Doug LaMalfa

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the outstanding military service career of Colonel James R. Bartran, II of the United States Air Force (USAF). Colonel Bartran currently serves as the Deputy Commander of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base in Wheatland, California. As Deputy Commander of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, Colonel Bartran is responsible for approximately 7,000 military, civilian, and contract personnel, and the entire Air Force high altitude reconnaissance fleet of the U-2 Dragon Lady aircraft at the base. Prior to his deployment at Beale AFB, Colonel Bartran was a student at the Army War College. Colonel Bartran was first commissioned in May of 2001, and since that time he has served dutifully in the USAF defending our Nation's homeland from overseas threats. Colonel Bartran has logged over 4,800 flight hours in a wide assortment of aircraft including: B-1B, T-38A, T-38C, T-34C, TU-2S, UH- 60, TH-57, and others. He has flown 78 combat missions with 700 hours of combat time. His combat experience includes deployments in support of Operations: Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom as well as multiple non-combat deployments in support of: US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), US European Command (USEUCOM), US Africa Command (USAFRICOM), US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), and US Central Command (USCENTCOM) conducting sensitive reconnaissance operations. During Colonel Bartran's distinguished military career, he would also serve as the Commander of the 5th Reconnaissance Wing in the USINDOPACOM leading 250 personnel and executing manned high altitude reconnaissance missions. Colonel Bartran earned a BA Degree in Business Management & Finance from Washington State University in 2001, and a Master of Military Operational Art and Science (MMAS) degree from the Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) in 2010. In addition, he has earned numerous awards and decorations such as: Meritorious Service Medal with six Oak Leaf Clusters, Air Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster, Aerial Achievement Medal with six Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Air Force Achievement Medal. Colonel Bartran lives with his wife Jackie, and their three children Lillian, James, and Joseph. It has been a pleasure to get to know Colonel Bartran in his last few years of service at Beale AFB. I found him to be a man of faith, honor, and integrity. I thank him for the work he has done with myself and my team to protect and expand the Air Force's many missions at Beale AFB. Colonel Bartran will be retiring from the USAF after 24 years of military service in defense of the United State of America. On behalf of the citizens of Northern California and a grateful Nation, we thank Colonel Bartran for his outstanding military career and service in the defense of freedom around the globe. We wish him all the best in his retirement and hope our paths do continue to cross. I thank him for his service. May God bless him and his family.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, it is the time of year with a lot of fretting over heat waves. We are calling it a heat dome now. What does that really mean? It usually means that the next step by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle typically is to say: Oh, my gosh, it is more climate change. We have to put out another tax for climate change. California is getting ready to do that on gasoline starting on July 1. It is estimated anywhere from 47 cents to 65 cents per gallon. What are we talking about? It is CO2, which is carbon dioxide. Look at these charts. This is 1970 and 2025. Yellow is nitrogen. Blue is oxygen. Here is argon, and here is carbon dioxide. Look at that little sliver right there. Look at that one. It is the same. It is an infinitesimal amount of the percentage of gases in our atmosphere. Yet we are spending trillions and changing our lifestyle in this country. We are chasing the number of CO2 from 0.04 percent down to 0.035 or whatever the number of the week is. We are harming ourselves while the rest of the world keeps moving forward. Oil and gas by other developing countries is going to skyrocket while we live in caves.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the Forest Service is beginning the process to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule, a move that has been long overdue. I commend Secretary Rollins, as she pointed out that this rule has been disastrous for the West, blocking forest thinning, logging, and road construction. As you can see from the map here, about 640 million acres are controlled by the Federal Government across our country, about half of that in the Forest Service. These restrictions made it harder to fight wildfires, protect public safety, and manage our forests responsibly. When government puts up gates and keeps people out from doing forest practices that are positive or even being able to get in and fight fires because the roads are disappearing, it is a bad deal for all of us. The rule was pushed through in the final days of the Clinton administration, backed by environmental activists in Washington, not the people who actually live near these forests and suffer from the smoke and the threat. It has led to overgrown, unhealthy forests, and prevented rural counties from using this land to create jobs which generate the income for their local governments, schools, and roads and reduced fire risk. Repealing the Roadless Rule is an important step toward restoring this entry we need to our lands, improving wildfire response, and bringing back common sense to forest management.