Doug LaMalfa

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, tonight starts the latest development in this political circus otherwise known as the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. In prime time. Instead of working to combat issues facing Americans, such as skyrocketing inflation, decreases in real wages, gas prices barreling towards $7 a gallon or $8--if you are a lucky Californian--or the invasion of our southern border, House Democrats are continuing their witch hunt against former President Trump, who seems to still be living rent-free inside their heads. This time, in a certain boost to their own vanity, the committee has hired former ABC News president, James Goldston, to produce it. They aren't interested in the truth. They aren't interested in justice; not even the intel that was available ahead of the possible Capitol break-in that they knew about. The committee is putting on a spectacle, a Hollywood produced, prime- time television soap opera to distract viewers from the real policy- made disasters. How out of touch are they with the American people? Do you think the young mother desperately trying to find formula for her newborn cares about this hearing? Do you think the farmer who can't plant this year due to the water shortage, the water being taken away, or the trucker who can't use his equipment because diesel is over $7 or $8 cares about this hearing? Even liberal San Francisco recalled their radical DA because he stopped caring about the people and opened up the city to a crime wave they haven't seen in decades. People want answers and change, and it isn't about this January 6 deal.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, it is not just American oil and natural gas energies that are under attack. Another one of the Nation's top sources of energy, nuclear generation, has faced repeated operational obstacles and is facing threats of extinction. Nuclear power is one of the best choices for renewable energy we have. It is consistent, it runs 24/7, and it isn't intermittent or dependent on the weather like wind or solar. It takes up a small physical footprint, such as California's sole remaining reactors at Diablo Canyon, take up only 900 acres of land and provides nearly 10 percent of California's energy portfolio and 23 percent of our carbon- free generation that everybody is so worried about. It is affordable. Although power plants are expensive to build, like most things are, they are relatively cheap to run. Interestingly, nuclear generation has recently garnered widespread bipartisan support. Recently, last month, the Biden administration launched a $6 billion Federal effort to keep nuclear power plants open that are at risk of closing. Even California Governor Gavin Newsom seems to have reversed his opinion on nuclear energy and has expressed some level of support to keep Diablo Canyon open. Nuclear energy has had an unfair bad rap from past incidents, most notably Chernobyl. Well, this isn't the 1980s Soviet Union. This is the United States. We have the innovation and technological advances to make nuclear energy a cornerstone of our future in energy independence. We need to hang on to it.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding. Tonight, I join my colleagues in support of this year's Water Resources Development Act. While it may not be readily apparent, the threat of storm damage and floods remains front and center, despite the prolonged drought across the Western United States. In the wake of wildfires, mudslides will bring vegetation down from mountainsides into our public waterways. With fewer but more intense storms seen this year, the risk of flash floods has increased. Now, as with many bipartisan bills, there are policies and provisions that I believe are missing from this measure. That work is not done. I will continue to push for more control over project construction to be given to local water agencies; more up-front inclusion of Tribes so we can avoid ruining their cultural and burial sites, literally crushing skulls while working on levees--this is about basic respect; and for the Army Corps and EPA to work with our constituents, rather than against them, such as penalties for when farmers plow their fields or change crops. Indeed, we need to keep this conversation going, but I appreciate the legislation and the direction we are going.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, President Biden recently promised us food shortages in the United States. This is the country that leads the world in production. Well, that is one heck of a campaign promise being kept. Food shortages, along with energy skyrocketing; what a reset. Indeed, my home State of California, which produces so much of what America relies on, due to Federal and State policies, the water has been taken away. Up on the Klamath Basin, zero water allocation. I just drove around part of my west side of the district the other day, and there are miles and miles of open land that is not growing rice; that they are trying to put all that water toward trying to keep orchards alive. The waterfowl are not coming in. The jobs are not happening; all because of a backwards campaign promise, evidently, to put food shortages out there for people. Empty shelves in the supermarket; it is unbelievable that this is what this administration--and what are they doing? What are they doing? We are not getting more water facilities built. We are not getting more storage made. No, we are just continuing down the same path to try and save fish that don't exist in the delta, or that are being marketed by people catching them up on the rivers and out in the ocean. I guess that is why everybody is leading the charge these days in cheering for: Let's go, Brandon.