first time since the nineties. Over the last year, the highest level of illegal border crossings have been in the San Diego border sector because he stood by California's standing as a sanctuary State.

When it comes to funding for illegal immigrants, surely he is looking to protect our lead there as California is the only State in the country that is offering free Medicaid to those who are here unlawfully. Most certainly we know the Governor is looking to extend California's four-peat in leading the Nation in one-way U-Haul rentals and is looking through his protective special session, I am sure, to make that a five-peat.

No, Mr. Speaker, California values, as Governor Newsom envisions them, do not need protecting, and I would argue they are not actually the values of Californians. What we are seeing happen in our State is that Californians themselves are looking to Newsom-proof California.

That has been happening in my district for quite some time where we have developed a different model; where we support law enforcement, where we support small businesses, and where we believe in respecting the personal decisions of folks in our community.

As a result, we are one of the few areas of the State that people are actually moving to. By all of these metrics that I just mentioned, we are doing much better than the State as a whole.

However, we are seeing Newsom-proofing measures taking hold, not just in my district, but across California. For evidence of this, look at the overwhelming passage of Prop 36 on the ballot this November. This was a measure to make crime illegal again in California. It largely rolled back the notorious Proposition 47.

Gavin Newsom, and I might add the leaders of the supermajority in the legislature, fought it every step of the way. He concocted several schemes to un-Democratically remove it from the ballot even after it qualified through a citizen petition process.

Then he led the ``no'' on Prop 36 campaign. Yet, at the end of the day, it passed in an overwhelming victory, nearly 70 percent of the vote, an overwhelming majority: Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. It passed in all 58 counties, wasn't close anywhere, even passed in Newsom's hometown of San Francisco.

Mr. Speaker, California is now on a path back to sanity, and I have great hope for the future of our State. Frankly, I think that the Governor's attempts to get himself in the headlines and whatever theatrics may be coming are not going to stand in our way of getting our State moving in the right direction.

Recognizing Michael Lee

Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize retiring Placer County Water Agency Board Member Michael R. Lee for his more than 40 years of dedicated public service.

Mr. Lee began his career in government in 1972 at just 27 years of age. He served as a Placer County board supervisor for 16 years before moving into his role as director of the Placer County Water Agency where he served for 27 years.

Not only did Mr. Lee work as a government official, but he also owned and operated his own businesses, including the Villa Market and the Loomis Travel Agency.

He demonstrated his unwavering commitment to the community by serving in a variety of local, regional, and national organizations, boards, and commissions, including the Loomis Chamber of Commerce, South Placer Heritage Foundation, Sierra Planning Council, and the National Association of Counties to name a few.

Throughout his career, he played a pivotal role in improving transportation, law enforcement, fire protection, water resources, and community welfare programs in the region.

Mr. Lee achieved a wide diversity of accomplishments to improve the quality of life and experiences for the residents, businesses, and visitors of Placer County. One particularly noteworthy accomplishment was his leadership in the development of the Twelve Bridges project and expansion of the corresponding PCWA canal system for this new community.

His efforts with this project significantly contributed to the vibrancy and transformation of the city of Lincoln. It is because of the devoted efforts of people like Mike Lee that Placer County is such a great place to live, work, and to raise a family.

As a pillar in our communities, he is known by others as one who exhibits diligence, honor, integrity, thoughtfulness, and wisdom in his work, and an unwavering commitment to the people of Placer County.

I am confident that Mr. Lee's exceptional contributions to the community, local business, and local government, and the legacy he built within those spheres will continue to benefit the county for many years to come.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am honored to recognize Mr. Michael Lee for his four decades of dedicated leadership, and I join the Placer community in wishing him the very best in his retirement.

Roseville Boy Scout Troop 11 100-Year Anniversary

Mr. Speaker, I wish to mark and celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Boy Scout Troop 11, located in Roseville, California.

Troop 11 was first chartered in 1924 by American Legion Post 169, and it is the oldest continuing Boy Scout troop in Roseville.

It is a scout-run, leader-mentored, and parent-supported troop that focuses on personal growth, leadership development, and community outreach.

One core tenet of Troop 11 is the ``good turn'' concept, which helps Scouts grow as they participate in community service projects and provide acts of good and kindness toward others.

Troop 11 is involved in a variety of local projects, including giving aid during times of emergency, hosting community events such as pancake breakfasts and the crab and spaghetti feeds, as well as retiring worn U.S. flags to name a few.

Groups like Boy Scout Troop 11 play an integral role in developing self-reliance and community building, preparing the youth who participate to become the leaders of tomorrow. Their commitment to excellence of character and tenacity to build a better world is inspiring to all those around them.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am honored to recognize Roseville Boy Scout Troop 11 for reaching this significant milestone, their centennial celebration.

Recognizing Elaine Andersen

Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize retiring Folsom City Manager Elaine Andersen for her years of dedication to serving the Folsom community.

Elaine's career to public service to the people of Folsom, the Sacramento area, and the State of California spans over three decades, while serving as Folsom city manager for the last 6 years.

Prior to her service to the city of Folsom, Elaine Andersen enjoyed an eminent career in numerous roles working for the city of Sacramento and the State of California, as well as in public affairs, specializing in legislative projects for the private sector.

She began her nearly 20 years of service in the city of Folsom as a special projects manager and would go on to dutifully serve in a wide array of roles as acting director for various departments, deputy city manager, and assistant city manager, all of which contributed to the prosperity of the Folsom community.

Elaine's commitment to public service was fostered in her studies as she received her bachelor of arts degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Elaine's experience and knowledge combined with her love for the city of Folsom enabled her to excel in her tenure as Folsom city manager. She demonstrated exceptional leadership managing a staff of over 400 workers across multiple departments and an annual budget exceeding $250 million.

She successfully helped facilitate the development and construction of Fire Station 34, improving the public safety of the region, as well as the beautiful Prospector Park to promote public recreation and well- being.

Elaine's ability to collaborate with multiple facets of the community, including local businesses, city council, and the hundreds of staff she leads ensured that Folsom remains a great place to live, raise a family, and conduct business.

Elaine has also been successful in securing Folsom City Council's adoption of the first strategic plan in many years. This plan established guidelines for the city to ensure a continued commitment to financial stability and sustainability, public safety and infrastructure, economic and community development, and organizational effectiveness to best prepare for the future while seizing current opportunities.