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, lately there has been one heck of a lot of misinformation--which would be the kind term--flat-out lies about the land that is held in control by the Federal Government and proposals to perhaps sell a part of it. What are we looking at here? There are really a lot of people on the left talking about an idea, a concept that hasn't even been completely fleshed out over on the Senate side, as part of the big, beautiful bill. If you have listened to their talking points, you would think we are selling off Yosemite and bulldozing national parks, which, of course, is nonsense. No one is proposing that. They know it but they keep saying it anyway. Groups are putting out deliberately misleading maps, showing entire national forests and mountain ranges being at risk, even though the bill explicitly protects any land with a designation such as national parks, monuments, recreation areas, wilderness, and more. It also excludes land with valid existing rights, which means grazing leases and mining claims stay in place, and backcountry roads and trails will be protected. I am disappointed with some of the people that I tend to hang with generally on falling to that category, as well. What is actually being considered are isolated, orphaned parcels near existing development. These are parcels the Federal Government doesn't maintain and usually has no use for. A lot of times the Federal land is held in checkerboard patterns. Let me refer to the map here a little bit. You see this bright orange in the Western States, west of the Rockies, that is dominated as federally controlled land. The East much less so. That is probably why folks in the Eastern part of the country don't think this is a big deal. They think we will just let the Federal Government control more and more of these lands. Let's look at Nevada here. It is almost solid orange, as well as Utah. My district in northern California is dominated by Federal land. Is that good or is that bad? Well, when we continue to have million-acre fires, hundreds of thousands of acres of fires, whichever year it is occurring, it is a pretty bad deal, as well. We used to have a good, strong timber industry in my part of the State, as well as the West, that has been replaced by us having to come hat in hand every year to ask for what is called Secure Rural Schools funding, which is a replacement for what used to go to counties and local schools from timber harvest receipts. That was knocked out years ago due to the spotted owl and environmental stuff that has gone along with that for so many years. What we get then is Federal lands that are held and hardly even managed or touched. I gave you all the exclusions a moment ago on areas that wouldn't even be part of a proposal, which is still a proposal over on the Senate side, on what Federal lands might be for sale. The Federal Government controls 640 million acres. What is even being talked about over there is a tiny fraction of that. The last number I heard was somewhere around 3 million. I don't know if that will hold up in the bill or not. New proposals are coming on that, but at least we can talk about it. We are talking about the sale of maybe one-half of 1 percent of all this land dominated and not managed well by the Forest Service, not managed well by BLM, and not managed well by others, the national parks even. The National Park Service is years and years and billions of dollars behind on their maintenance, and sometimes they want to even buy up more land. We talk about once in a while rejiggering that a little bit or having a reset. Maybe there are some lands that would be appropriate to be sold off. Oh, my gosh. It is the end of the world. No, it isn't. In my area of northern California, we are tired of it. We are tired of the lands not being managed. They are going up in smoke, burning out wildlife, burning out the watersheds, which means all that ash and then later on erosion ends up in our waterways and in our water supply. It is not a win. When are we going to have this discussion? I am not sure if it is going to come out over in the Senate in a final bill that we are going to vote on to affirm or not. We should, at least, have an honest discussion about what is going on with the Federal land that the government controls, 640 million acres. We are talking about maybe one- half of 1 percent. Our counties and our local tax bases are eroded from so much. I mentioned the Secure Rural Schools. There is also another one called PILT. It is called Payments in Lieu of Taxes. That means when there is so much land owned by the Federal Government that the counties don't gain a property tax base from that. We have to come hat in hand, once again, to the Federal Government and say: Would you please send us our PILT money. They take a long time to get it out, or you have to fight to get it into a bill. The people in the Eastern States or in the urban areas wonder: Why are we sending this money? Why do we care about SRS, or Secure Rural Schools? Why do we care about PILT? That is because you took that stuff away from us a long time ago. The Founders had no concept that this much land would be federally controlled, yet here we are. We are getting bad results from it on the way it is mismanaged or nonmanaged, all of the above. With that much being owned or controlled by the Federal Government, it is at least okay to have a conversation once in a while about whether this is appropriate. I think in the sense we are talking about, yes, we want to preserve the wetlands. We want to take care of those lands, but there are lands that are appropriate to talk about any possible situation like this.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in sadness at the loss of a friend from Siskiyou County in northern California. Sam Jackson, known as Samuel Berling Jackson, was a lifelong rancher in Siskiyou County. The legacy of the Jackson family just goes on for generations. He was a Navy veteran and a lifelong rancher who was very dedicated to the ranching life up there, as well as making it a stronger agricultural and ranching industry for others with the service he did on the various committees and associations that he was part of. Born in Weed in 1932 and raised on the Jackson Ranch in Edgewood, California, he was the fourth Samuel Jackson at that time. My understanding now, with the latest, there are actually eight Sam Jacksons in the family. Sam served in the Navy during the Korean war. He earned his degree in animal husbandry at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and returned home to raise a family and build a life rooted in faith, hard work, and stewardship of the land. Sam was a fierce advocate for agriculture as I mentioned, protecting water rights, ranching traditions, and farmland. With his beloved wife, Erlene, he raised 4 children and 10 grandchildren, leaving a legacy of love and leadership. He was just a great friend personally to me at the barbecues and such. I might end up behind the barbecue wagon there, maybe having an Early Times with a little 7UP in it. What a great friend he was. He was a guy that loved life and loved to share it with others and stand up for what was right as an American. We greatly appreciated him. Here is the picture I want everybody to think of him, as well. I think it is magnificent there in his home county in Siskiyou on his lands. He was a great leader and a great man. I am better for having known him. God bless Sam.