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, this gas price surge we are seeing at the pump wasn't caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It wasn't caused by COVID-19. It isn't transitory. It is not even caused by price gouging some are alleging by oil companies or gas stations. Indeed, the U.S. Secretary of Energy said there is no gouging due to that. No, they are all excuses President Biden has tried to use to shift blame for the increasing prices that he is causing himself. Mr. President, we know the truth. The American people know the truth. Sir, your price hike was caused by day one anti-American energy policies. Gas prices have increased every single month under the Biden administration, from his first day in office canceling Keystone, suspending oil and gas leasing on Federal lands, and draining our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He has also emboldened Putin by removing sanctions on the Nord Stream 2, therefore making Europe more dependent on Soviet-style energy. President Biden hasn't taken responsibility for his failed policies. Instead, he is trying to cover them up or blame others. We must flip the switch on American energy production and reverse the Biden failed energy agenda. Putin is making a killing because of this. We have the wherewithal in this country to influence world prices by producing ourselves.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, a country without borders might as well just not be a country. The chaos that this current Biden border policy is causing is damaging American families, American schools, and American healthcare, and it is not even good for the so-called immigrants themselves. Witness the way children are used and abused in order to get people across the border to please the cartels, to pay off the cartels. Kids are rented, rented out by families. To get a fake family group across the border, kids are often left by the river--children left by the river when they are done with them and recycled back across like you would an empty pop bottle. Is this the kind of humanity this administration is about? It certainly isn't for us on this side of the aisle. We need to enforce our border. We need to continue building the fence so it is effective for our border personnel to be able to process ones that really are coming here on what would be true asylum. Asylum laws need to be changed because they have been made a joke. Indeed, some of the newest cases won't be heard until 2024. There is such a backlog.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, it has become painfully obvious in recent months how important energy and the energy supply is in all aspects of our lives here in the United States and to our allies around the world. The effect of not enough energy indeed has been very harmful to our economy, yet we are at a space where we have so much abundance, so much potential, and so much we were doing just before this administration came into place. We are sitting on the largest untapped oil reserve in the world--amazingly enough--here in the United States. If we had been utilizing this properly, instead of launching an assault on domestic energy production, our Union would be in a much better state. As we know, on the first day in office, President Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline, on and off, on and off over the years, suspended pending oil and gas leases, halted domestic energy production, which stopped exports on liquefied natural gas to our allies overseas. We have seen how important that is when Europe has become so reliant on Russian natural gas. Poland recently just cut off supply buying from Russia so they would not be so dependent, as well as the Germans and other Eastern European countries. Now, what we have seen since all this lack of exploration and shortness of supply is the prices have skyrocketed on everybody. It is really hurting rural America, especially with the need for farming crops, fertilizer, all the different aspects that go into food production, and that in return causes food shortages. We are really putting ourselves in a bad, bad position by having a lack of energy policy or one that is really an anti-energy policy. We have seen the national average for a gallon of gas up to $4.48. In California, it is getting closer to $6 on average. What bothers me is that over time do people get lulled into this as being normal? No, folks, this is not normal, and it is not necessary. It doesn't need to be this way because, as I mentioned, we have so much untapped energy in this country. The miracle of hydraulic fracturing has made natural gas so abundant that we have been able to be a strong exporter of it. I remember not too many years ago we were figuring out, are we going to have to find a way to have our gas imported and upgrade our ports to bring it in? No. Hydraulic fracturing has made possible cheap natural gas to export to our allies, such as in Western Europe. We need to be doing much, much more of that so we don't have our friends, the Germans, and Poland, and others, that are reliant upon energy coming from Russia. With the regulatory and tax policies that have discouraged gas production, California only produces, for example, a fraction of what it is capable of when it was once one of the leading oil and gas- producing States. What would our Nation look like if we were producing to our full potential? It would probably look a lot like what we were 15-16 months ago when we had abundance in everything; energy, and food wasn't emptying off the shelves. We would be in a much better space. Indeed, these short-sighted policies are harming regular, everyday Americans. Food production, I can't emphasize enough, when we are running short on the shelves already--and this is before the 2022 crop has even been completely planted or come in--in my home State of California, probably half of agriculture is going to be shut down: half of agriculture. Why? Water policy. With that lack of water policy, all the water rushing out to the ocean in order to try to save an already missing fish or something called Delta salinity, we are not going to plant half of our agriculture in our home State. That has effects on American food: costs, availability, and quality. Are we just going to import it all? No, it is not going to work that way. It all strings together. It is all interrelated. With that water policy, it also negatively affects energy because we are not going to make hydroelectric power like we can. This administration is hell-bent on getting rid of some of our dams in California and others around the West that make hydroelectric power. Hydroelectric power is CO2-free, no carbon dioxide. Our last nuclear power plant in California, they want to shut that down; CO2-free. The energy policy on all different aspects is collapsing. Indeed, 20 percent of the Nation's power is from nuclear source, and about 25 percent of that power is threatened, that it will be shut down within the next 10 or 15 years if things aren't done to make up for that. We need an energy policy that makes sense.