Doug LaMalfa

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, so far Congress has provided $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations via the so-called infrastructure bill. Mr. Speaker, $5 billion of that money is allocated to individual States to build a network of fast chargers along major highways in the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program. This outpouring of funds, the intense focus of the Department of Transportation and the Biden administration has only managed to finish seven of these stations in only four States. Investment seems to be the term used on this topic to get around the fact that nothing is getting done and an incredible amount of taxpayer money is being spent. There is a consistent pattern of electric vehicle charging stations being exempted also from the Buy America provisions that were expanded in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. We are buying these components from China because most are not sourced from U.S. manufacturing because we are in a big hurry, it seems, to not actually build them. This is a pathetic and embarrassing show of bureaucratic waste and a slap in the face to American workers. The whole Biden administration at every level, be it funding or regulation, have forced electric vehicles and have forced the demand that the infrastructure isn't even close to being in place for. Mr. Speaker, 7 in 10 Americans said they don't want to buy an EV and are already trying to give back what they have.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize how important the situation is in California right now across the board with our resources: our water supply, our timber, our mining, and our agriculture. Right now, of course, you are probably reading a lot of headlines about the fire situation, how much of our forests and open lands are in big trouble, and you are going to hear that side of the aisle talking all day long about climate change. I throw back at them, if the climate is changing, what are we actually doing as people on the ground about it besides figuring out who we are going to tax or whose car we are going to take away or whose gas stove we are going to take away? What are we doing, practically, about making our forests more fireproof or firesafe? What are we doing about our water supply to make sure that there is more water stored so that people, agriculture, and, yes, even the environment can use it? What are we doing to ensure we have a stronger electrical grid? What is it we have happening? We see they want to tear out part of the electrical grid in the form of hydroelectric dams in northern California as well as up in Oregon and Washington, et cetera. It is just one after another. Hydroelectric dams provide CO2-free electricity, if you want to worry about the CO2. Now, CO2 only makes up 0.04 percent of our atmosphere, but they are using it as a weapon in order to force us to change our lifestyles. Let's store more water so we have it for agriculture, so we have it for hydroelectric power, and so we have it for all manner of things that we need water for, for human use and environmental use. Let's move the ball on that. In my own district, we have a project called the Sites Reservoir that has been talked about for 50 years. It seems to be coming close to fruition of actually getting started to be built, but there are still roadblocks that could be thrown up. There could still be weaponized lawsuits to try and stop the building of the Sites Reservoir, which would be 1\1/2\ million more acre-feet of storage for California, as well as its positive flood control benefits when you are pulling the water out of a flooded river system into that reservoir. Why can't we think ahead a little more about these issues with our infrastructure? Agriculture in California is one of the most important components of our food supply for this whole country that you can imagine. We have so much that we grow in California, from the Sacramento Valley to the San Joaquin Valley, that many of those crops, 90 to 99 percent of them, are grown in California. If we don't grow it there, we are going to have to import it, or we have to do without. If we have to import it, it means it is going to be a higher cost, it is going to be lesser quality, or it will not be a reliable, constant source if they want to play trade games against us with it as well. Why don't we produce it in California? We have the water supply. Hundreds of thousands, millions of acre-feet, even, escape to the sea each year because we are not storing it. We are not trapping it. We are not putting it into groundwater recharge, which would be extremely helpful for the San Joaquin Valley, especially where the ground has actually subsided. It is sinking somewhat. We pull a lot of water out of the ground in order to do agricultural activity, but that said, agriculture also means groundwater recharge. If we are flooding those fields and irrigating those fields, it percolates back down in there. Instead, they take more water away from the farmers, and they want to replace it with what they call solar farms, which is an insult. Why would you call that a farm? Indeed, we are finding more and more that these massive solar arrays, as well as windmills, can actually change the climate in the area where they are. Think of the concentration. Think of the heat sink. We see that in urban areas, the urban heat sinks from so much pavement, so much concrete, and so many buildings. It raises the temperature. If you want to talk about temperature once again, what are you going to do to the San Joaquin Valley where the idea is to take more and more ag land out and put so-called solar farms in? We need to have our State be much more productive in keeping agriculture going, keeping the jobs going, and having a domestic food supply that is reliable. With that comes infrastructure, building more water supply, and not tearing out our hydroelectric dams but actually preserving them and adding more to our electrical grid. We have the Diablo Canyon Power Plant that has been in place for 40- plus years. It was almost going to be decommissioned here this year or next year with the two different reactors. They bought 5 more years. We need 40 more years for that plant, and we need more plants like that. We have small nuclear plants that we can build more and more of around the country to keep our electric grid stable. Right now, when you see the temperatures in California, and a lot of the West, perhaps, over 100 degrees, 105, 108, even some other areas that are higher than that, it is going to be really tough on our electrical grid because we don't seem to have the foresight to produce electricity. All these things work together for affordability and for families to sustain their homes and run the air conditioner and have a stable food supply that is halfway reasonable in cost. It is a domestic food supply and one that brings jobs to our backyard and the water supply that we all need. We need all of the above on this.