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, in the futile chase to try to reduce the amount of CO2, carbon dioxide, in our atmosphere, many trillions of dollars around the U.S. and other western countries, the enlightened countries, are going to be wasted chasing this endeavor. When I ask the average person how much CO2 do they believe there is in the atmosphere, with all the hype, with all the fear that has been put on for the last couple of decades by the left, by the environmental groups, I get numbers like 20 percent, 50 percent, 70 percent. Even people I ask in committee that are supposed to know, that are supposed to be experts, give me numbers that are way out of line with the actual number. My graph right here shows what really is in the atmosphere: Nitrogen, 78 percent; oxygen, 21 percent. It doesn't leave a whole lot left for the CO2 threat to mankind, does it? You actually find that skinny one right there, 0.04 percent. We are going to ruin our economy in order to sequester carbon, to spend all of this money and not run power plants, like in California, for example, because they have to have permission to operate only if they capture CO2 out of the atmosphere or out of their exhaust and shove it underground and store it for who knows how long and to what effect. The CO2 thing is a scam. This climate change talk is harmful to our country and other Western countries that have bought into it. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is going to develop and use more oil and gas than ever. The trends are going to skyrocket up in developing countries. China builds more coal-fired power plants than you can shake a stick at. Only the U.S. is going to be the ones suffering from chasing the CO2 thing, to reduce it from 0.04 percent to 0.035 percent.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, here is something to get excited about in the month of June--ice cream. National Dairy Month is a good time to recognize the work of our Nation's dairy farmers. My home State of California leads the Nation in dairy production, with thousands of family-run farms that have been at it for generations. These farmers aren't just producing milk. They are driving a big part of our local economy and providing jobs in rural agricultural areas. Dairies are also making strides in using modernized processes to keep the land and water healthy. However, dairies are often under fire from environmental groups, such as those in Point Reyes, that are trying to push them out using fake environmental pronouncements and basically running them out of business in Point Reyes. They deserve a lot better than that. Remember, when you enjoy a glass of milk, a slice of cheese, or one of your favorite ice creams, there are real people doing the really good, sustainable, and responsible work of operating these dairies, many of them organic, to keep it on the table for all of us. Let's celebrate and remember during National Dairy Month the work that these farmers put in and what it means to all of us.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, we are seeing it again in another large city. This time, it is in Los Angeles, where what the media sometimes terms ``a mostly peaceful protest'' is burning part of the town down. Indeed, it is lawless chaos. Streets are blocked. Law enforcement is under attack. Foreign flags are being waved while American flags burn. Businesses and vehicles are going up in flames. It is less like a demonstration and more like a foreign invasion. California officials, though, have stood by and done virtually nothing. The Los Angeles police chief says that his department is actually overwhelmed. Other officials in California are outraged that the National Guard was deployed to clean up the mess that they have refused to address. Governor Gavin Newsom told people to resist ICE and then acted surprised when things got worse. My colleagues can see this little gem right here written on the side of the car. We had to clean it up a bit for public viewing. These riots should be stopped immediately. Those doing it should be arrested. Those who are aiding and abetting it, including elected officials, need to be dealt with very sternly in this process. I fully support our National Guard, Department of Homeland Security, and law enforcement on the ground for doing the job that Governor Newsom and Los Angeles city officials simply won't do. Law and order do matter.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, 81 years ago today, American troops, along with British and many others, stormed the beaches of Normandy. They faced intense gunfire, landmines, and the real chance they wouldn't make it home. Actually, over 4,000 didn't, as witnessed by the beautiful cemetery that oversees those beaches in France. Of course, it took grit, sacrifice, a deep belief, and an incredible assembly of materiel and the ability to keep it secret when all that machinery and materiel was assembled just above the White Cliffs of Dover in England. If anyone has ever watched the movie ``Saving Private Ryan,'' there are actual soldiers who were there at the time who say that that was one of the most accurate descriptions and depictions one would ever see of how nasty and how bad that was. Mr. Speaker, can you imagine that front door of that landing craft opening and the hail of gunfire that was put upon those guys? Yet, they went anyway because they were required to, because it was a duty, and because they had to turn back one of the greatest threats that the world had ever seen in what Nazi Germany had been foisting upon the world for 5 years up to that point. We owe them so much. As Captain Miller said toward the end of that movie to Private Ryan himself: ``Earn this.'' We all, as citizens, will remember this day on Memorial Day to be good citizens and to uphold what the Founders gave us with this country. We earned this.