Elaine Andersen has truly embodied what it means to be a public servant. I am certain her life's work of service to her community will leave a longstanding legacy as her impact will benefit the region for years to come.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, it is an honor and a privilege to acknowledge Folsom City Manager Elaine Andersen for her career of exemplary leadership and public service. I join the Folsom community in wishing her the very best in her retirement.

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

Madam Speaker, today, I am announcing new legislation that is of great importance to the future of space exploration.

My bill will elevate the Office of Commercial Space Transportation as an independent entity within the Department of Transportation. It will remove it from the jurisdiction and the auspices of the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration.

This is actually the way the office was originally set up when it was created in 1984, but in the mid-nineties, it was folded into the FAA. That was never a good fit. It was never really what the FAA was designed to do, and the commercial space industry is a dramatically different enterprise today than it was in the mid-nineties, than it even was just a few years ago.

This is a commonsense reform that, in fact, has been endorsed by the FAA's own Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee, which unanimously recommended removing the Office of Commercial Space Transportation from the FAA and making it its own independent entity that reports directly to the Secretary of the Department of Transportation.

This will remove a layer of bureaucracy that has proven to be very problematic when it comes to innovation in space. It was underscored very dramatically just last month when the world witnessed the extraordinary scene captured in this photograph, when the launch of flight 5 for SpaceX's Starship, which is the most powerful rocket ever built, resulted in the booster being returned to the launch site and being caught in this tower without the use of landing legs or anything like that, using the Mechazilla chopstick arms.

This booster, by the way, has 33 of what are called Raptor engines. Each one of those 33 engines has twice as much thrust as the engines of a Boeing 747. It is truly an awe-inspiring amount of force, and the scale and power of this space vehicle is truly unprecedented. The feat that was accomplished in flight 5 was something that folks didn't even think was possible.

By the way, I had the chance to go to flight 6 earlier this week, which was another very successful test for SpaceX and truly something that was remarkable to witness in person.

However, this amazing scene almost didn't happen, or at least wouldn't have happened when it did, because the FAA had tried to hold back the launch. The FAA had come out and said that it was going to depart from the previously announced timeline and was going to delay the launch by months for no good reason at all.

I cross-examined the FAA Administrator about this myself, and he could provide no good reason, certainly no public safety reason, for delaying the launch. He, in fact, came up with bogus reasons that were quickly debunked as false.

Thankfully, the FAA did finally come around and allowed the launch to move forward, but if those initial delays had been allowed to stick, then both flight 5 and flight 6 wouldn't have happened by now.

This all just goes to underscore that the FAA really should not be involved in these matters.

With my legislation, we will get them out of the picture. The Office of Commercial Space Transportation would be housed as an independent entity within the Department of Transportation.

The fact is it should not be more difficult to get the paperwork approved for a launch than it is to actually build and launch the rocket.

This is worth putting in perspective because, in spite of the fact that we have had a redundant and, at times, hostile regulatory regime, we have seen incredible progress in the commercial space industry, in particular by SpaceX, which has given the United States a position of dominance when it comes to space.

In fact, SpaceX, this one company, accounts for well over 90 percent of the mass that is launched into orbit around the world. In fact, just in the last 48 hours, SpaceX has had four different launches from not just Texas, where Starship was launched, but from Florida and California as well. That is unprecedented, four launches in 48 hours. As a point of comparison, the entire continent of Europe has had fewer launches this entire year.

It is truly extraordinary what is being accomplished in spite of regulations and bureaucracies that are attempting to hold us back.

Just imagine, Madam Speaker, what we could accomplish if we actually had our laws and regulations and agencies be on the side of innovation. Just imagine what might be possible.

The dominance that the United States currently has in space is a tremendous national asset, and it is of vital importance in a number of ways when it comes to national security, of course, as well as when it comes to connectivity, bringing the internet to all corners of the globe. I have constituents in Death Valley, which I represent, who use SpaceX's Starlink system. It has also been used by our fire agencies when connectivity is disrupted with wildfires.

They have managed to accomplish all of this in spite of adverse regulations. If we manage to change that paradigm, if we manage to actually have regulations that are designed to encourage those who are innovating to make these seemingly impossible feats be brought somewhat closer or more readily within the bounds of possibility, then it will not only enhance U.S. dominance in space and it will not only further all of those advantages I just mentioned, but I think it will continue to bring folks together around something that is truly inspiring around this common purpose. It will be something that is larger than any of us.

I think that when we witnessed this epic catch of the Starship booster last month, it was really a singular moment, more than any other moment perhaps in decades. It has heralded a new era of space exploration with literally infinite possibilities.

I am truly excited about this. I think it is something that everyone in our country and all across the world can be excited by. I am excited about the new possibilities that will open up when we get this bill passed and signed into law.

Crime Once Again Illegal in California

Madam Speaker, I rise to present some good news from California, which is that crime is, once again, illegal in my home State.

California voters have overwhelmingly passed, with almost 70 percent of the vote, Proposition 36, an initiative to make crime illegal again.

It passed with a higher percentage of the vote than any other initiative on the ballot in California. It passed in each and every one of California's 58 counties, and it wasn't close anywhere. It passed in San Francisco. It passed in L.A.

It passed everywhere across the State, and this was despite the fact that the leaders of the supermajority legislature were against it. It is despite the fact that Governor Gavin Newsom fought the initiative tooth and nail each and every step of the way. Newsom concocted schemes to try to remove the initiative from the ballot. When that failed, he led the campaign against the initiative.

Yet, at the end of the day, California voters overwhelmingly passed it, and

Governor Newsom, for his part, decided to insult the voters. He said that the initiative was a very lazy response to the State's crime problem. He even said that he doesn't recognize the State that he is living in. That is probably a good thing because the State that we have been living in is one where crime has effectively been legalized.

Madam Speaker, if you walk into a store in many parts of California, first of all, on your way into the store, you might have to walk through an open-air drug market or a place where drugs are being openly exchanged and used. You might have to step around needles that are on the ground. This might happen on your way to school, or in a park, or in many other public places.