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I come from California, which there is a certain amount of risk in saying that because we do a lot of wacky things there. It is a wonderful State with wonderful geography, wonderful weather, and so many great things, but the governance sometimes--I don't know. What we are exporting currently is a lot of the work of the California Air Resources Board, which currently is trying to regulate locomotives into technology that doesn't even yet exist, and therefore, foist that same nontechnology onto other States. We are talking about the logistics of moving freight in California but also out of California and that can't be moved because they don't have a plan for that. They would have them switch locomotives at the border, but with CARB's plans, they don't really care about that. They want to make everybody in the whole country buy locomotives to meet a Tier 4, they call it, which isn't even available yet. Beyond Tier 4, they want to go to zero emissions, which isn't really zero, the so-called electric trains. They are not even available. The technology isn't there, and CARB wants all of this done by the year 2030. Imagine the logistics of getting food from California, which people rely on. Mr. Speaker, 99 percent of certain crops come from California. We won't be able to ship them out as well as the military material that might need to be moved out of our State in times of war or conflict. Anyway, don't do what we do in California.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, if you have observed the West during the summer and fall months the last few years, maybe longer than that, you would see that fire season is soon upon us and has had devastating effects. One example would be a 1 million-acre fire, one fire of a million acres in my district just 3 short years ago. What are we doing as the Federal Government to combat that? They are moving pretty slowly. The U.S. Forest Service has allowed, due to lack of ability to get access to the forest and get the type of board feet out that needs to happen, in the last 15 months, 50 individual sawmill closures up until March. Over 1,500 sawmills have closed since the year 2000. Where is the capacity going to be to process these logs and turn them into something useful if the private sector isn't allowed to take enough harvest. Because of the U.S. Forest Service's lack of action, the U.S. is now number one in imported wood when we have all this wood standing out there. It makes no sense. We have got to move much quicker.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, as we are on the precipice of another Memorial Day in this country, we have so much to be thankful for and grateful for as we pause to remember those who have fallen to defend our country, our way of life, and our Constitution. From the fields of Valley Forge to Tripoli to our own homeland in the Civil War to San Juan Hill, the trenches of France, Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Iwo Jima, the 38th parallel, the jungles of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and others, we are grateful for those that stood up and stood in the line of fire for us and for our values. Indeed, from John 15:13: ``Greater love has no one than this: To lay down one's life for one's friends.'' We owe them a lot. We can never pay that back other than to be grateful and to remember those who have fallen for our Nation.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the life and career of respected businessman and lifelong Yuba-Sutter resident, Heiman Cheim who passed away at the age of 86 years old. Heiman was born on May 27, 1937, in Sacramento, California, to parents Harry and Lea. Heiman's Yuba-Sutter family roots run deep, as his maternal great-grandfather William G. Murphy was a member of the 1846 Donner Party. His father's side immigrated to Marysville in the mid-1800s from Germany. Heiman attended Marysville High School, where he was active in sports and played the trombone. After graduation in 1954, he would first attend Menlo College in Palo Alto, CA. and was later recruited to play football at Westminster University in Salt Lake City, UT. While at Westminster, he would meet his wife, Kaye, who he would marry in 1958. They would go on to have five children, along with many pets and countless family memories. Heiman spent much of his early adulthood working with his father and uncles at the Union Lumber Company and Cheim Ranch. Heiman would eventually buy the company from his uncles and continue the family- owned legacy with his son, Harry. Heiman was a hard worker, his 64-year career was a testament to his tireless work ethic, and his deep connection with the community. Heiman had an endless appetite for life, which included trips around the country and learning to ride a Harley-Davidson. His favorite place to be with family was Jackson Hole, Wyoming; together they would: flyfish, ski, track down bear jams, and enjoy our country's National Parks. After his wife passed away in 2004, it was imperative to carry on that tradition and make every holiday and birthday special. He shared many of these moments with his companion of twenty years, Donna. Heiman is survived by his children, Heidi, Lorie, Harry, Charlotte, and Alison; twelve beloved grandchildren and one great grandchild. He is also survived by Donna Helms, along with many extended family and friends. His humor, generosity, drive, and joy in life inspired everyone around him. He will be deeply missed by all who knew him. May he rest in peace.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a very special young man, Preston Sharp, for his passion, commitment, and accomplishments in honoring our nation's veterans. Preston is a resident of Shasta County, a loving son, and grandson with a heart of gold. His hard work and devotion to honor veterans in our community and our country will be felt for generations. On Veterans Day in 2015, when Preston was just 10 years old, he visited the grave of his grandfather, a Navy veteran, at a local Redding cemetery. He placed a flag and flowers on his grandfather's headstone to thank him for his sacrifice. As he looked around, he was troubled by the lack of flags and flowers at the gravesites of all the other veterans. With encouragement from his loving mother and grandmother, Preston used that compassion to make a positive change in the world. He set a goal, and in just 5 months, by doing odd jobs and chores, he had earned enough to purchase flags and carnations to honor all 500 veterans in that cemetery in Redding, California. This gratifying success prompted him to set another goal, to honor veterans in all the Redding cemeteries. He began speaking at local groups and organizations who enthusiastically donated to his worthy objective, seeing in this young boy with a passion to honor and appreciate those who served. Soon, Preston was honoring veterans in cemeteries all around our North State, throughout California, and beyond. Preston has organized the placement of more than one million flags and red carnations on veterans' headstones throughout the homeland. His crusades have inspired citizens in communities across the United States to participate in similar acts of patriotism and respect for veterans by coming out to clean headstones, replace weathered flags and flowers, and say ``Thank You'' to those that have served our country. Preston does not just honor our fallen veterans. He often visits veterans at the local veteran's home or takes them out to lunch and enjoys listening to their stories. His goal is clearly to honor and help all veterans in any way possible, as evidenced by his current initiative, to help prevent and spread awareness of veteran suicides, which has become a top priority. Preston's contagious ambition has spurred him to start other movements like the Flag and Flower Challenge to encourage everyone in the United States, especially youth, to honor veterans in their own hometowns. He also established Veterans Flags and Flowers, a non-profit organization with a vision to ``honor veterans across the country'' and a mission to ``honor veterans