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, recently two Chinese nationals were arrested in Michigan for having smuggled in a pathogen that would be greatly harmful to our agricultural crops, livestock, and even the human use for these crops. A fungal pathogen, known as fusarium graminearum, was identified in scientific literature as being a potential agroterrorism weapon. This is what the two Chinese nationals, Yunqing Jian and Zunyong Liu, brought into the country. They smuggled this pathogen in via their electronic devices, which also contained evidence of Chinese Communist Party membership. The different methods with which they brought the pathogen in were hidden in devices or in tissues. There were various ways of smuggling it past customs. We can't imagine what kind of a threat this would be toward our agricultural production in this country if something like this was allowed to get loose. They tried to get into the University of Michigan through their test labs and through the work that the university does through agriculture. What did they want to do? Maybe they wanted to infect everything that was going through Michigan and coming out in the new crops. Some of the effects of it on certain grains would be devastating, for example, to wheat, barley, grains, and rice. Indeed, the world's most important staple crops would be infected during their flowering stage. The grains would often appear shriveled, bleached, or pinkish, making them unusable. Also, with these mycotoxins in here, it would cause toxicity to humans and animals. It would cause them to vomit or experience even worse effects in the livestock or people that would happen to use it. What would the possible impact be? It would mean billions of dollars in crop losses globally each year due to lost yields, contamination, and rejection in the market. As I mentioned, these mycotoxins would cause vomiting, liver damage, immune suppression, and reproductive defects in both humans and livestock. This is pretty nasty stuff that the Chinese Communist Party is sneaking into this country by one means or the other. In this case, it is at the University of Michigan. It is known to be funded by the Chinese Government, though the University of Michigan states it has received no funding directly from the Chinese Government for this work. It points out that we need more clarification and more clear knowledge of the status of who is funding the research, who is funding the colleges, and who is funding the universities for things like this. This is a bigger threat than we could imagine to the American food supply with what we produce, both domestically and those it would support around the world. One of the two nationals has been accused of multiple smuggling attempts from 2022-2024. Again, I mentioned hiding samples of whatever they might be carrying in boots or mailed in, in a textbook. What will we do about it? Are we going to tighten up the restrictions on what is coming in through China and have closer checks of who is being allowed to import things and what is happening at our universities? Are we going to just let this go and have our food supply devastated by the constant threat of people trying to undermine and break down our country? We can't have these contaminated harvests. We can't have the continued threat to the confidence people in this country and our exporters have in the American food supply. We can't overstate what this means for agriculture, what it means for the U.S. economy, and what it means for our national security with the food supply we grow and the overall health of U.S. citizens. We need to do a much better job, whether it is going to be what is smuggled through our airports; who is allowed to bring things into this country; what their research consists of, and who is funding it. Mainly, in this case it is the Chinese Communist Party and their government. Mr. Speaker, it is a dead serious issue. We better take it seriously, or we are going to be in big trouble.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, California's Governor and legislature are at it again. The annual gas tax hike that already is in place is going to raise the gas tax another 2 cents to a staggering 61 cents per gallon. It is already squeezing families, small businesses, farms, and everything. New clean air rules are expected to take effect alongside this gas hike, which could push prices even higher. When State Republicans tried to stop these costly regulations, Democrats blocked that effort without even a debate, showing little concern for how hard Californians are already being hit and struggling with these high costs of electricity, fuel, and everything else. Meanwhile, controversy is swirling around California Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph, who recently admitted that her agency does not analyze how its rules and new taxes affect prices for everyday drivers. They don't even analyze what the effect is going to be. They just go ahead and raise the gas tax. CARB wields too much unchecked power without accountability. CARB is proposing a new fuel standard that will further increase the cost of fuel by another 65 cents a gallon for Californians. With two oil refineries set to shut down due to high regulations, it is going to really increase the gas prices to probably $8.43, according to a USC study. Mr. Speaker, who the heck can afford this?