Then, you go into a store. Let's say it is a CVS, and you just need to get some shampoo or a stick of deodorant. You can't just take it off the shelf and pay, Madam Speaker. It is going to be under lock and key, and you are going to need to press a button or summon an attendant to unlock the cabinet so you can get your stick of deodorant or your bottle of shampoo.

The reason, of course, they are doing that is because the legal system cannot be relied upon to deter crime, so retailers have had to take matters into their own hands. If there is a theft incident, which does actually dramatically reduce the margins of retailers and is driving many out of business in California, there is nothing they can do about it. They just have to watch the person walk out the door with stolen merchandise. Usually, they won't even bother to report it to the authorities because they know nothing is going to happen because the laws on the books are not strong enough to make a prosecution worth going through in most places.

That is why I say that this initiative was designed to make crime illegal again, because currently in the State, there is no consequence for criminal activity, so crime effectively is legal. Proposition 36, which has been overwhelmingly approved by voters, changes that.

First of all, what it does is it restores penalties for those who repeatedly steal merchandise from our stores. Number two is that it restores rehabilitation, mandatory treatment, for those who are repeatedly arrested for drug use. Number three is it toughens penalties for fentanyl dealers, with fentanyl poisoning and overdoses continuing to result in such tragic losses in every community throughout California.

Our State, Madam Speaker, I am happy to report, is on a path back to sanity. For folks around the country who love California, who have considered it the Golden State and are dismayed by what has happened in recent years, this is cause for hope.

Not only that but a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which I wrote an amicus brief for, has restored the ability of our communities to actually remove homeless encampments from public places, which a previous Ninth Circuit decision blocked them from doing. We are already seeing some of our streets getting cleaned up.

Not only that but we just had a couple of the most reckless district attorneys in the country, including George Gascon in Los Angeles, removed from office, so we truly are on a path back to sanity.

I believe it is a new day for California, and I am very excited about the progress that we are going to continue to make in the months and years ahead.

Honoring the Memory of John Hidahl

Madam Speaker, I wish to recognize and honor the memory of a good friend of mine, John Hidahl, the El Dorado County supervisor for District 1, who passed away this month on November 2.

Supervisor Hidahl was an outstanding public servant who served in the El Dorado Hills area for over 40 years, most recently two terms on the board of supervisors.

John was raised in Ceres, California, on the Hidahl family ranch, where he performed farm work as well as driving for his family trucking business.

John's family had been ranching for generations, and beyond his work for the family growing up, he continued the family farming legacy by serving as the chairman of the board of Hidahl Ranch.

During his years at Ceres High School, John earned his Eagle Scout rank at the age of 16. I actually used to see him at every Eagle Scout ceremony I went to in the area. He was always there, a proud Eagle himself, and so proud to recognize and honor the young Eagles as they reached that milestone.

Also in high school, he met his wife of 52 years, Eileen, who is a retired public school teacher.

John studied mechanical engineering at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, which launched his career in the aerospace industry. During these years, he conducted impressive work at Aerojet and Northrop Grumman and excelled at multiple roles, including rocket test engineer, rocket design engineer, director of engineering, and chief systems engineer.

John was propelled by his personal motto of ``Service before self'' to serve his community, guiding his transition to public service. He led his community in various roles. He served on the El Dorado Hills Water District for 33 years, the El Dorado Hills Area Planning Advisory Committee for 36 years, the El Dorado Hills Community Council for 23 years, and the list goes on.

The thorough dedication and leadership shown by John is one of the things that has allowed our region to remain an amazing place to live, learn, work, and raise a family. It has been a true privilege to know John, and I am certain that the impact of his lifelong ``Service before self'' slogan will be felt by the county for many, many years and for generations to come.

During my time in both the State assembly and in Congress, it has been an honor to work alongside Supervisor Hidahl. He truly exemplified what it means to be in public service, and he worked tirelessly to improve the quality of life for all of his constituents.

Therefore, on behalf of California's Third Congressional District and the United States House of Representatives, I extend my heartfelt condolences to John's wife, Eileen; their five daughters, Kathryn, Maureen, Christine, Rachel, and Brittani; and to the many others whose lives John touched in El Dorado County and the neighboring region.

John will be greatly missed, and his legacy will be felt for a long, long time to come.

Celebrating Lake Tahoe Community College's 50th Anniversary

Madam Speaker, I wish to mark and celebrate the 50-year anniversary of Lake Tahoe Community College.

In 1974, the formation of the college was approved, with the official opening of their doors taking place on September 18 of the following year. Now, 50 years later, the Lake Tahoe Community College is a true pillar in the community.

Ranked among the top 20 best community colleges in the country in 2023, Lake Tahoe Community College is an evolving, dynamic academic institution located in the heart of South Lake Tahoe, California.

It is northern California's highest elevation college, and it is a microcosm of the natural beauty of the nearby national treasure, Lake Tahoe.

The college currently serves 7,500 students annually from the local community, neighboring jurisdictions, other States, and even from across the globe.

Their academic programs help students earn terminal degrees, prepare them for transfer to 4-year institutions, and ready them for exciting and fulfilling careers.

Of particular note is the college's career and technical education program, which provides certifications and training with an avenue directly into employment in a variety of important local career paths, such as firefighting with CAL FIRE and forestry protection with the U.S. Forest Service.

In fact, they have had students who have gotten their certifications and have gone right out immediately to help fight against wildfires, providing an incredibly and very much needed service.

The college's dedication to promoting educational opportunities and access to higher learning contributes to a diverse and enthusiastic college environment that inspires scholars through hard work and determination to thrive in their academic and career goals.

The professors, administrators, staff, and board of the college are to be highly regarded for their remarkable leadership, contributions to the Tahoe community, and the instrumental support they provide toward the success of their students.

I am proud to represent exemplary colleges like Lake Tahoe Community College in Congress.

Madam Speaker, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am honored to recognize Lake Tahoe Community College for more than five decades of dedication to academic achievement, empowering individuals, and enriching our community.

Death Valley '49ers

Madam Speaker, I wish to mark and celebrate the 75-year anniversary of the Death Valley '49ers.

For more than seven decades, this volunteer, nonprofit organization has been dedicated to raising public awareness and preserving the history and natural beauty of Death Valley National Park, the Nation's largest conserved desert landscape.