every day, not just the holiday''. As a teen member of the Sons of the American Legion, Preston helped inspire the Flying Flags for Heroes program and became their national spokesperson. Preston was invited to the White House and was honored with a seat beside the First Lady during President Trump's inspirational State of the Union Address in 2018. President Trump commended 12-year-old Preston Sharp for ``a job well-done'' and praised young patriots like Preston who teach all of us about our civic duties as Americans. Preston has been recognized and is supported by nearly every local club, organization, school, and business in northern California. He has been an honored guest, speaker and advocate at countless events, services, and fundraisers. He has been featured on the History Channel and highlighted social studies curriculum such as Inspire My Kids. He continues to collect accolades around the country for his work such as being awarded the title of Legacy Keeper by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and is allied with the Wreaths Across America program. Preston's goal was to honor veterans in all 50 States which sent him travelling across the country, meeting veterans, visiting cemeteries, inspiring communities, and sharing the experience of planting flags and flowers along the way. Despite setbacks during the COVID-I9 shutdowns, on Veterans Day, November 11, 2022, Preston Sharp officially met his goal by presenting flags and flowers in honor of veterans in all 50 of our U.S. states. Quite a celebrated accomplishment. Preston is now planning on taking his cause overseas to Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. He will be placing 17,000 American flags and red carnation flowers at every gravestone, saying each veteran's name out loud, and thanking them for their service. This young man reminds us that we all have a sacred duty to honor and remember those who served and sacrificed for our nation, no matter how old we are.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, in my district in northern California there is this catastrophic removal and destruction of the Klamath dams. These are hydroelectric dams that provide clean, CO2-free power for about 70,000 homes. It is reducing the renewable grid that everybody seems to want, eliminating recreational assets, hurting property values, damaging the local economy, and making it tougher on agriculture in the Klamath Basin. Mr. Speaker, many of these products right here that are grown in California, 90 to 99 percent of what America relies upon. Even 100 percent of some of those same crops are grown in the Klamath Basin. They won't be able to do that much longer if they keep tearing down our infrastructure and taking water away. The removal of these dams currently has released many millions of cubic yards of accumulated silt which has ruined the water quality and killed hundreds of thousands of fish and their spawning beds that they have laid new smelts in. We have seen even full-sized deer getting stuck and dying in the mud. The Governors of California and Oregon seem willing to ignore these because they think it is a win to tear out the dams. Local farmers, again, are suffering. The project borrowed water from the dams to extend irrigation systems. We won't have that flexibility anymore with that out. We won't be able to grow some of these crops that Americans enjoy and rely upon. We have this devastation going on all in the name of the environment and all in the name of saving some fish, and in the meantime they have destroyed and killed hundreds of thousands of fish and will continue to do so with this reckless dam removal that won't end here. It will keep going. We will have less hydroelectric power, less stored water, and less recreation with this crazy type of thinking.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a dear friend, Brigadier General Clarence E. ``Bud'' Anderson, probably known best, at least by me and some others in the neighborhood, as Colonel Bud. In recent years, Representative Tom McClintock and I petitioned the Air Force to upgrade him to brigadier general, which he certainly deserved and he earned, but I think most folks kind of know him as Colonel Bud. What you see there in his countenance and smile goes even beyond his exploits as a triple ace in World War II to the kind, nice, and decent man that he was. You could sit down with Colonel Bud and just chat about anything. He was willing to talk about his time serving in World War II, especially as a fighter ace, a triple ace. ``Ace'' means five kills of enemy aircraft. He did that over three times. He was known as everybody's friend in the Auburn area of northern California. It was certainly a pleasure for me to know him since somewhere around 2011 when I first got to meet him at a special event there. He was always out participating in the community when he could. Health issues more recently made that tougher. He was out there sharing and just being an inspiration to so many, especially young people. He would take the time to sit with and chat and talk about his experiences. That is very special because his service was an incredible experience in helping keep our Nation safe and helping free Europe in World War II. Not a lot of veterans want to talk about that publicly. It is difficult for them. He was the guy who could do that. You see him here with his aircraft. He flew three different types of aircraft in World War II, but the one most known was his P-51 Mustang named the ``Old Crow,'' of which there are replicas that you can see at certain air shows. I am very proud of that, and it is well known because of his amazing exploits. We are very saddened by his passing, but our hearts are filled with what a great man and a nice man he was. He would talk with us about engines and airplanes and the dogfighting in World War II that got him to that point of being a triple ace, and he would even talk about NASCAR racing. Interestingly, there is a special edition Ford Mustang done up like his aircraft that he got to see, which was pretty cool as well. It was done, I think, by Roush Racing. He was a northern California native. He grew up on a rural farm in Newcastle, and he loved to watch the airplanes back then. He graduated from Placer High School in 1939 and earned his private pilot license in 1941 through the Civilian Pilot Training Program. In January of 1942, when duty called, he entered the U.S. Army aviation cadet program, receiving his wings that September of 1942. In Europe, Bud served two combat tours, escorting heavy bombers in the P-51 from 1943 to 1945, which was some severe duty. If you have ever watched any documentaries, the duty they had in those daylight raids to try to bomb Germany out of the war is incredible. Those ``Little Friends,'' as these Mustangs were known, escorting those bombers in that difficult mission were indeed valuable and loved by them. He flew 116 combat missions, 480 hours' worth, destroyed 16\1/4\ enemy aircraft, as they divided them up amongst a couple other pilots as well. Bud flew in the 357th fighter group known as the Yoxford Boys and was the highest scoring ace in the 363rd fighter squadron. Bud came home from Europe and married Eleanor Cosby in 1945. They had two children, James Edward and Kathryn. After the war, he became a fighter test pilot and later chief of fighter operations. He flew many models of early jet fighters and was involved in some very unusual flight test programs, including down at Edwards Air Force Base where much of that came from. He has flown over 130 types of aircraft and logged over 7,500 flying hours in his career. He was also assigned in postwar Korea as a commander of a F-86 jet fighter squadron there as well, commander in the F-105 wing in Okinawa, and two assignments at the Pentagon, as well. Bud was decorated 25 times. His awards include 2 Legions of Merit, 5 Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Bronze Star, 16 Air Medals, the French Legion of Honor, and the French Croix de Guerre, as well as many other campaign service ribbons. When Bud retired from the Air Force, he joined the McDonnell Aircraft Company and served for 12 years as the manager of the company's flight test facility there. After his full retirement in 1984, Bud and Ellie moved back to Auburn where he continued to travel, hunt, fish, and speak at air shows and just be the great man we knew him as. God bless him. I am going to miss him personally. What a great friend he was. He was a great human being, and I am glad to have known him. May God bless you, Bud, and hold you in His hands. Fly high, my friend.