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, what began as a concept to connect California's two largest cities with high-speed rail has become a national embarrassment and one of the most expensive boondoggles in modern infrastructure history. After more than 17 years and $6.9 billion in just Federal money, and overall $17 billion raised over 17 years, not a single mile of high- speed rail track has been laid, just a few bridges built. A report released today by Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and the Federal Railroad Administration confirmed what many of us have been saying for years and years: This project is not viable. It is riddled with mismanagement, massive cost overruns, missed deadlines, fantasy- level ridership projections, and even promising 1.1 million jobs in the process. After they got pinned down in committee at the State legislature, they finally admitted it was 1 million job-years. If you do the math on that, Mr. Speaker, they claim 10,000 workers there currently, so that would mean about 100 years to equal 1 million job-years. They seem to be right on track for 100 years in building this project. It is still $7 billion short just to build a sliver of this segment between Merced and an almond orchard somewhere outside of Bakersfield, hardly the world-class system voters were promised back in 2008. The original vision for the project from S.F. to L.A. also included spurs to Sacramento and San Diego possibly, which would have been about an 800-mile network. Now, well after a decade, what is left is simply the 119-mile stretch through the Central Valley I just mentioned, which doesn't really connect any major metro areas. That segment is years behind. The whole project should have been done by 2020. They are hoping to get that Central Valley Project done by maybe 2030. That project, the Central Valley part by itself, would be $38.5 billion. The original concept of the whole thing was $33 billion from S.F. to L.A. The total estimated cost today is a staggering $128 billion. As I mentioned, over a 17-year period from 2008 to now, they have raised only $17 billion. They are short $110 billion. They think they are going to come to the Federal Government and ask for that here? Are they going to hit the taxpayers for more? Are they going to pass more bonds to raise $110 billion--what?--five or six times more than what they have already raised over 17 years? There is no serious plan to even secure that kind of money. There is no credible timeline to finish the construction. There is no evidence that the California High-Speed Rail Authority is even capable of delivering or operating the system. The authority has failed to meet even the most basic terms of its Federal grant agreement. That is why I am so pleased that Secretary Duffy has taken a good hard look at this and has come up with the conclusions they have. They have not acted in good faith. They have downplayed the risks. They have run out of time and money. Basically, the voters--the people, everybody--have been lied to in order to keep this project alive. Even Governor Newsom, about the first week or two he was in office as Governor, for a moment there he said, you know, maybe we need to relook at this thing because it is not going very well. He must have got a hot set of phone calls from some angry donors, or somewhere in the system in Sacramento, because he got right back on track, so to speak. The Trump administration is right to put this project on notice, claw back whatever Federal money is still unwasted in that, and make sure that not a single dollar goes toward this boondoggle. As a Californian, I can see plenty of other needs that California has that are grave, such as our water infrastructure, our electricity infrastructure, our highways, and our levies that prevent floods. I would probably dwell mostly on the water supply situation, as more and more of it seems to be devoted to fish, running it right out to the Pacific Ocean. Less and less agriculture is being planted and operated in California, including the issue in the San Joaquin Valley where more acres are taken out, which creates a higher dust situation, which contributes to more of what is known as Valley fever, a big problem. Instead, they want to put so-called solar farms--calling solar panels ``farms'' is an insult anyway. So much of the Nation's food supply comes from California, the specialty crops: tomatoes, almonds, pistachios, so many things that America consumes. Many of these crops are 100 percent grown in California or 90-plus percent grown in California. Yet, they still want to keep wasting money on this high-speed rail boondoggle that, as I said, is $110 billion short of today's projections of finishing this thing when they have only raised $17 billion over 17 years. Certainly, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has shown that it can't deliver on this project. Shift the money to something else. California could build 25 large dams and store enough water to grow everything it could ever want to grow in California. It is time to focus on infrastructure that really makes a difference for Californians, the American people, and keeping food on the table.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, it keeps on happening. Girls' and women's sports are under threat. In my home State of California, in just the last few days, a male won in a division in State track championships for CIF. A male athlete competing in the girls' divisions took top finishes, taking opportunities away from the girls in sports and women in sports. Only afterward in this case did CIF revise the results and hand out medals to the girls who were pushed off the podium, which really tells you all you need to know. Now, the Department of Justice is stepping in. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has given more than 1,600 California schools a deadline: Reject this bylaw that allows athletes to compete based on gender identity rather than their biological sex, or they will face legal consequences. There is, indeed, a physiological difference between the two. We have seen this disadvantage in the Olympics, in boxing, volleyball. Mr. Speaker, there are so many examples in sports where girls who have trained hard have had their dream of getting to the Olympics or playing in college taken away because of these crazy policies. We need to stop this and have that ruling take place to reverse that trend. The Equal Protection Clause is what we need.