The Death Valley '49ers had its beginning in 1949, when it produced a historical pageant in Death Valley to highlight the spirit of the California pioneers. Since then, the Death Valley '49ers have sponsored an annual encampment each November to celebrate this pioneer spirit and the highly valued national resource of Death Valley.

Through their efforts to both protect the rare desert environment and famed recreational space, this organization has played a pivotal role in educating the public on the history of Death Valley in the settlement of the west.

In addition to sponsoring the annual encampment, they are also involved with a variety of projects that support Death Valley and the surrounding community, including hosting art shows and musical events, providing scholarships and educational opportunities for local students, publishing books and other communications about the park, assisting in renovation projects, spearheading monument and State landmark efforts, and maintaining contact with the Timbisha-Shoshone Tribe.

Their devoted efforts have made a lasting impact in the region, and I am confident that their ongoing contributions will continue to serve the park, visitors, and residents for many generations to come.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am honored to recognize the Death Valley '49ers for their 75 years of commitment to the Death Valley National Park and the history within.

Roseville Housing Authority

Madam Speaker, I wish to mark and celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the Roseville Housing Authority.

The Roseville Housing Authority started providing rental assistance in 1980 and has since directed more than $132 million in Federal funds to those in need who qualify as low-income households for rental assistance.

Acting in conjunction with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Roseville Housing Authority works as the hands that reach out to the local community to make housing assistance both affordable and accountable.

This outreach has expanded as they administer for the city of Rocklin in providing both project-based vouchers and housing choice vouchers. Moreover, in the last decade alone, the Roseville Housing Authority ran the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program, which collaborates with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.

I am proud to say that their work of housing veterans is progressing. In 2021, the Roseville Housing Authority leased the first project-based vouchers in Roseville, which provided lease assistance for households directly from homelessness, and nearly two-thirds were issued to veterans.

The enduring strength and innovation of the Roseville Housing Authority in creating and implementing new housing opportunities was on full display last year when their new landlord incentive program served 140 households and achieved a near-perfect 97 percent lease success rate.

These recent successes provide a short glimpse into the Roseville Housing Authority's dedication to assisting with and initiating housing opportunities in the community.

Their success is consistent and historic, as they have earned the designation of ``High Performer'' by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for decades.

This distinguished and meritorious status is the highest rating the Department can bestow on a public housing agency. The Roseville Housing Authority is and has been among the top public housing authorities in the country.

It is a great honor and privilege to represent pioneering and exceptional organizations such as the Roseville Housing Authority in Congress. Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am honored to recognize the Roseville Housing Authority for 50 years of providing outstanding contributions to our community.

In Recognition of the Retirement of Placer County Board Supervisor Jim

Holmes

Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize retiring Placer County Board Supervisor Jim Holmes, who has served the foothill communities of Placer County, California, for nearly 20 years.

A native to the city of Auburn with long family roots that extend back five generations, Supervisor Holmes attended Placer High School and Sierra College and completed his undergraduate education at Humboldt State University with a bachelor of arts degree.

He worked for nearly 30 years as a manager and owner of a gas station and repair shop, thus setting the stage for his public service based on lessons learned as a small businessman.

Supervisor Holmes is known for being accessible to his constituents, active in the community, and attentive to varying sides of an issue before making a decision he believed to be in the best interests of Placer County citizens. By any measure, Supervisor Jim Holmes has established a tradition of public service in Placer County that sets a marker and an expectation.

He has served faithfully on a wide variety of community boards, commissions, and committees, including: the First Children and Families Commission; Auburn Area Salvation Army Advisory Board; Placer County Consolidated Fire Protection District Board; and, the Placer County Transportation Planning Agency, among others. He was also a founding member of the North Auburn Municipal Advisory Council, as well as the Highway 49 Business Association Board.

During Supervisor Holmes' tenure, he promoted affordable housing projects and programs, improved traffic and highway safety concerns, invested in fire protection and prevention efforts, supported our local public libraries, preserved the agricultural heritage of the area, and enhanced overall services throughout the county.

Supervisor Jim Holmes achieved a wide diversity of accomplishments to improve the quality of life and experiences for residents, businesses, and visitors of Placer County. Some of his particularly noteworthy accomplishments include his contributions toward fully funding the Placer County retirement obligation, bringing Mercy Housing to North Auburn, building the Rocklin Public Library, and leading improvements to Highway 49, just to name a few.

It is because of the leadership and commitment of people like Supervisor Jim Holmes that Placer County is such a great place to live, work, and recreate. I am confident that the legacy he built and the public service he provided will continue to benefit the county for many years to come.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am honored to recognize Supervisor Jim Holmes for the years of dedicated leadership he provided to the people of Placer County, and I wish him all the best in his retirement.

In Recognition of the Retirement of Sacramento County Supervisor Sue

Frost

Madam Speaker, I wish to recognize the retiring Sacramento County supervisor for district 4, Sue Frost, for her years of service to the Sacramento area community.

Supervisor Frost has served the people of the Sacramento area for more than three decades with a career in elected office that spanned 12 years.

Before pursuing her interests in the public sphere, Supervisor Frost held a

distinguished career and made exceptional contributions in both healthcare and business. With a strong foundation in nursing and physical education from Pacific Union College, she became a California certified emergency nurse, showcasing her dedication to community health.

In the business world, she has excelled as a businessowner for 34 years in mortgage lending, consulting, and real estate investments until her retirement in 2014.

Her involvement with the Sacramento Association of Realtors has allowed Supervisor Frost to have an impact on the industry with her vast knowledge and unwavering commitment to the community.

Transitioning to public service, Supervisor Frost impacted our region through extensive service on various boards and associations, including serving as a vice president of the Birdcage Heights Neighborhood Association, vice president of Roseville Parkinson's Support Group, and former president of the Citrus Heights Green Team. Elected to the Citrus Heights City Council in 2012, she served as vice mayor in 2014 and mayor in 2015.

During this period, she championed fiscal discipline, economic growth, and public safety.

As mayor, Supervisor Frost sought regional and economic cooperation and supported nonprofit organizations through key initiatives, such as the Regional Leadership Council, the Community Leadership Conference, and the We Support Veterans celebration, which raised over $10,000 for the Vets Helping Vets Fund.

In January 2017, Supervisor Frost was sworn in to represent district 4 on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors.