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, our forests are in crisis, and we must act with urgency on managing them and making them more fireproof. In the past few years, for example, my district in northern California has seen the devastating effects of wildfires, from the Camp fire in 2018 where 85 people lost their lives, and the Dixie fire which consumed 1 million acres. They are not just statistics. They represent real people, homes lost, and entire towns disappeared. Yet funding alone is not going to be enough. We need more tools, we need more authorities, and we need categorical exclusions that will help move us into the forest more quickly, more broadly, and more effectively. Pace and scale need to be dramatically increased, especially on Federal forest lands. The 2024 farm bill promotes active forest management; yes, the farm bill, because USDA has the Forest Service aspect in that bill, as well. We need to do much acceleration of the process. We don't want to continue to see the West burn year after year. We need to put the jobs back in the forests where we used to have them 40 and 50 years ago. The 2024 farm bill will enhance our ability to manage forests proactively, reduce fuel loads, and put people back to work in the West.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith for helping us with our legislation all this time here, and I am very grateful also to Mr. Steube for allowing our bill to be piggybacked with his in this effort here, as well as H.R. 7024, Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which is still waiting over in the Senate. I hope we can get that one passed, but I am grateful for everybody to join this effort here today in a strong, bipartisan effort to move this narrower, very important disaster relief package to help people all across the country, as has been said. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Thompson of California, so much for our partnership on this. It has taken some time, but we are getting there. I am glad to see it. With the losses we have suffered along with our constituents-- especially our constituents, of course--it is very painful to see and not be able to go back to them and say we have gotten a result. My own constituents, I commend them. I am grateful for them. They have been very patient, the victims of the Camp fire where 85 lives were lost, the victims of the Zogg fire, my neighbors down there in the Santa Rosa area, and of course, my good friend, Ms. Tokuda. Lahaina suffered an even greater loss of life than what we had in Paradise, which was a record. We don't want to set records. We want to get results. It has been a great partnership on top of disaster and heartache. Just picture this, though, as I talk about Paradise: You wake up in the morning, and you hear there is a fire. All of a sudden, there is an evacuation. People are crowding the narrow roadways, trying to get up the hill or down the hill out of town, barely making it in some cases, scorched vehicles, tires on fire, all of that. They are seeing in their rearview mirrors their neighborhood engulfed in flames and their houses burning down with all their mementos, as was mentioned, in them. They are wondering: Did their neighbor get out? Did the elderly lady up the street get out? Thank goodness there was a firefighter or neighbor that maybe helped that lady get out just in time, so there was not even a bigger loss of life. The resilience of these folks in the fires that I have had in my district and my neighbors in our neighboring States is just amazing as they have stuck with us on this. A settlement happened with the utility to somehow partly compensate them, and indeed, they will never be made whole. My colleagues have pointed that out well. They can never be made whole, even with a lot of money. That settlement should not be a taxable event. Think about it. Just break that down for a minute. You are in your home, and you have been paying off your mortgage. Maybe it is already paid off. You have your equity in your home. This disaster happens, and you lose your home. All of a sudden, you have to rearrange your life. You have to rebuild your life. That portion of that equity that now is going to be compensated for partly by the settlement with the utility, that portion of your home, is now a newly taxable event because of the IRS' interpretation of that. How is that right? How is that fair at all? Someone is ripped out of their life, home, family, whatever may have happened to them personally, and now they have a taxable event on top of that piece of equity that was in their home because of a bad interpretation here. That is why this legislation is necessary. That is why it has been so strongly supported on both sides of the aisle all through the process here. That is why we need to overcome these hurdles we have, whether it is over in the Senate or what have you, to get this done. People deserve to have that predictability, that sustainability of their lives, to be able to put themselves back in a good way again. To the fire victims of the Camp fire in my area, the Zogg fire, our other neighbors out there, relief is on the way. This has been a tremendous effort, a little out of the ordinary, to get this legislation back to this floor here tonight, and I think it will pass resoundingly. I hope so. I ask for everybody's ``aye'' vote. Again, I appreciate all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for stepping forward and doing right by the fire victims, by the hurricane victims, by those folks in East Palestine, and by others who are going to be added to this. This is how legislation should look. This is how a country pulls together, and I am glad to be part of it.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, California's agricultural sector is a powerhouse, contributing over $50 billion to our economy and all these amazing food products for U.S. consumers. Since we produce so many of these fruits and vegetables at 90-plus percent, it is a key element. Our Nation's consumer base really depends on a strong farm bill for the products that come from California and all over the country. In a week, the House Agriculture Committee will hold a vote on this year's farm bill. I can say from personal experience that the committee has spent countless hours going around the country listening to people and taking into account all the things it takes to make our domestic food supply strong. It aligns our farm safety net with the needs of producers as well as folks in need, and an incentive for conservation and market access are all elements of that. I also have the privilege of chairing the Subcommittee on Forestry. We are focused on making our forests safer from devastating fire, which we have experienced in northern California with the loss of many lives, as has my dear friend, Representative Tokuda, with Lahaina in Hawaii. We have to do much better on making our communities and our lands fire safe to prevent unnecessary loss of life and unnecessary damage. The farm bill is going to be a big element in going forward and improving upon that situation. I look forward to a positive vote and success next week.