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, President Biden's assault on domestic energy production isn't limited to just gas and oil. A new report revealed that a quarter of nuclear power plants in the U.S. are at risk of closure in just a few years, raising already high energy costs to struggling families across the country. Despite being carbon-free, which my colleagues on the other side of the aisle love to talk about carbon even though it represents only 0.04 percent of the gases in our atmosphere--let's play along. Nuclear reactors make zero CO2, so why are we making it so difficult to put in place--indeed, only one nuclear reactor has started construction in the U.S. in the last three decades. Since 2013, 12 reactors have closed, so none new have opened. Why are they making it so difficult to re-license existing plants or license new ones? Yes, we want to build in a strong safety factor. Why does it have to cost hundreds of millions of dollars or more to do the job to keep a CO2-free--0.04 percent of our atmosphere--keep that CO2 down, keep these plants operating, and keep our homes lit up.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, the Biden energy crisis doesn't just extend to gas and diesel in this country. It also extends to our power grid, shutting down our hydroelectric plants, et cetera. We also have in California a nuclear power plant known as Diablo Canyon, which produces just under 10 percent of all of our power in California, slated to be shut down in 2024. The California Independent System Operator warns of a critical inflection point to the stability of the grid and would require a shift to--get this--more fossil fuel, which would then require more CO2 to be produced, even though we know CO2 is only 0.04 percent of the atmosphere. Summer blackouts were predicted by the California Energy Commission and the ISO just last October in information they released, so this would make a greater reliance on imported electricity from other States. The Biden administration needs to do all it can to help have the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission renew the licenses for Diablo Canyon for at least 20 years.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, this week as we commemorate National Police Week for those with us and for those who have fallen, I think we find different ways to honor them. One of the ways we can honor them is also to make their job easier. Unfortunately, with the Biden border crisis, the numbers are devastating. There have been nearly one-quarter million migrant encounters in March because it is a green light and because it is a magnet at our border. There has been a 68 percent drop in deportations in 2021. Where are we going to put folks like this when we are overwhelming the ability to have the judges and to have their cases heard? It is not helping. And so we have sanctuary cities all across the U.S. that are making it more acceptable for illegal immigration to happen and making it very difficult for law enforcement to figure out how to process and how to deal with the interactions with local police and ICE. So we have to have a much more coherent policy on our border: help complete the fence, make these gaps go away that so many are pouring through and giving us such huge numbers here. Forty-two have been arrested on the terrorist watch list under Biden. Let's make the job for our border police and our city police much easier and have a better border policy.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the recent numbers on our trade deficit in this country tie in strongly with our supply chain issues we have been facing during COVID and during this new administration. We have reached a new record of $110 billion for 1 month of March of our trade deficits. So why are we in this precarious situation? We are not producing the way we need to in this country. I just spoke with some dairy folks a while ago from California. They are having more and more difficulty in producing but also exporting. We are not adhering to our trade regulations and our trade agreements. Basically the USTR is saying we are not being empowered to make new trade agreements, we are instead more worried about other things such as climate change and things like that. How are we supposed to compete? How are small towns and small town economies supposed to keep going when we cannot produce here and we cannot have trade agreements that are adhered to? Under the Trump agreements with China we were $300 billion behind because they were not being enforced. How are we supposed to have the means of production in this country when we don't enforce our trade laws and our trade agreements? We have shiploads that come over here full of more electronic gadgetry or what have you from China and others, and then they leave our ports a lot of times empty. They don't even fulfill obligations. When they leave the ports in southern California they are supposed to stop in the Port of Oakland, for example, and pick up our ag products, almonds, et cetera, and take them back. Yet they don't because they are not being enforced. What does that mean for our economy? It means bad things. Bad things for our rural ag economy and bad things for our rural trade deficit. So if we don't have the means of production here, if we are not sustaining them, then we will not have food and we will not have the other things that Americans produce as part of our trade agreements, and then we will be even more dependent on imported food and imported products that have already put us over a barrel. Somewhere around 90 percent of our pharmaceuticals, for example, are produced in China. What if they decide to cut off their export to us and keep us over a barrel on that? How are we supposed to continue to compete? How are we supposed to have an economy? We need the President and his U.S. trade representatives to adhere to enforcing our trade agreements because it means so much to our jobs, and it means so much to our economy. If they are not producing for export, then they are probably not going to be around to produce for our domestic use. So as we see the world food crisis mount up--and we haven't seen anything yet indeed as water is being cut off in California, for example, because of BOR and others are not finding that a priority over fish and over salinity in the delta--we are going to find ourselves in 2023 without the food that we should have been growing in 