Dedicated to engaging with residents across her district, including Orangevale, Folsom, and surrounding communities, Supervisor Frost prioritized engagement with her constituents with continuing community meetings, which allowed residents to interact directly with her and her office.

Furthermore, she showed commitment to supporting county services by working with over 30 departments to foster safe neighborhoods, ensure economic development, advocate for veterans' resources, and protect our quality of life.

It is because of the leadership and commitment of people like Supervisor Sue Frost that our communities are such a great place to live, work, and recreate.

I am confident that the legacy she built and the public service that she provided in so many ways will continue to benefit the county for many, many years to come.

Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am honored to recognize Supervisor Sue Frost for the dedicated leadership and years of service that she provided to the people of Sacramento County, and I join the Sacramento area and all of her constituents in wishing her the very best in her retirement.

In Memory of Robert Hugh ``Bobby'' Tanner

Madam Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I wish to take a moment to honor the memory of Robert Hugh Tanner, known as Bobby, an Inyo County resident and community leader who passed away earlier this year in June.

Bobby Tanner was known by others as an inspiration, a role model, a local legend, a man of integrity, a great ``mule man,'' and a friend to the Eastern Sierra who contributed greatly to his community.

He was born in Inyo County in the city of Bishop in 1959. Bobby was raised working in his family business, the Red's Meadow Resort and Pack Station, where he would lead pack strings into the Sierra Nevada mountains, a way of life that became one of his dearest passions. He graduated from Bishop Union High School in 1978 and went on to earn his degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Bobby owned and operated his own businesses, Tanner Hay Company and Rock Creek Lodge, and eventually became the owner of his family business, Red's Meadow Resort and Pack Station. As a businessman and entrepreneur himself, he maintained a strong commitment to supporting other local small businesses and organizations, contributing to the strength and economic vitality of the region.

He loved the outdoors, which was reflected in his enthusiasm for sports; namely, skiing and football, skills of which led him to mentoring and coaching youth in the local ski and high school football teams.

Bobby placed his heart in the center of the Eastern Sierras and served the community in several capacities. Of particular note were the monumental contributions he and his family made to the famous Bishop Mule Days Celebration, a first-rate mule show and classic Eastern Sierra tradition. As a son to one of the founders of Mule Days, Bobby participated in this event since its inception in 1970, when he was just 10 years old, and served for many years as a member and president of the board later in life. He also played a vital role in recreating and operating the famed Twenty Mule Team, a special historical attraction iconic to Death Valley.

Undoubtedly, Bobby Tanner's many contributions are part of the fabric and fiber of the city of Bishop and surrounding communities, and I am confident that the impact of the remarkable legacy he left will be felt for many generations to come.

Therefore, on behalf of California's Third Congressional District and the United States House of Representatives, I offer my heartfelt condolences to Bobby's mother, Jean; wife, Claudia; son, Bo; sister and brother-in-law Suzanne and Harvey Bertrand; and the countless others whose lives he touched throughout Inyo County and the Eastern Sierra region. Bobby Tanner will be greatly missed.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that frustrates so many Americans is that our government has gotten involved in doing many things that it really shouldn't be doing, so many excessive regulations and outsized bureaucracies. Then, all too often, it fails to competently perform the basic functions the people actually expect from the government and that they are entitled to as taxpayers. The FAFSA fiasco is a very clear example of that.

Every year, high school students across the country fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The FAFSA opens doors for millions of students nationwide, ensuring that postsecondary education is accessible and affordable.

Traditionally, the form is released by October 1, giving students and their families plenty of time to decide what postsecondary option is right for them. Unfortunately, the Department of Education has neglected its core responsibility to these students.

The Department's failure to meet deadlines has created unnecessary uncertainty for students and families already struggling with the college application process, which is already stressful to begin with.

The FAFSA Simplification Act passed in 2020 was supposed to make the application process easier to navigate. The Department was even given an extra year to ensure a smooth rollout of the revised form. However, despite that extended timeline, it failed to deliver on time, and the ones who suffered the most were the students who could least afford it.

The Department knew as early as August 2022 that they would miss the October 1, 2023, deadline but then failed to inform the public. Eight months later, they announced a delay until ``sometime in December,'' and we had to wait until the last day of the year for a so-called soft launch. This incomplete rollout left critical parts of the form completely unusable.

Even more troubling, the Department abused the statutory gap that allows the release by January 1 by not

even being fully prepared for that hard cutoff. When processing finally began, millions of applications were riddled with calculation errors, forcing reprocessing and causing chaos for students and institutions.

The consequences were devastating. About 430,000 fewer students filed a FAFSA this year compared to last year. To make matters worse, millions of calls for help went unanswered. Families were left in the dark, scrambling for answers with no support during one of the most critical periods in a child's academic journey.

This is why I am proud to cosponsor H.R. 8932, the FAFSA Deadline Act. This bill would hold the Department of Education accountable by setting a hard deadline of October 1 for releasing the FAFSA and requiring an accountability check-in each September to ensure they stay on track.

Mr. Speaker, I urge colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this important legislation.

Madam Speaker, yesterday, FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker testified before the House Aviation Subcommittee.

In response to my questions about his agency's fines and the delays they have imposed on SpaceX, he made a number of statements that appear to be completely false.

For example, he said that SpaceX launched without a license. That is simply not true. There are two possibilities. Either, number one, he doesn't know what is going on at his own agency, or number two, he deliberately deceived a congressional committee. Either possibility raises serious questions about his fitness to lead the FAA.

I have sent a letter along with questions for the record to Administrator Whitaker, which he is compelled to answer to explain his false testimony.

Madam Speaker, I implore him to look at this chart: Objects launched into space over time. The point where the United States breaks away from Russia and China and sees absolutely exponential growth is when SpaceX started launching rockets.

This company and the broader commercial space industry are tremendous national assets, and those seeking to hold back their progress for, at best, arbitrary bureaucratic reasons are acting directly against our national interests.

Mr. Speaker, I have a tremendous honor to represent the entire California side of Lake Tahoe, and this legislation, the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, is of the highest importance to my constituents. It is also of great importance to the State of California, as well as the State of Nevada. More than that, Lake Tahoe is an American treasure. Preserving its beauty and accessibility is a great national interest, and a national responsibility, with 80 percent of its watershed under Federal ownership.