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, National Police Week is our opportunity to slow down a little bit and recognize those officers that put it on the line for us each day, each week, each month, and each year. They face a lot of obstacles that they encounter in their efforts just to keep us safe and keep criminals off the street and hopefully prosecuted. When I first entered into the political realm as a candidate, I met a deputy one time who was so frustrated with the state of the criminal justice system at that point. He told me that he was aggravated that those that he arrested would beat him home from being released before he could even get the paperwork done. As we see the situation with prosecutors not prosecuting and with a revolving door in our jail system, we really need to dig deep and not only thank our officers but also pass legislation that supports them in their efforts to do what we ask them to keep the streets safe and not have ridiculous defund the police efforts happening in some of these blue cities. Indeed, they are feeling the regret of defunding them at this time.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and public service career of Sutter County Sheriff Roy Whiteaker who recently passed away at the age of 84 years old. Roy was born in Calico Rock, Arkansas, to Corbin and Irene Whiteaker. From a young age, Roy displayed a strong sense of duty and integrity, traits that would guide him throughout his life and career. Roy would join the United States Army in 1959, where he would become a military policeman beginning his law enforcement career. While in the Army, Roy was stationed in Panama for nearly three years, where he would marry his wife. The young family would then move to Yuba City in 1962, where Roy would continue his law enforcement career with the City of Yuba City Police Department, being hired as the City's first narcotics Detective. He would also be instrumental in helping to organize the first Yuba- Sutter Narcotics Task Force. Roy would then run for Sutter County Sheriff serving from 1971 to 1990; when he was first elected as Sheriff, he was reportedly the youngest Sheriff ever elected in California at that time. During his tenure, Sheriff Whiteaker would oversee many high-profile cases such as the arrest of Juan Corona, who was convicted of murder after 25 bodies were found buried in Sutter County orchards; as well as in 1989 when the Sutter County Sheriff Office seized $4.25 million worth of illegal drugs, or what would be $11 million today accounting for inflation. Current Sutter County Sheriff Brandon Barnes was quoted as saying, ``Roy was a tremendous leader and he served as a mentor to so many, including myself. He will he missed but never forgotten.'' The impact of Sheriff Whiteaker cannot be understated, he helped mold and influence the Sutter County Sheriff's Office into the force that it is today. Roy is survived by his loving wife Gladys, along with his two children Janet Tracy, and Jim Whiteaker, as well as many grandchildren. On behalf of the people of Northern California, I thank Sheriff Roy Whiteaker for his service to the Sutter County community. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him. Rest in Peace.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing on college campuses throughout the country isn't First Amendment-protected protesting or free speech. It is vandalism, assault, breaking and entering, and anti- Semitism. We have seen pro-Hamas sympathizers set up no-go zones for Jewish students and faculty, physically blocking them from entering their universities, where they have units and where they have paid their dues, the whole works. We have seen pro-Hamas sympathizers send a UCLA student to the emergency room after beating her unconscious just because she is Jewish. What is this, 1939? We have seen pro-Hamas sympathizers break into and occupy university buildings, break windows, spray-paint, and rename a building ``Intifada Hall,'' as seen on Humboldt's campus up in northern California. We have seen pro-Hamas sympathizers assault police officers and even take a Columbia University janitor as a hostage. The law is clear: Destroying property, blocking traffic, assault, and taking a hostage are illegal. Elite university students at Yale, Columbia, and UCLA should know better. Furthermore, history has made it clear: If your group is creating no- go zones for Jewish people or actively attacking students who disagree with you or students just because they are Jewish, you are in the wrong. These are not protesters.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, last month, a colleague and good friend, Congresswoman Jill Tokuda, and myself toured my district. This is post fire devastation of the 2018 Camp fire and how our recovery efforts are going 5 years later. It is a solemn connection Representative Tokuda and I share, as last August her district suffered the catastrophic Lahaina fire. Here we are checking out Lahaina, and here she is with me in Paradise, California. The Lahaina fire replaced the Camp fire as the deadliest one in the United States since at least 1910. Through the Bipartisan Policy Center, we were also able to visit her district as well at no expense to the taxpayers. Through bipartisanship, we worked across the aisle together and discussed finding solutions that work in multiple regions of the country for something that has plagued both our districts so viciously: wildfire. As my colleague Representative Tokuda and the residents of Lahaina go through their own recovery and rebuilding process, it is important to share the lessons that we learned in northern California in recovering from a major disaster and navigating the FEMA process. I hope these lessons can be learned for the benefit of her district, mine, and others going forward as necessary.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, time and again around this facility, we will be in committee, and we will be having conversations, and what seems to be the biggest focus for a lot of the Democrats around here is climate change. I ask them: What is the target here? What is the issue? It seems to boil down to carbon dioxide, and they never seem to know what the actual composition of our atmosphere is of the carbon dioxide that we have. They don't know. Yet, we have all these goals they want to set for how many electric cars we are going to have by what year, or what power plants, or getting rid of your leaf blower or your barbecue. What it really boils down to is that CO2 is only 0.04 percent of our atmosphere, and it is very beneficial to plants. Without it, we would not have plants, and without plants, we would not have us. The hypocrisy of people is that they are trying to ratchet down CO2 and put our American economy in peril. Exporting our economy and exporting our jobs to the Pacific Rim, to China, is going to be the result of this fallacy of the religion of climate change.