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, many regulations are being enacted so often in California due to CARB, California Air Resources Board, or even federally with previous iterations of the EPA. One of those features is the start-stop feature on newer automobiles, which is when you stop your car and the engine shuts off. This is a design, in theory, to save gasoline or diesel, whatever your vehicle is powered by. Yet, most drivers or the vast majority of drivers you talk to and survey are really annoyed by this feature because they pull up to a stoplight, a stop sign, or just merely wish to stop somewhere for a moment, and their engine shuts off. Mr. Speaker, you can point to this button bypass that many of the cars have--some don't--that you can bypass and shut off the feature that shuts off your car. Yet, a lot of people will forget to turn it off. They get in their car, pull up to the stoplight, and the darned thing shuts off. They are really annoyed that their government treats them that way and that they can't decide on their own how to operate their vehicle. What you see is that the vehicles also have to build in extra technology and extra heavy-duty equipment in order to accommodate this. For example, when you stop and start your car all the time, you are going to wear out your battery more, so they have to have a battery with an extra-heavy-duty build to it, as well as the starter itself, in order to accommodate many, many more frequent starts using these systems. One of the things mechanics will talk to you about is that when you shut an engine off, your oil pressure goes back down to zero. Each time you start your engine without the oil pressure, you gain a little extra wear on your bearings--your crank bearings, your connecting rod bearings, and even in the cylinders--because the oil has settled back down between starts. There is a lot of extra wear involved with the engine wear and engine component wear. Then, reading up on how the factory has to accommodate this so that it lasts 100,000 miles and doesn't become a warranty problem, they have to build in extra-heavy-duty wiring harnesses so that the extra load from the starter, from the battery, and all of that can be accommodated over a longer period of time so the car will last longer. When you have these systems in place, this adds to the cost of a new car by having to make heavier batteries, heavier starters, and heavier wiring harnesses on that, all for the concept that you might be saving a little bit of gasoline. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting when you ride around here in D.C., for example, when you have to take an Uber downtown to go to some meet-up or what have you, by the time you get through all of the blankety-blank stoplights in this town--and they are all on timers instead of even on sensors like some of them are at home--that you are riding with somebody and you hear the car shut off, then it starts up again 2 seconds later, if the light happens to change. For me, who is mechanically inclined, it kind of drives me crazy listening to that because it is such abuse on the car and the engine system, all because somebody dreamed up the idea, if we shut off the engine at stoplights all the time, it might save a little bit of gas. On some engines, it actually takes a little bit of extra gas to restart it versus just letting it run a few extra seconds. What is seen is that statistics have shown that, maybe over the lifetime of the car, you have saved a few gallons of fuel. Yet, in that process, you have had to buy more batteries, replace starters more often, and build a lot heavier components which are more costly and require more resources, as well. Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has called for changes to this feature. Since it may be perceived as a mandate, I know the auto dealers are afraid to shut it off. If you take it in and say: Would you just disable this thing for me. They say: Well, it is an emissions thing. If you don't like the gong going off on your seatbelt all the time, they can't shut that off because it is a safety thing. You don't really have the choice of how you are going to operate your vehicle. For those of us who drive around in a rural area or on our own, if you are a farmer on your fields and such, you have to listen to the gonging of the seatbelt all the time or have it shut off every time you need to stop to irrigate in your field, for example, or if you remember to shut it off with the silly button. Yet, I understand there are bypass systems you can get for that if you want to bootleg it a little bit. I understand that if you open the hood on certain vehicles, it disables that, so they have a little hood bypass mechanism you can get to bypass that. Mr. Speaker, maybe they just don't need to put the stuff on to begin with and let people decide for themselves if they want to shut their car off at the stoplight every time. Mr. Speaker, what do you get? When you stop at the light, you get a hesitancy to go again. You can read anecdotes of how people are getting ready to pull out into traffic but the car stopped on them, so they lose their opportunity. They lose their moment to pull out and they have to wait longer. These silly mandates that come along, people generally don't like them, such as the auto start-stop feature on automobiles. I am pleased and will continue to work with Administrator Lee Zeldin on things like that to give people more car choice on what they want.