The Lake Tahoe Restoration Act has been crucial in enabling the communities of the basin to protect the lake for all Americans and for generations to come. Indeed, this bipartisan legislation has become a national model for collaboration in the name of conservation.

Over 50 years ago, California Governor Ronald Reagan and Nevada Governor Paul Laxalt signed an interstate compact to cooperatively manage the environmental health of Lake Tahoe. This compact was ratified by Congress and signed into law by President Nixon, establishing a regional planning agency to work with the Federal Government on responsibly managing the Tahoe basin.

Congress continued to support its role in the basin's health by passing the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act of 2000 and again 16 years later in 2016. This generational, bipartisan support for Lake Tahoe has been vital to its preservation.

The Restoration Act needs to be reauthorized to enable continued conservation efforts. This legislation does that for another decade.

Specific programs include forest health and fuels reduction, combating invasive species, water infrastructure, and water quality improvement.

As one example, the forest health treatments enabled by the act serve as a model of effective forest management, with 21,000 acres treated. This work proved crucial in stopping the devastating Caldor fire of 2021 from becoming an even more catastrophic event, saving the city of South Lake Tahoe. Studies have shown that the forest health treatments in the area reduced the fire's 150-foot flames to 15 feet, making it easier for fire crews to get the blaze under control.

However, much more work remains to restore the areas burned by the Caldor fire and to stop such a disaster from imperiling the basin again.

Beyond just forest health, the restoration efforts enabled by the act are working. In 2023, Lake Tahoe achieved

its highest clarity since the 1980s, thanks to projects that prevented more than 500,000 pounds of fine sediment and pollution from flowing into the lake, as well as wetlands restoration spanning 342 acres and invasive species protection spanning 271 acres. However, in the face of extreme weather and other threats, more work is needed to reduce stormwater pollution and keep Tahoe blue for the next generation.

The coalition supporting the act's renewal today spans a tremendous diversity of viewpoints. Yet we can all agree on the goal of protecting something that is larger than any of us.

Protecting Tahoe is a responsibility for all of us. At the same time, it is an opportunity to forge new partnerships and to form habits of cooperation and collaboration as we work to protect a precious resource and build a better future together. I look forward to continuing the long legacy of bipartisan leadership that has preserved this special place.

I thank my colleagues on both sides, and, in particular, Senator Cortez Masto for guiding this legislation through the Senate. I thank Chairman Westerman for his tremendous leadership and all his help in getting this bill to the floor today, and I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to lament the death of comedy in California, the death of satire in California or, more seriously, to lament a serious blow that has been struck against freedom of speech and a healthy democratic process in California.

That is because the California legislature has passed, and Governor Gavin Newsom has signed, a law explicitly designed to outlaw political parodies. We don't need to speculate about this being the purpose of this law because the Governor said so directly.

Several weeks ago, a parody video of Kamala Harris began circulating on social media. Governor Newsom reposted it, and he said this should be illegal. ``I will be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.'' This week he made good on that promise. The Governor again reposted the parody and said: ``I just signed a bill to make this illegal in the State of California.''

Sort of on its face, it is a classic authoritarian move, a person in power sees speech he doesn't like, sees speech that threatens his power, and so he uses that power, uses whatever tools he has at his disposal to silence those who would dare speak against him to make them go away. That is by his own admission, in his own words what he has done.

Now, I will say, there are legitimate issues when it comes to AI, deep fakes, voice cloning, generative video, and other tools that may be maliciously wielded to confuse voters and corrupt the political process. There is room, and perhaps even a need, for regulation designed to assure that these tools are not abused.

However, that is not what Newsom is doing. By his own acknowledgment, what he is doing is banning parody. Parody and satire have been central to American political discourse throughout our history, from the founding era, with satirists lampooning King George, through the works of Mark Twain, through the advent of television, ``Saturday Night Live,'' through the present day with The Onion, The Babylon Bee, and all manner of parody and satire on social media.

It has thrived as a way for artists, comedians, and the public at large to humble those who have become too powerful, and to convey truths in a particularly compelling way.

Not only that, but satire and parody are clearly protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has long held that parodies of public figures are protected even if they are ``outrageous,'' and the Court has long held that any satirical statement is protected so long as it cannot reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts.

In short, if a reasonable person could discern that something is a parody, then it is protected by the First Amendment; so the question, when evaluating this new law, would be, is it stepping over that line? We have a very clear test case in the Kamala Harris video that in the Governor's own acknowledgment was the inspiration for the law. It is exactly the sort of thing that the law was designed to stamp out.

Let's just look at a few lines from this Kamala Harris video and see whether a reasonable person would actually believe that it is Kamala Harris.

The first line of the video is this: ``I, Kamala Harris, am your Democrat candidate for President because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility at the debate.''

Now, would a reasonable person think that Kamala Harris said that when they see this video, that she actually made that statement?

The video goes on. It says: ``If you criticize anything I say, you are both sexist and racist.'' Would a reasonable person believe that was actually Kamala Harris saying that in that video?

There are other examples. It goes on: ``I may not know the first thing about running the country, but remember, that is a good thing if you are a deep state puppet.'' Would a reasonable person believe that Kamala Harris actually said that?

It goes on: ``Joe Biden taught me, rule number one, carefully hide your total incompetence.'' Would a reasonable person believe that this is actually Kamala Harris saying ``rule number one, carefully hide your total incompetence''?

The video goes on. It says: ``My work on the border was `catastrophic.''' Would a reasonable person think she said that?

One of the keys to effective satire, and you can judge for yourself whether this is effective or not, is that it actually does illuminate a deeper underlying truth. Therefore, one might argue, I would argue, that Kamala Harris' performance as border czar was, in fact, catastrophic, but a reasonable person will not actually believe that she is saying that herself in this video.

Gavin Newsom, in order to maintain that consistent with the First Amendment he can eliminate this video from our public discourse would have to somehow argue that he thinks a reasonable member of the public would actually think that Kamala Harris would say those things. It makes you wonder about the regard that Mr. Newsom has for the public in California and across the country.

The better explanation for his behavior is just that he doesn't have any regard for the First Amendment at all. The courts have time after time struck down measures that he has signed on First Amendment grounds. It just happened again a couple weeks ago.