Mr. LaMALFA

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

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, we have this gigantic problem with our sieve of a border. We hear all these ideas of how we can spend lots of money or the White House can't do anything about it. Well, I remind you that President Trump had many pieces in place that were actually working and bringing the numbers down on illegal immigration into this country. All we have to do is put these pieces right back in place. President Biden, by executive action, could put these eight ideas right back in place and not have to do anything with new expenditures or new legislation. We have the laws; we have the ability. He just needs to act. To hear the President saying: I don't know if I have the authority. That is bogus. He has the authority. If he wants to take action, he can. These eight items right here on this poster could be something he could sign executive orders right away and stop a massive percentage of what is wrong with our border. It would make our country secure again, save money, save the wear and tear on our social programs and make the citizens of our country feel like their citizenship actually means something once again. I urge President Biden to take these steps and put us back on the correct track.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, we witnessed the egregious overreach of government during the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in the infringement of Americans' rights and devastating consequences for our economy and unprecedented government spending. From the outset of the pandemic, we witnessed unprecedented government actions that trampled upon our basic freedoms and liberties: social shutdowns, mandated mask wearing, and vaccine mandates were imposed with little regard for individual autonomy, constitutional rights, or people's personal health issues. These heavy-handed measures not only eroded the fabric of our society but also inflicted severe economic harm on businesses and families across the Nation. Those of us with an ounce of common sense suspected from the beginning that COVID was little more than the flu and that the government's actions bordered on martial law. We were told it would take 2 weeks to flatten the curve. Well, were we played or how did that really turn out when it became 3-plus years? Instead of allowing citizens medical freedom, they forced the jab onto all of us, encouraging employers to threaten employees with termination if they didn't comply and keeping kids out of college. In order to return to their classes, they had to take the jab. One of the common controversies came from ivermectin, which we now know, and many knew at the time, works as a very effective early treatment for COVID-19. How many people were harmed because they weren't allowed this early treatment because it was politicized? Indeed, recently, the FDA finally had to walk back an early-on smart- aleck tweet they made trying to compare real ivermectin that is prescribed for people and formulated for people to something that would be comparable for livestock. After having suffered that embarrassment, they had to walk it back. In the meantime, how many lives were lost because this early treatment was not available? Instead, they were forced into other types of treatment or flat out being ignored when doctors and hospitals said: Well, come back to us when it is really bad, then we will check you in. Americans should have the right to make their own informed decisions with doctors they trust, including the choice to use alternatives such as ivermectin, especially in early treatment. It is very troubling that the government actively suppressed information about treatments for COVID-19, including ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and other materials that were available, while promoting instead a one-size-fits all approach centered around vaccines. Safe and effective, we were told. In fact, the FDA's censorship of information about ivermectin has had real-world consequences for medical professionals who dared to speak out. Again, what you see is that the FDA had to walk back their lies and their deception about this. They also were browbeating hospitals and doctors into selling the same thing. We see that even in my own local area where people were asking legitimate questions about ivermectin and were made fun of: Oh, this is just horse paste. You don't want to do that. Medical experts were contradicting themselves time and time again since the beginning of the pandemic. We were told to lock down for 2 weeks, right? Then it was masks, and then it was double masks. Then it was something called social distancing. For a while, they thought ventilators were going to be the issue for that, so they hurried manufacturers into making ventilators, and then they found out maybe those were harmful. Before Trump left office, we had top officials saying: Oh, I will never take it if it is Trump's medicine. Then immediately after they were forcing it on people when Biden took over. Interesting how that works. Commonplace therapeutics with decades of human usage and proven success--including ivermectin, which won a Nobel Prize in 2015 for its lifesaving qualities--again, as I mentioned, were branded as unsafe horse medication. Treatment methods should be a topic of debate or discussion and, indeed, the experts should be allowed to bring this forward that have all people's best interests in mind. If a treatment works, then it should be distributed as widely as possible or at least allowed, whether it is a vaccine, a dosage of ivermectin, or an infusion of monoclonal antibodies. The politicization of differing treatments hurt Americans by restricting their ability to receive lifesaving medications, especially early treatment, when it probably could have saved thousands of lives. As we stand today, there are multiple options that have been proven effective in treating the virus, but we hear the same old saw about the latest iteration of vaccine being forced upon people and making billions for pharmaceutical companies. We should be able to choose what we want. If you want to take therapeutics, you should have the ability to take them. In a lawsuit filed in Texas, three doctors claimed that the FDA's actions interfered with their medical practices and harmed their reputations. Pharmacists have refused to fill ivermectin prescriptions for patients, and doctors have faced professional repercussions for simply advocating for the use of ivermectin. There is much more, but when these people ask for forgiveness for lying to us like that, no way. There needs to be prosecution.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the United States is now the number one importer of wood products. It had been China up until recently when they finally slowed down their building. This shouldn't even be possible or happening. As you see, Mr. Speaker, California, the West Coast, and Western States have massively overcrowded forests due to the inattention of the U.S. Forest Service not keeping up the pace and scale to keep up with the amount of board feet that are growing each year. Take a look across a lot of rural America, Mr. Speaker, and you will see that these areas are, indeed, too overcrowded with trees. A healthy forest might have 50 to 70 adult trees per acre. We see a situation where there are 500 to 1,000 trees of all sizes. For a healthy and resilient forest, each tree needs enough nutrients, water, and sunlight to thrive, but when the trees grow too close together, they compete for these resources, are weakened, and then are susceptible to insects and other damage. You can see on the far side of this poster, Mr. Speaker, a dense forest that is going to be very fire-prone and very likely to be attacked by bugs or go through a drought period and become unhealthy. A thin forest like this is what we need the Forest Service to be doing. It survives fire and is much healthier for much longer. This is what we need.