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, once again, I am here to address the situation of California's wasteful spending. A new bit of information has come out that the interim segment of high-speed rail is going to be built between a town called Merced down to another one near Bakersfield called Shafter. This segment would end in an almond orchard out there in the middle of nowhere. The price for that segment has gone up to about $38.5 billion, just for this segment, which is going to be in a low-population area comparatively when the whole concept of California High-Speed Rail was one that would go from San Francisco to L.A., the population centers. The original cost, I will remind you too, when it was placed on the ballot in front of the voters, was that it would be $33 billion to build the entire system from San Francisco to L.A., not just that 150- mile segment between Merced and Shafter. Who is being shafted in this deal? Those being shafted, of course, are the taxpayers, as always, since in their quest to not let this go, to not let it die, they are going to continue to seek more and more money for this project. Now, in the 17 years since this was passed and placed on the ballot in front of the voters--and it won by a very narrow margin, 2 or 3 percent--it was to have an initial $9 billion bond of State money to go towards the $33 billion, and then the rest would be raised from the private sector, that price is today seen as $128 billion. In those 17 years, they have only managed to raise $17 billion or so towards the project, in 17 years. Since the project is about $110 billion or so short, where are they going to get $110 billion more when it took 17 years to raise $17 billion? Where is that going to come from? California has a scheme called the cap-and-trade tax that taxes the privilege of making carbon dioxide if you are a manufacturer or some other large entity that produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct of your industry. Let me remind you, carbon dioxide is only 0.04 percent of the atmosphere. All of these things are being done to cut carbon, including this whole rail project itself, which is supposed to be a big carbon saver, yet they are chasing a goal that is incredibly small and incredibly out of touch. Here we are. They are going to come to Washington asking for more and more money. So far two Democrat Presidents have given the project about $3.5 billion on one occasion each. They are going to fall far short of raising $110 billion more since cap-and-trade, as I mentioned, in California only brings in about a billion per year on taxation on CO2. If they manage to get a couple $3.5 billion segments from the U.S. Government, it is a long ways from getting done. We should be solving other issues in California instead of building this dream rail system running through the middle of communities, having to take so much land by eminent domain, messing up farmland, messing up the middle of the cities that it is going through, having to take out a high school in one case, and a rendering plant in another case. These are all things that are making it actually worse for people, just so they can have the idea of, oh, we have to be like China and have a high-speed rail system. It isn't working out in California. It won't work out. The price is horrendous. The tickets themselves for people to be able to ride the train are going to be a lot more expensive than what they are trying to tell us they will be, especially when you have low-cost airline tickets like Southwest and others going back and forth pretty often. Why don't we solve other problems, like California's water issues, the water supply? For that kind of money, you could build 26 new dams that would hold who knows how many acre-feet, how many millions of acre-feet. Let's just try and build two or three dams that will hold 3, 4, 5, 6 million acre-feet and solve California's water problems, solve California's continued transfer of agricultural water to fish supplies. We could actually get something useful done. People that use the roads and the highways and freeways would probably like to see some of the potholes fixed, for example, that always get worn into the right lane of a freeway. Maybe we could get some of those fixed. Maybe we could add lanes here and there where there is more dense traffic with a fraction of that money. No one is going to ride this thing for the cost and for the time it takes to still get back and forth between San Francisco and L.A., and they don't have a car at the other end. You might as well take the airplane and save money and get there even faster. Mr. Speaker, of all the things we could be investing in, whether it is water supply or managing our forests better so we don't have to burn them down every year and suffer with air quality that we have--each year there is a million-acre fire, including the Dixie Fire in my district about 4 years ago that hit this town. The smoke plume hit this town because we don't manage the forest. There are so many other things we could be doing besides high-speed rail.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, once again, the California Air Resources Board is trying to jam through a gas price hike under the cover of its so-called low carbon fuel standard. After the rule was blocked earlier this year for being unclear and poorly written, CARB is now racing to make it effective by July 1, just months after quietly approving it right after the election and in time for summer travel for people on vacation, et cetera. Even their own staff at CARB admitted it will raise gas prices. Californians already pay the highest gas prices in the country. This will just make it worse. This is set to add at least 65 cents per gallon by this move. Combined with a couple of closed refineries in California, by the time that kicks into place, a USC study indicates it could be $8.40 per gallon. Let that settle. That is exactly why I acted at the Federal level and led the charge to rein in California's Clean Air Act waiver authority, the same waiver CARB uses to push these costly, unchecked regulations onto the rest of the country. No agency should have this much power to raise costs without public input or accountability. This is bureaucratic overreach. We voted here to contain CARB on forcing electric cars and trucks under these waivers. We should give them no more waivers and allow that or other radical policies that raise costs for families and everybody else.