2022. It is not that tough. It is pretty simple. You need to plant a year ahead in agriculture and food supply to have what you are going to need next year. But we don't because we are after pie-in-the-sky other priorities. So electrification of tractors they are talking about. No farmer is going to be able to change his fleet out and get rid of his trucks and his tractors to meet these ``goals'' set by somebody in Washington, D.C., or Sacramento. We need to get back to basics. We are coming out of 2 years of COVID. We are coming out of a timeline where the economy has been harmed greatly by overbearing COVID regulations and taking people out of the production chain. So we are all feeling the effects of that--unemployment. Yet there are many employment opportunities out there, and we are not taking advantage of the ability to fill them because instead we are mailing out $1,200 checks for prioritizing other things. I just do not understand how we have a strong country, a strong economy, when we don't prioritize domestic production, keeping the supply chains filled. We are having difficulty getting railroad bookings to move our products back and forth between the coast and the Midwest to feed ethanol plants in California, for example. We want this newer, cleaner fuel, and we can hardly get the grain there. What is going on with that? Why can't we have train track time in order to move these very needed products? Why are ports so balled up, being on the receiving end of imports but not being able to get our exports out because we are not being more forceful on our trade agreements? How long are we going to keep doing this? It makes me wonder if the administration is actually on the side of the American people or other interests. We are not going to be in a good way as we already suffer higher costs for food, empty shelves. We need the Biden administration to focus on full shelves and not empty shelves.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. The leak of the Supreme Court's draft opinion on the Dobbs case is a betrayal of confidence between the Justices, the deliberative process, and the public. No matter what side of the aisle you are on or what side of the issue, everyone should find it reprehensible that such an assault on our judicial system could even occur. The leak breaks down the ability of our Nation's highest court to objectively examine on all sides and come to clear answers on the constitutionality of serious issues. Justices consider very serious topics, such as the Dobbs case; they should be allowed to freely debate amongst themselves and hypothesize in their deliberations. I expect a full investigation into this leak, and I condemn this attempt to undermine the American judicial process. This leak has caused protesters to now threaten the Justices' families at their homes and where they go. Yet, what do we get? Silence from the Biden administration. I guess if it falls on the side of issues and topics they agree with, it isn't violence, it is just merely protest and strong feelings. What hypocrisy. We must put an end to this right now and have a full investigation so they can do their judicial process in safety and without any kind of false influence.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, crime is soaring under President Biden and the Democrats' soft-on-crime policies nationally and in my home State of California. More police officers were killed in the line of duty in 2021 than in any year since 1995. Last year, over a dozen U.S. cities set new homicide records. Shootings of police officers have increased 63 percent compared to this time in 2020. Instead of addressing these deadly statistics, some Democrats in blue cities want to defund and demonize our police. Instead of focusing on dangerous individuals with illegal weapons who commit these deadly crimes, President Biden has chosen to attack law- abiding Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights. He wants the ATF to ban privately made firearms, so-called ghost guns, which are predominantly a hobbyist option and require more time, tooling, and dedication to craftsmanship than most criminals are willing to invest. Instead of throwing the books at criminals, they are coming after private citizens, even going so far as to call parents at school board meetings terrorists. Now, they want to introduce legislation that would target law enforcement and servicemembers as potential domestic terrorists. This is deeply offensive to our men and women in uniform and also goes against evidence that terrorist incidents are far more likely to be committed against military and law enforcement than by military and law enforcement. This is wrongheaded, and we must stop this.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson) for helping us get these important messages out. It has been about 2 months since Russia invaded our ally, Ukraine. Russia has spent nearly a year amassing hundreds of thousands of troops and military weaponry along Ukraine's borders, with the backing of their northern neighbor, Belarus. Most people were doubtful that Ukraine would be able to successfully fight off these attacks for more than a few days. Amazingly, being surrounded the way they are, outnumbered and outgunned, they have been able to heroically hold off their Russian invaders. President Putin has justified his attack as a peacekeeping mission or a liberating one. In reality, it is really a thinly veiled attempt to frighten NATO against further expansion and, of course, muscle Ukraine's neighbors into submission. Both NATO and the United States have a longstanding tradition of standing with sovereign nations who face adversarial oppression, and that is exactly what we are seeing in Eastern Europe as Putin attempts to forcefully reunite the Soviet Union. After 2 months of fighting and billions of dollars in aid sent to Ukraine, I have heard concerns of many people wondering why are we focusing so much money and attention on a conflict thousands of miles away? We have our own problems domestically, of course, which are self- inflicted, with rising inflation, the border crisis, crime, and food and energy shortages. Ultimately, this is a matter of freedom and self-sovereignty versus concession. We could actually extinguish another Cold War from happening before it has a chance to grow, if we had taken action sooner. We could still take positive action now. The world all knew this conflict