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, as we contemplate and navigate our way through these hard times, the difficult economy with, indeed, Bidenomics working the way it has been the last couple years for us in this country, we have to get to what is the root cause and what is the route out of this? It really comes down to getting back to our roots, getting back to the source of our economy. Where does the economy come from, and how do we make things reasonably priced again and affordable for our countrymen? If you look here, they are all tied together when you get right down to it. Cost of electricity up over 28 percent, food over 20 percent, residential rent nearly 20 percent. What are the building blocks that help us to thrive and help us get back out of this mess? Well, I will start. There are a few items that I work quite a bit on in my committee work, back at home and here in D.C., as well. Forestry is right at the beginning of that. What do you get from good forestry: Healthy forests and an economy that comes from our rural areas of the country that are suffering so much due to shutdowns, regulations, and inactivity by the U.S. Forest Service. You see here a forest, how it looks when it has been treated properly, when it has been thinned on this side of the poster here. That is a healthy forest. That is one that will withstand fire. It is good for the wildlife population. It is good for the trees themselves. They won't have to compete for limited soil and water resources, especially through a drought period. This side here is a tinderbox that is going to go up and it is going to be devastating as so much has happened in the West over these last years. A million-acre fire happened in my district. There are many six- digit fires all over the western States. This does not work for very long. It is not good for wildlife when it is green, and certainly not for when it is caught in the middle of a forest fire. Indeed, we have to do much more work in order to catch up on that because of what I mentioned. The cost of rent, when you have high costs of building inputs which can come from wood products that, just a couple years ago, were in short, and paper products. Remember the toilet paper shortage. Why in the world did we have that? We need to have our American forests be very active. There are over 800 million acres of forest that have approximately 350 billion trees in this country, a total inventory of 13 trillion board-feet, annual growth of 300 billion board-feet, whether we harvest it or not. America's total wood use via lumber, paper, biomass, and firewood is approximately half of annual growth, 150 billion board- feet. We see we have an issue, don't we? If we are only harvesting and using half of what grows each year, that means these forests will get more and more dense every year. We have the ability to do something about that. For some reason, I keep wondering why the U.S. is--recently surpassing China since their economy is slowing down--now the number one importer of wood products when we have the resource here that actually needs to be thinned, needs to be harvested, needs to be taken care of, and not clear cut, not the whole works. That isn't what it is about. That is the first thing that the city folks want to say: Oh, you are going to cut all the trees. No. We thin them out. This is what that looks like right here. Then that forest keeps on growing and is healthy. The next wave of harvest happens 30, 40, 50 years later, and it is a successful program instead of importing and sending the jobs somewhere else. Now that China has receded somewhat--number one importer of wood. It doesn't make a lick of sense to me. In the farm bill, we can address some of these issues coming up if we can be successful on passing what would be best in a 5-year farm bill soon and help with our forest health as well as the cost of housing and building new housing, building new apartments, whatever, for people. That will get me to my next poster here having to do with food, which is another part of the building blocks. I mentioned electricity. Those prices have gone up, food, and then housing. Here, we have an example of the food that is grown in my home State of California, but it is important to the whole country. Many other States are key to food supply in the Midwest, the Southern States, and so many areas of the country. I will point out what we have growing in California because we oftentimes have a water problem where the water supply, in tougher years, doesn't get to agriculture. The last 2 years, we have had an amazing water supply, amazing snowpack--indeed, above the 100-percent level of normal. Our lakes are filling. We can keep after the people making the decisions to allow them to fill the last bit to top it off because we still have several reservoirs that have a lot of space in them. I want to see them all hit 100 percent so we can survive maybe the next drought or certainly allocate water to agriculture as well as the people in the urban areas who are seeing themselves having to ration water. They are going to be cut back to 42 gallons per day, in some cases, due to the extreme measures that people who are not planning water supply are going to cause them to do. I don't know how that looks to my colleagues in L.A. County, Orange County, San Francisco County, having to tell people they are only going to get 42 gallons of water per day because of the mismanagement of water supply in our State. We could be building more storage. We should be building more storage. We have the chance to build a place called Sites Reservoir, 1.5 million acre-feet of storage. We could raise Shasta Dam only 18 feet, which would yield 630,000 acre-feet more of water. If we were actually filling the San Luis Reservoir the last 500,000 acre-feet of space it has right now--because they won't run the pumps because of some phony numbers they are using on fish and it affecting the fish by running the pumps. There are half a million acre-feet we are leaving on the table this year right now unless something changes dramatically soon on running the pumps down there in the delta. The priority these days everywhere is fish and environmental water. People are being left behind on this. We are going to see the allocation of water to some of the San Joaquin districts and areas curtailed, again, in a high-water year, in a high-snowpack year--great water. We have been blessed. They are going to see only 30 or 35 percent of their normal allocation, and that means these crops aren't going to be grown. As I pointed out, these crops are grown in California: 100 percent of the artichokes, celery, garlic, honeydew, kiwifruit, nectarines, olives, plums, shelled almonds, shelled pistachios, shelled walnuts, tomatoes. Basically, 100 percent of what America uses comes from California on a commercial basis. I know people grow patches of it here and there in their garden and stuff around the country, but commercially grown, that is what California represents. Getting down to some that are not quite 100 percent: mandarins, avocados, grapes, carrots, broccoli. These are at the 90 percent mark: strawberries, 89 percent; wild rice, 60 percent grown in California; horseradish, 30 percent, a lot of it up in my area of Tully Lake--except they are having their water taken away, except they are having their dams removed due to environmental stuff. How are we going to get a handle on the high price of inflation? With the dams I just mentioned, electricity is up 20-something percent. They tear down hydroelectric dams and say they are going to replace them with high-cost solar or wind that has to be massively subsidized; otherwise, no one would ever be able to afford it. They take out the hydroelectric dams. That is not going to make electricity any cheaper. Let's talk about food. If you don't build the water, allocate the water, and back people off on the regulations, such as making them electrify every aspect of agriculture and even the equipment--they are coming after the locomotives that transport all this and the trucks that transport it. All that does is drive up the cost of food. As I mentioned also with housing, if we can't cut the timber, if we can't provide for low-cost timber that comes from this country instead of somewhere else--it still baffles me that we are the number one importer of wood products--then housing is not going to get any cheaper either. That is tied into a lot of other regulations, available land use, and things like that. All of these things work together to drive up the costs for regular Americans who are struggling these days. They don't have the same options of freedom of movement, their freedom of time, where they might want to send their kids to school, or go on a vacation once in a while, tourism. All those things are dramatically curtailed because of government regulations, lack of government foresight on energy, where our energy is going to come from, what our energy policy is. Every time you don't allow a pipeline to happen means it is going to have to be coming from somewhere else, imported oil and gas. Yes, we are going to continue to use oil and gas in this country for a long time. The rest of the world is going to be. If we want to be competitive, we are putting ourselves down a really steep rathole if we are not going to continue to allow oil and gas to power certain aspects of our economy, of our mobility, et cetera. We are not going to electrify everything at the same time we are pulling out hydroelectric dams because of the environment. We are precariously on the edge of whether we are going to allow the nuclear power plant to continue to run in California past just another a few years. Are we going to build more nuclear power in this country? If you are worried about CO2, it is a great way to go, as are the hydroelectric dams. I am not worried about CO2 because it only represents 0.04 percent of our atmosphere. It is a rounding error, and it has been hyped a lot in order to make climate change scare the heck out of everybody when it really isn't that kind of a factor. There are other things we can do cleaner, cleaner running