It happened not that long ago with respect to a law that he signed that sought to punish people for supposedly spreading COVID misinformation. The legislature and Newsom had to repeal their own law after the court weighed in on First Amendment grounds.

This highlights a broader, very concerning tendency, not just in California but across the country, where we have this brewing crisis of freedom of speech, which in many ways started at colleges and universities and then expanded to certain social media platforms, and then became intertwined with the government.

We got an acknowledgment of this recently from Mark Zuckerberg, CEO at Facebook, Meta, who said that he was, indeed, pressured by the Biden administration to censor content on his platform, and he acknowledged that Facebook was wrong to give in to that pressure.

We are also seeing elsewhere in the world some alarming regression when it comes to protections for freedom of speech. This has been, throughout U.S. history, one of the things that has set our country apart. We have always had ironclad or at least striven to have ironclad protections for freedom of speech. It is one of the things that has propelled progress of all kinds in the history of our country.

I would argue that there is perhaps no greater threat to democracy than the suppression of freedom of speech, so the assault on free speech led by Gavin Newsom and the Biden administration is cause for great alarm by all Americans.

Fortunately, I think there are some reasons to believe that the tide is starting to turn. Of course, the social media platform X has become a leader in protecting freedom of speech after we have learned about prior efforts at that platform and others working at times with the government.

We have seen, of course, the Zuckerberg letter that I just mentioned where Facebook is committing to be more mindful and respectful of free speech principles in the future.

Just yesterday, this House passed my Free Speech on Campus Act, which is designed to restore the importance of freedom of speech on our college campuses as a foundational campus value. I would urge the Senate now to pass that same measure, and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join in whatever efforts we can to end the assaults on free speech we have seen in this country and return to the founding principles that have been so central to our country's prosperity and progress.

Proposition 36

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pass on some incredible news about Proposition 36 in California. This is an initiative that is designed to make crime illegal again in California, to restore appropriate consequences for theft and drug crimes.

Prop 36, which will be on the ballot in just a few weeks here, was recently polled by the Public Policy Institute of California, and the results are overwhelming--71 percent of California voters are in support compared to 26 opposed. You have 85 percent of Republicans in support with just 11 percent

opposed. You have 73 percent of Independents in support with just 24 percent opposed. There are 63 percent of Democratic voters in support with only 33 percent opposed, about two-thirds of even Democratic voters in support of this initiative to make crime illegal again in California.

Seeing those numbers, you understand why the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, fought tooth and nail to keep this from this even being on the ballot. He concocted a number of truly outrageous schemes that were specifically designed to cancel the vote, to stop Californians from even having an opportunity to vote on this important proposition. Fortunately, those efforts failed, and a vote will be held very soon.

When the Governor was told about these numbers at a press conference yesterday, he said: ``I was wondering what State I am living in.'' ``I was wondering what State I am living in,'' Newsom said, when informed that Californians overwhelmingly favor restoring consequences for criminal activity.

Maybe I will enlighten him about the State he is living in. The State he is living in is one where crime has simply spun out of control and where people are seeing the consequences of that in their daily lives.

Proposition 47 is the primary culprit. It was passed about a decade ago, and it effectively eliminated consequences for retail theft, no matter how many times you stole, and it eliminated consequences for possession of even hard drugs, which basically ended the ability to get addicts into treatment.

The consequences of these two things are that in many parts of California, on your way to the grocery store or walking around a downtown, you will have to go through open-air drug markets. You will have to dodge needles. You will see people suffering, withering on our streets, tragically dying all too often from overdoses on our streets.

Then if you want to go in and shop at a grocery store or even a convenience store, a CVS, you will see almost everything under lock and key. You have to go get a clerk to open up the lock for you if you want to buy frozen goods or if you want to buy shampoo and conditioner. It is really the sort of thing you really would have never expected to see in America, and yet it is what Prop 47 and its progeny in California have spawned, the reality they have created where Californians overwhelmingly say that crime has continued to get worse.

Indeed, that is borne out in the numbers. Property crimes have gotten much worse since Prop 47, all types of crime. Violent crime has gotten significantly worse in just the last few years.

The results of this poll, the overwhelming support for Prop 36, are a recognition of that. I will read you, by the way, the title of the initiative. It says: ``Allows Felony Charges and Increases Sentences for Certain Drug and Theft Crimes.'' That is all it says. That is the information people have.

The overwhelming majority of California voters, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, liberals and moderates, conservatives, folks of all economic and racial backgrounds from all parts of the State, across every group, people say overwhelmingly: Yes, that is something we need. Yet, somehow, the Governor still lectured Californians yesterday about how they are wrong.

I believe that once this measure passes--and there can be no doubt that it is going to pass--it is going to be a new day for California. We are going to restore commonsense policies when it comes to public safety. We are going to provide law enforcement with new tools to keep our communities safe. We are going to go a long way toward reversing the homelessness crisis in California. Maybe most importantly, the people of California will demonstrate the agency that we all have to set our State on a different course, even when our out-of-touch political class attempts to stand in the way.

Congratulating SpaceX

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate SpaceX on the Polaris Dawn mission, which is the first of three planned missions in the program and took astronauts in an elliptical orbit 870 miles from Earth.

The four astronauts pictured here are Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon.

Now, this mission sat a number of records, a number of firsts. For example, it climbed higher over Earth than any human spaceflight since the last Apollo mission in 1972. It contributed to having the most humans in Earth orbit at the same time ever. It was the first commercial space walk and the first time four people were exposed to the vacuum of space at the same time. They even downlinked the first violin performance from space using Starlink, and it was the first time that Doritos were eaten from space, with a special safe-for-space chip that was designed. As part of this, they collected data for future missions to the Moon and beyond.

SpaceX, of course, is a company that started in California. I had the opportunity to tour their facility a few years back. It truly is a marvel.

The company is also vital to U.S. leadership around the world when it comes to space, and is vital to our national security. This was recently underscored as NASA is now having to rely on SpaceX to bring home two astronauts that are stranded at the International Space Station.

It is also underscored by the statistics. When it comes to delivering payloads into orbit, in Q1 of this year, 87 percent of the world's tonnage to orbit was delivered by SpaceX. Eighty-seven percent of the total tonnage delivered to orbit around the world was delivered by SpaceX. This includes commercial customers. It includes SpaceX's own Starlink system, which is providing internet to remote areas of the world, in fact, to some of my constituents in Death Valley as well as to cruise ships and airlines. It also includes launches that are absolutely vital to U.S. national security and space exploration.