was coming. It has been brewing for a year before the invasion actually occurred. We shouldn't have waited for blood to be shed before acting. If President Biden hadn't shut down domestic energy production on his first day in office, the U.S. would have been more economically empowered to enact harsh financial sanctions at Russia's first minor incursion. We could have been producing enough oil to export LNG overseas to our allies instead of watching Poland being cut off from natural gas. Wow, is that a surprise or not? We can't dare have anybody speak up; otherwise, they will get their gas cut off. Why in the world are we claiming Nord Stream pipeline, et cetera? The U.S. should be the one intervening, helping with energy independence for us and our European allies. So what is the focus of the Biden administration? Yeah, we are starting up on Ukraine more, but what we are really looking at is that our military isn't as ready as it should be. Instead of military readiness, President Biden wants to put the focus on turning us into a green Army, a green military, because we are chasing around .04 percent of the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. That is the priority, not military readiness. Chasing carbon dioxide instead of helping our allies chase invaders out of their countries. That is not military readiness. The Stinger missiles we are sending, we need to be producing more of them. The Javelin missiles, same thing. We are still caught up probably in chip shortage problems. We need to be focused on military readiness for us and being able to be a good neighbor, as is sort of our obligation when we helped Ukraine become nuclear free back during the Clinton era. Let's not let down our ally. Let's focus on what is going to help the American people work, not chasing CO2, but instead strengthening our military and looking out for our neighbors and our allies, such as Ukraine. Taiwan is going to need our help, as well as the rest of our NATO obligations, as NATO membership seeks to increase, which will be a good thing for all of us. We can't let this tyrant Putin keep getting away with this stuff. We must be strong and not quiver every time he decides to make another move. I appreciate this opportunity for all of us here to stand with Ukraine, stand with our allies around the world, and not just think that CO2 is going to be the biggest problem we face. Indeed, it is aggression by dictators that is the greatest threat. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that reminder about the importance of peace through strength; that weakness invites aggression and that is the only thing holding terrorists and tyrants at bay so many times in so many places over these 245 years of our existence. Certainly, after World War II it was the perception of a strong America. And if we project weakness like we are, we are all in danger. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Baird), who knows about the theater of war.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, we are dealing with an awful lot of grave issues. Indeed, they become crises when they aren't managed correctly in this country. So we are hearing a lot about inflation and feeling the effects, especially regular people, middle-income people, lower-middle-income people, low-income people are being harmed by the policies put forth the last year and a quarter. We hear a lot about how Americans are paying more: Vehicles. You can't hardly find a new vehicle, and the price of used vehicles has skyrocketed. Gas at the pump. Do I need to talk about that anymore? Lodging. Airline fares to even get us to our jobs here in Washington, D.C., but for regular people on vacation and doing their business as well. What isn't being talked about enough? The cost of food and the availability of food. Inflation is hitting it hard, too. Cost of inputs. In my home State, lack of water. Lack of water in California. Why does that matter to the rest of the country? Well, I will tell you. Farms and ranches produce about $50 billion in output in California, but there needs to be water for the crops. Environmental laws are forcing the release of water down the rivers and out to the oceans for coho salmon, delta smelt, et cetera. Our agriculture sector in California is the most important in the United States. There are a lot of other very important sectors as well. We lead the Nation in over 77 different crops, including many fruit and vegetable specialty crops. Our top commodities are milk, almonds, grapes, cattle and calves, strawberries, pistachios, lettuce, walnuts, floriculture, tomatoes, rice, broilers, carrots, hay, broccoli, tangerines, oranges, and lemons, to name a few. Our State is the only producer--which means 99 percent or more--of almonds, artichokes, celery, figs, garlic, honeydew, nectarines, olives, peaches, sweet rice, and walnuts. For almonds, California grows all the domestic production, and 77 percent of global production comes from California. So it is kind of important that the water flows through our State. That is one of the important inputs that we are short on. I talked about the energy costs. On my own farm, we are fortunate enough to have a fairly decent water allocation where I live in my part of the State, but I have neighbors to the west and south of me receiving, in some cases, zero percent allocations. Zero. Take rice production, for example. It is going to be down probably by about half. As a rice grower that gravely concerns me, but as a food producer, and all of you as food consumers, you need to be greatly concerned. These policies can be avoided. We still have a point that we can save this springtime and get crops planted with water that is available presently. Instead, we are watching world events here. Ukraine, their farmers are dodging bombs right now trying to get crops planted. Russia has actually been somewhat of an important exporter, not so much to this country but we import some things from them: fertilizer, some of our energy. We need to be putting a stop to that and become self-sufficient like we can. We should have energy independence. We had that up until a year ago. So we are going to keep shorting ourselves on crops growing because of environmental laws, taking the water away, shifting it to a fish that doesn't even exist in the delta anymore in northern California, the smelt. Trillions of gallons of water going out into the ocean and fields being