engines and things like that, less methane. Those are good things to work at, but CO2 is not the problem. CO2 is basically sucked up by these plants that we grow in agriculture and the forest photograph I showed you a minute ago. They are out there enjoying CO2 and giving us oxygen back if we would just be a little smarter about it. At the end of it, one of the important things we need to do this year, this spring, really, is move the farm bill because it is important as far as forestry goes. It is important, as far as this food supply goes, to have stability in the ag economy. A big portion of it is the SNAP program, which is important to help keep low-cost food on the table for many Americans who are on the low side of the income scale or going through tough times themselves. We need to pass that in order to have the SNAP program stay viable and stay modernized as things change. Moving forward with the farm bill, it is going to be very important in the short term to get a 5-year bill and not just another extension, which doesn't really allow us to change or upgrade what the pieces of the farm bill are, like crop insurance. Some of these crops need to have more ability to access crop insurance. If you have crop insurance, then there is less need to have a bailout for a disaster because it is being taken care of upfront, as well as a promotion of products, some of that through MAP funds and other programs to promote some of these products that we export. We do need to have an export economy. We have a giant negative economy with import-export with China and others, and agriculture has been one of our mainstays to have anywhere close to balance on foreign trade, so it is a good thing for us. Instead, what do we get? We get things such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a joke in its name. It didn't reduce inflation. Inflation is still going up. It is still part of our everyday worry we have here, and that is what we get is more government spending. Instead, unleash the economy by allowing people to log timber, grow food, and produce energy as I am talking about here. We need to be able to make a difference to help these producers and then help the consumers. We need to produce more fertilizer in this country. We need to mine more minerals in this country. They are important to all of these sectors and producing energy. If we want to have more gadgets, more equipment that uses electricity, then why aren't we mining the products here instead of making it a problem for some Third World country that doesn't have near the labor protections or environmental protections that we have here? If we do all of these things, it makes things more affordable, brings the jobs home, and makes us more accountable as a country. Instead, we are losing ground on the world stage in many aspects. Why are we a net agriculture importer when we have so much plenty in this country? We are less independent. We are less resilient. We are less competitive due to these policies that are associated with Bidenomics. In the face of declining farm income and these other challenges, it is essential that we prioritize farm and ranch families with the farm bill, with what we consume here. I mentioned crop insurance, which is extremely important. Additionally, the farm safety net is important, which is part of that farm bill. The input costs I mentioned, water allocations, all the above are important to work our way through instead of ignoring them and thinking that the priorities seemed to be reset around here. They have nothing to do with helping Americans in their everyday lives. It is a steep road here, but we can get back to a little bit of common sense. I had the chance to speak to the President right on this floor about water supply, about our timber situation, our forest situation here, and he listened. I just hope his Cabinet, his people who surround him, will pay more attention to what we are dealing with and how negatively, when these things aren't paid attention to and solved, how much it hurts the American people, how much it costs them, how much it costs them options for their family to do other things other than just trying to get by. It doesn't have to be this way. This inflation we have had the last 3 years--we came out of COVID, yes, but our economy should be thriving much better than what it is and not have these ridiculous regulations and things that limit us so much and advantage our competitors around the world--China, the Pacific Rim, and others--especially at such a perilous time with such unrest in the world, with the wars that are breaking out. We need to be strong. We need to be self-sufficient.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, this week, the United States Congress' Joint Economic Committee released a report based on the consumer price index for March. They found that in my home State of California, the average household is paying $1,222 more per month to purchase the same goods and services since January 2021. Cumulatively, the average California household has spent $26,929 more due to inflation in that same period of time. Compared to January 2021, the average household in California spent $173 more per month on food. This is $25 more each month than just 1 year ago, a cumulative of $3,900 more in food costs since January 2021. The average household in California is spending $161 per month more in energy costs and $5,000 more out of their pockets since that period of time in January 2021. Shelter and housing has gone up $4,600 more since January 2021. What is the root cause of this? There are a couple of basic features. The cost of energy drives everything, and government spending has inflated. We have to stop.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, we will soon be heading into fire season, unfortunately, in the West. What does that mean? Each year, hundreds of thousands, even millions, of acres of forestland are lost due to wildfire due to the nonmanagement of these lands. The U.S. Forest Service needs to increase its pace and scale dramatically to get the work done out there that will make a forest safer and also use the product that we grow in this country. Since China is now buying a little less materials these days, the U.S. has gone from number two to number one as a wood importer. Why in the heck are we importing wood products when we have the timber in our Western lands, which we have to instead watch burn year after year? We could be putting jobs back in this country in these rural communities that have been boarded up in so many cases. We are losing lumber mills every day because the Forest Service is not acting quickly enough or with the pace and scale that needs to be done. We need to have the jobs and harvest here and the healthy forests and much less wildfire that comes with all that. It is a win-win-win. Let's get to work.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life, service, and career of Tom Dauterman of Chico, California who passed away peacefully after a three-year battle with cancer on February 26, 2024. Tom was born on July 19, 1942, in Los Angeles, California. His family moved to Durham, California in 1948, where he attended school, and he graduated as a member of the class of 1960. He worked as a carpenter with his father building houses after high school. On November 30, 1963, Tom married the love of his life, Sue Mathews, and they began their life together, making their home in Chico. Tom left his job with PG&E and established Thomas Welding in his garage in Chico in 1972. Thomas Hydraulics followed in 1974 as well as Thomas Manufacturing in 1996. What was once Tom's small business idea now stands as one of the largest machine shops north of Sacramento. Tom served the Chico community with excellence, teaching and mentoring many and never hesitated to share his time and knowledge with those he encountered. His encouragement and support of welding and agriculture programs in local high schools has impacted countless students in our local community. He was a true engineer as well as a builder; taking on many projects, which included innovating and developing agricultural equipment. Throughout the years Tom enjoyed vacations with friends, and attending classic car, boat, and air shows. Most recently he looked forward to his weekly visits to Hotel Diamond for coffee, lunch bunch, and tea at three. Tom also enjoyed spending time at Lake Almanor and hosted an annual 4th of July celebration for 19 years. His love for the community of Chico drove Tom to be a faithful supporter of the Boys and Girls Club as well as the Salvation Army and additionally many other community organizations. Tom was also a 35-year member of Chico Rotary, as well as a Chico Elks Lodge member for 53 years. Tom will be missed not only by his family and friends but also by the greater Chico community who benefitted from his benevolence. Many projects and endeavors were accomplished with Tom's silent participation both financially and with hours of hard work. He was a true public servant. We forever will be grateful for the legacy he has left.