Given what a tremendous asset this company is, it makes it all the more stunning that the company is being targeted in multiple ways and for frivolous reasons. Recently, the FAA fined the company $633,000 for trivial, nonsafety-related reasons. More concerningly, the agency has delayed flight 5 of Starship for 2 months, again for nonsafety-related reasons.

Now, Starship is the largest and most powerful space transportation system ever developed. It is fully and rapidly reusable in its design. They have already had four very successful missions where they have done better each time, and the idea is they iterate their design, and they learn from each flight. This fifth flight, which is ready to go, would attempt to return the super heavy booster to the launch site and catch it midair using what they call their giant chopsticks.

Now, this rapid reusability is completely--and already is--changing the economics of space exploration and making it orders of magnitude more affordable. It is truly a Herculean feat of technology and ingenuity in order to make this happen. Yet, we have these roadblocks that are being thrown in its way.

SpaceX itself put it this way: ``We continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware.''

When it comes to launching a rocket, obviously there are important regulatory concerns when it comes to safety. The company has been steadfast in prioritizing safety, and it is important that that collaboration exist.

In this case, the reasons they are being held back are completely unrelated to safety or any other legitimate public interest. In fact, the company has bent over backward to comply with environmental regulations. There simply should not be delays related to paperwork or bureaucracy. The FAA and related agencies need to prioritize enabling launches, not standing in their way.

Some have suggested that there might be political motivations here. I think that perhaps the broader issue might be one of cultural incompatibility, in the sense that when you think back to the lunar program, when you think back to President Kennedy saying that we will put a man on the Moon within this decade, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, and when you think about the way that the entire country was captivated when that vision ultimately came to fruition and what it meant for U.S. leadership in the world, for our national security

during the Cold War, it was a way in which the country was able to come together around a truly awe-inspiring vision.

That is the sort of vision that SpaceX is pursuing, the sort of truly big and forward-looking thinking that captivates people's imaginations, that allows us to push beyond the limits of our current knowledge and to explore new frontiers.

There is just something perhaps about the nature of modern bureaucracies in this country that is incompatible with that way of thinking. When they encounter it, their impulse is not to facilitate it but to throw roadblocks, to find trivial reasons to hold it back.

I do think it is a moment to think about how we got to this point and the sort of reforms that we might make to our bureaucracy here and really across the board that will allow our government to be on the side of innovators, to facilitate innovation rather than constantly trying to hold it back.

Notwithstanding, I know that SpaceX as well as others in this industry are going to push forward. I congratulate them on this latest history-making success, and I look forward to many more history-making successes in the years ahead.

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 2 o'clock and 9 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, September 23, 2024, at noon for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Chair, one of the most important things that has happened in this Congress is the exposure of the alarming state of affairs at American universities.

Our institutions of higher learning have been gripped by retrograde prejudices and abhorrent ideologies that are in many ways abandoning the values of the enlightenment itself.

Fortunately, we are finally seeing accountability and a new course. Following testimony before the Education and the Workforce Committee that highlighted the true state of affairs on their campus, the presidents of several leading universities have resigned, including the presidents of Harvard, Penn, Columbia, and Rutgers.

What is more, several of these universities are reversing misguided policies like forced faculty diversity statements and are renewing their commitment to institutional neutrality.

Even the entire California public university system, the UCs and the CSUs, recently came out and said they are going to ban these disgraceful tent encampments that have produced chaos on their campuses.

This is a moment of reckoning for American higher education. A very important part of that is restoring the place of free speech on campus, which is why I am very happy that included in today's bill, H.R. 3724, is a measure that I introduced, the Free Speech on Campus Act.

This measure seeks to assure that free speech is not only protected as a legal right but is restored as a foundational principle in American higher education.

Now, my colleague on the other side of the aisle from New York stressed the importance of bipartisanship in these matters, and I could not agree more.

As a matter of fact, I developed this measure alongside one of the leading liberal scholars in California, the dean of UC Berkeley, Erwin Chemerinsky, someone who I don't agree with on much, but we were able to come together on a principle that transcends political differences.

The best way to resolve differences, to learn to find common ground, is the free and open exchange of ideas.

Unfortunately, many universities have lost sight of this and have become the most repressive institutions in American life.

They have stifled disfavored viewpoints and created an environment where students are afraid to speak their mind and participate in the marketplace of ideas.

We have seen universities adopt unconstitutional speech codes or designate only certain areas on campus as open to speech or allow a heckler's veto to shut down speakers or force faculty members to espouse certain points of view in order to get hired or built up entire bureaucracies devoted to censorship.

All the more pervasively, this last year, the very same universities allowed the banner of free speech to then falsely be used to justify not speech but illegal actions such as building tent encampments, occupying buildings, or setting up checkpoints to exclude students based on their identity.

As one example, Harvard University, which became the poster child for abhorrent, horrifying anti-Semitism on campus, was also ranked as the university with the worst protections for free speech. In fact, they got the worst ranking in the history of the survey.

These two things are not unrelated, by the way, because the biggest threat to hate, ignorance, and prejudice is reasoned argument.

Institutions that systematically shut down reasoned argument and debate allow retrograde ideas to flourish because they don't have the needed opposition.

This bill seeks to reverse this troubling trend and to restore First Amendment freedoms at the place where they are most vital, our institutions of higher learning.

My legislation ensures that our universities inform students of their First Amendment rights as soon as they step on campus.

As a condition of receiving Federal funds, universities will be required to provide new students with a written statement at orientation.

It will outline their First Amendment rights, affirm the institution's commitment to free expression, and guarantee that neither students nor invited speakers will have those rights violated.

Too often, students arrive on campus without an understanding of why free speech is important or how it has been such an important force for progress throughout our Nation's history.

This legislation will make sure the First Amendment itself is a key part of their college education so they grasp its vital role in safeguarding freedom and democracy.

Mr. Chair, we may often disagree, sometimes fiercely, on a range of ideas, but we should all be able to agree on the importance of ideas themselves.

I urge my colleagues to join me in passing this legislation.