idled; permanent crops being destroyed; trees and vines just dying because there is no water for them. We are going to feel that. We are already feeling it in the stores. When you can go to a major supermarket and see a whole freezer section has nothing in it, in the United States of America, that blows my mind. We can grow plenty here, and we always have until these times. Environmental laws are trumping what people need. Bad energy policy is driving the cost of everything. Some of the fertilizer I have to put on my crops has over doubled in price. That all has to be made up somewhere. Either the farmer eats it and goes out of business, or it has to be made up on a store shelf. Somewhere along the chain it has to be made up for. We can produce the energy that produces fertilizer that fuels the tractors, the trucks, the combines, everything it takes to bring a crop in, we can produce it here. We are capable of it. Yet, we are being paralyzed by policies at the Federal level and at my home State level as well. One of the ideas in the legislature on top of everything, on top of this $6 gas we have in California, is to add more gas tax on top of that by our State legislature. That is not your problem, the rest of the country. I mean, sometimes we are a comic show at what we do out there, and we get laughed at by the rest of the country, but we won't fix it here. It needs to be fixed there. Don't do what we do, okay, rest of the country? We need to set policy here where we can in Congress at the Federal level that brings us energy independence and helps put food back on the table instead of taking the water away and raising the costs of everything so much that we can't farm this country anymore.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the situation with our border, it couldn't be a whole lot worse. Here are the numbers for February and March; border crossings were 220,000. The numbers keep going up. So at a time here where a recent decision by a judge enabled us to not have to wear masks to get on airplanes or other public transportation because America's health is improving, the President wants to get rid of the title 42 provision put in place by President Trump to help keep America safe from those that have health issues or disease issues from coming across our border exacerbating already this giant problem we have. If title 42 is allowed to expire, then this will open the floodgates even wider. So I appreciate the decision to at least uphold title 42 while our Federal Government fights that decision and resources are used by legal folks, Department of Justice, whatever, to make it where title 42 is waived. I want to ask what side is the President and his administration on, if not for the American people's health?

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, last week, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Mizelle voided President Biden and the CDC's overbearing and unnecessary mask mandate for airplanes and public transportation. After the announcement, I saw many videos online of many flyers and flight attendants joyously ripping off their masks to celebrate. I had urged, along with many other colleagues in a couple of different letters to the President, to allow the mask mandate to expire a few months ago. So finally, I was relieved and pleased to hear of this announcement by the judge. Our celebration was short-lived, however, as the Biden administration soon announced they would sue to try to repeal the judge's ruling and force back in place mask mandates for people traveling. Science has repeatedly found that the masks are not nearly as effective at preventing the spread of COVID as they previously had thought. It really boils down to that government likes controlling people with this. They like scaring them. They like putting them in a box and saying, If you don't do this, you might die. People, if they are forced into having mask mandates on public transportation once again, there is going to be a lot of anger coming out that no midterms or nothing else will save if they force this onto us.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, it has been 41 days since Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February. That means 2,685 civilian casualties, and more than 4 million fleeing Ukrainian refugees scrambling to the aid of the EU. Twenty-five days after watching bloodshed, riots, and tears, the Biden administration finally came to their senses and released a statement to aid $1 billion in funding humanitarian assistance for the Ukrainian people, allowing the U.S. to accept 100,000 fleeing refugees; 25 days of watching; 25 days of letting other countries handle it; 25 days of fear. This is 1,081 Ukrainian citizens no longer breathing, lost in those 25 days. Silence speaks louder than action. The Biden administration is responsible for this delayed deterrence. After striking down a deal with Poland to aid the relocation of MiG- 29 planes for Ukrainian use, the President also hesitated to provide military assistance to President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. Two weeks of waiting into the invasion, President Biden delayed sanctions on Russian oil after much pressure from the House. Therefore, it ruined any chances of deterrence against Putin's aggression. These actions have been shown on the world stage, and the U.S. now appears weaker than ever as a result of this hesitancy. We need to bring aid hastily to the Ukrainian people; the help they deserve.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, President Biden recently announced his fiscal year 2023 budget, the proposal includes a plan to spend $73 trillion in a 10-year period that will add $15 trillion to our national debt; this at a time when government spending is already driving inflation and making all these items that much more expensive: Airline fares, lodging, gas, the cost of automobiles, new or used. I stopped in at a dealer the other day and they are finding that people are actually willing to pay more for a used car than what the car cost new, or trucks. It is crazy. So the American people are suffering right now under these economic conditions, all man-caused, all government-caused, pretty much. So with record-breaking inflation and gas prices, we are, instead, having a budget that is crafted to not combat these issues, but add to them. It radicalizes our energy in the new Green Deal that these guys want to do, making more cost, making energy even less available to Americans. It includes zero mention of resuming the Keystone Pipeline, since that was something on the first day of office they decided to put a stop to. The budget should be focused on getting people back to work, to making America thrive, combating inflation, not causing it; strengthening our energy independence, which will bring prices down, not playing around with the strategic reserve and, you know, bleeding out a million barrels per day. That strategic reserve has a purpose, and it isn't playing economics with it; it is supposed to be there for, indeed, a time of crisis for our country. So, instead of relying on Russian oil and relying on other imported oil from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, whoever, we can do our own national oil independence with our own known reserves. So, the direction the Biden administration is taking with all this spending, it is starting to mimic my home State of California really, because our regulatory and tax policies there are already the model for what not to do. The Federal Government shouldn't follow that. So let's come back to common sense. I urge President Biden and the Democrats to not adopt this giant spending plan but move in a direction of getting people back into production again. Come out of this COVID crisis, put them back to work, have our economy thrive, with our energy independence, food independence, because California's ag situation is being decimated by the water being taken away. I asked the President to help us on this. Help us grow food in this country and get prices back down and not have empty shelves. That should be focus of how you help American people, not more crazy spending.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 471, the PAUSE Act, to protect all Americans from Biden's border crisis.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, our strategic oil reserves are meant to be for emergency use, an emergency resource in time of war or other disaster. At such an uncertain time that we have, with Eastern Europe embroiled in a big conflict, it would be wise for us to keep the reserve full. Indeed, President Trump filled the reserve up at the time when prices were low on fuel. Now, President Biden thinks that by releasing this oil, it is going to somehow affect the price of oil around the world and our own economy. It is not. So far, 80 million barrels have already been released, but it hasn't driven down prices. Instead, the reserves we have in the ground that oil people can produce for us are the things that are going to change oil prices, not tapping into our reserves. There is only going to be a few days' worth to run the country on, or bleeding it out over 180 days, 1 million barrels at a time. Tap into our energy we have so abundantly in this country. That will affect the market for us, for our allies in Europe, and actually truly make a big difference, instead of playing this little game with our oil reserves that doesn't do anything other than look like we are doing something. Let's get back to work on putting Americans to work and our energy dependability on us and not on others. I ask the President to change directions on this policy.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I have been speaking a little bit lately about our supply chain issues and the effects of inflation on real Americans, real families, and talking a lot about food grown in this country and the effects of some of the decisions made by government on the ability to grow food, especially in my home State of California, which affects so much of the supply chain for fruits, vegetables, and nut products that the whole country, and even the world export market, enjoys and uses. What we are wrestling with right now are decisions made by Federal and State agencies on the effects of water supply in California and the ripple effect it has on so many products. For example, earlier this year, a decision was made to withdraw what is called a TUCP, a temporary urgency change petition, for the amount of water that would be flowing from our storage in California out through the delta and into the Pacific. This is geared toward how much water is going to be there for delta salinity and fish habitat situations in the delta and upstream, somewhat. There was an opportunity back in December and January to curtail some of the water flows that were coming out of limited storage we already have in the State of California, mainly Shasta Dam and Oroville Dam, this on the heels of a drought last year. Lake Oroville, for example, hit its lowest number ever. It didn't even make hydropower for the first time in 50 years because the lake was so low. So, decisions were made based on a pretty decent amount of rainfall in October and quite a bit of rain and snowpack in December to withdraw what was called the TUCP, the temporary urgency change petition, which would have the ability to let less water out through the delta and a little less for the salinity and fish habitat issues. By the way, the fish, one of the ones we are talking about, is called the delta smelt. They haven't found one, in what they call trawls looking for the fish, in 3 years. They are pretty much nonexistent. Yet, we are still allowing hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of precious water to go out through the bay to somehow try to mitigate that situation. They decided to withdraw the change petition, the TUCP, a decision made on January 21, to say we are going to go ahead and let the water flow at a higher level than is necessary. Water will be trickling out of our dams, out of our storage, at a rate much more than is needed for a perception of salinity or fish. At the time when we are looking at drought in California, low water supplies, and all the unrest we have in the world's food supply chain-- Hungary, for example, is not going to export grain this year. Russia and Ukraine had been world market participants in grain, especially Ukraine. Ukraine is a very, very rich country in wheat and many other ag products. Their farmers, right now, are out there trying to plant crops amidst all the bombs being dropped on them by Russia. God bless them. But farmers in this country are having bombs dropped on them by Federal and State agencies taking their water away. At a point where we could have curtailed a little bit of the water going out through the delta and kept it for ag use to grow rice, to grow almonds, to grow olives, to grow tomatoes, many things that we need, they decided on January 21, no, we are just going to let the water go out at the same rate. At that point, Lake Shasta was only at 35 percent of its capacity. Lake Oroville was only at 45 percent of its capacity. They thought, well, we are going to bank on the idea that more rain is going to come post-January 21 up until maybe April 1, when, historically, the rainfall tapers off. These lakes are both well under half full. They decided, no, we have plenty of water because we had a massive amount of rain and snow in December. I mean, they threw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, in making this decision because anybody could have seen that we needed to keep every drop in those lakes that is coming in there to build them up. Now, had they reached the flood stage where they have to allow a buffer of space in the dams to provide for flood control, which is approximately about 850 feet of elevation in Oroville and, I am going to guess, about 70, 75 percent of capacity--they are well below that. They thought, oh, we are going to have so much water coming in that we will meet these marks. Well, guess what? The rain did not come in the latter part of January or February or March, and now we are in the first few days of April. Here at this point, we are going to be short on food, short on water, and they are just now thinking about putting the TUCP in here in early April. It is very shortsighted and appalling.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Ranking Member Graves yielding me the time on this as well as the bipartisan effort with Chairman DeFazio and everybody on this important legislation. The Resilient AMERICA Act really, indeed, is like the old adage, a stitch in time saves nine. When you can spend dollars upfront mitigating, such as this bill moves to do, to make a larger pool of money available under FEMA to do so, it just saves a lot of extra pain and suffering. Mr. Garret Graves talked about the $100 billion year in, year out we are spending on disaster relief. It is good we do so, but we can nip a lot of this in the bud by applying this type of thinking toward all types of possible disasters. In my home district, you know, last year the Dixie fire, right at a million acres; the Camp fire before that hit the town of Paradise. You all heard about that in the news, 85 people lost their lives, destroyed 90 percent of the town. Now, if we can get ahead of the curve on this, whatever is applicable for FEMA preassistance, prework, hardening power lines, having buildings that can be hardened with the right materials for their siding and for their roofs. The mitigation we need to be doing in forested areas, whatever is applicable, the more we can do, the better off we are. We are also looking at flood situations. I have that, too, with the Sacramento River and Feather River in my area, as well as lesser areas, too, in size. Instead of fixing a levee on New Year's Eve in the middle of the night on soggy levees, doing that work ahead of time, upgrading them makes it safer for the workers, safer for the community, and is much less expensive. This is, indeed, a great success for us in this time, and there is sometimes difficulty here in Congress to have legislation like this with strong bipartisan support that can help everybody. I am proud of the work this committee has been able to do.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves) for the time. Here we have again another triumph of legislation coming together that can be beneficial at no great new cost to the process. The Stafford Act has needed updating, certain aspects, for a long time. When you look at some of the difficulties when you are in a postdisaster situation of having to deal with some arcane legislation and laws, it just makes much more suffering than is necessary for people who have been victims, in my case, from many wildfires in northern California. In adhering to the approximate 95 percent of projects being under the new threshold, that still keeps with what had been set in place way back in 1988. H.R. 5641 is a triumph in that. Also, with it at 10 percent of total funding for disasters, we are not blowing the budget on this either. It is, indeed, very important because when you are talking about my rural district or rural America, you don't have the wherewithal to be hassling your way through some of these processes in order to get things going again postdisaster. In my area, for example, towns like Whiskeytown, Happy Camp, Hornbrook, Concow, Yankee Hill, Magalia, Paradise, Doyle, Canyondam, Greenville, Indian Falls, and others I couldn't possibly all list here today, they are all going to be beneficiaries and appreciative of this effort because they don't have the ability, small counties like Plumas County and Lassen County, to have to deal with some of the restrictions previously under the Stafford Act. This would be a big win for anybody facing disaster, a small town, or even large, around this country. This is another win for us legislatively, and I appreciate the effort of the committee.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, last week, President Biden announced a decision to repeal one of the best tools our Nation has to deter illegal immigration, title 42. Title 42 is a public health law that authorized U.S. border agents to promptly send back illegal immigrants if they pose a health risk to Americans and are from a country with a communicable disease outbreak. This reckless decision comes as U.S. Customs and Border Patrol warned the historic surge at our border is already worsening, now even more so in anticipation of the rollback of this title. The U.S. will soon hit 1 million illegal crossings of our borders in just the first half of this fiscal year, which began in October. Last week, Customs and Border Patrol confirmed that over 300,000 illegal immigrants have illegally entered in just the last 6 months-- 300,000. This is known as the known got-aways, and the true number is most likely much higher. Title 42 expulsions account for over half of all expulsions; the ones with the health issues are half of expulsions. They will now be let in. Where are the concerns about Americans' health? We are just coming off this COVID situation. Where are Americans' health concerns in this? This is a crazy policy that is not putting Americans first.