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, California's budget could be a bellwether for the rest of the country if we pay attention. Governor Newsom is planning to spend $11.4 billion in the 2025-26 budget to give free healthcare to illegal immigrants, which virtually matches the State's $12 billion deficit that it is running. He could balance the books by ending that program. Instead, they will be cutting services for seniors, foster youth, and people with disabilities just to keep this giveaway going to illegal immigrants. That is exactly why we need Medicaid reform. States shouldn't be allowed to game the system by expanding benefits to those who are here illegally while sticking taxpayers with the bill or cutting others. Hardworking Americans are paying more and getting less, while illegal immigrants cruise in and get more coverage. That is really, really backward. At the Federal level, we must draw a line. Medicaid should be for citizens and legal residents only. If we don't act, California's disaster could become a pattern and a national disaster for the rest of us.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, this week is National Police Week. It is always time every day to remember and give thanks to those who put on the uniform and stand in the line of fire for all of us. I don't want to recite the number of officers killed and injured on duty. I want to talk about the upside of what they mean to us and what they mean for keeping us out of harm's way. They are there for us 24/7. The number of officers we do lose should impact all of us greatly, but they are indeed the front line. This week, we can show at least some level of appreciation by passing legislation that will help them do their jobs. One of these bills tracks violence against officers so we can respond in a meaningful way with meaningful action for them. Another is to help the retired officers keep the weapons they train with. Another one gives qualified officers more flexibility to carry their firearms. Indeed, it is a commonsense step. Mr. Speaker, the badge doesn't completely come off when the shift ends. During this week, we ought to show our thanks, as we do every day.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, in California, they are going at it again. Gavin Newsom and the legislature want to extend California's cap-and- trade tax for another 15 years. This is a tax that was created by really creating a fake currency of selling the right to make CO2 for manufacturing plants and power plants in California. All this does is jack up the price for fuel, electricity, et cetera, and pass it along to families who have to pay for these things. What will this go for? A portion will go for at least a guaranteed $1 billion per year for the boondoggle in California known as the high-speed rail. I call it the high-cost fail because it has been failing for many, many years and is projected to be probably 25 or 30 years late if it ever gets completed. It has wasted many billions of dollars so far with nothing to show for it. He wants to lock in this cap-and-trade funding through 2045, all while Californians are paying more and more to keep their lights on and keep gas in their car. It is projected by some of these actions to be as much as $8.43 per gallon according to a USC report. Get that, Mr. Speaker, $8.50 per gallon for these schemes. We need to fix roads and do a lot of other things besides high-speed rail and sticking taxes on more people.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, there is a fund called the Secure Rural Schools. It was enacted by Congress decades ago to replace the timber receipts we used to have when we had a strong forest industry, especially in the West. It has been run out by a lot of environmental policies that turned out to be erroneous, see the spotted owl. In Congress, we have had to put forward this Secure Rural Schools funding in order to backfill what local counties, local school districts used to have from timber receipts. The good news is that this piece is in the House Agriculture reconciliation bill, so it is good news for these rural counties that have been waiting for a long time, since it has already expired back in March. It is a lifeline for many areas in rural America where the Federal Government controls so much land. In some States, it is somewhere between 40 and 80 percent of the land that counties can't collect property taxes on when the timber harvest isn't happening anymore like it used to. For some reason, the United States is the number one importer of wood and wood products. Instead, we burn millions of acres every year in the West. SRS was created as a promise. If Washington is going to tie up these lands, it needs to help fund the basic services these counties still have to provide.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, in California, we have this high-speed rail project. I call it high-cost rail because it has become a symbol of runaway spending and is, indeed, a complete boondoggle. Back when the original bond was passed in 2008 by a narrow margin by the voters of California, it was about a $9 billion bond. The rail was supposed to be a total cost of $33 billion from San Francisco to L.A. It has ballooned up to $130 billion in projected costs, and that was 17 years ago. So far there is hardly any infrastructure that has been built. What do you have? Over 17 years they have managed to raise about $17 billion from cap-and-trade tax in California and two different disbursements from Democratic Presidencies. In 17 years--check this-- they have raised $17 billion. They are short $110 billion to complete the project. Not only that, they are at least 25 years behind. It was supposed to have been done by 2020, and now they project, maybe we will have the first segment from Merced to a town called Shafter, somewhere near Bakersfield, done by maybe 2035 or 2040. They are going to come back to D.C. for more money. Not a chance. This thing needs to be stopped and put it into infrastructure that people need, like freeways and stuff like that.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, the House Natural Resources Committee is doing exactly what we said and what President Trump has called for. We are unleashing American energy and using our own resources to build a stronger economy. Through budget reconciliation, we are generating over $18.5 billion in savings and new revenue by getting Washington out of the way and letting Americans do what we do best, which is work and produce. We are expanding clean, safe energy production here at home and ramping up mining for critical minerals so we are not relying on China. We are cutting the red tape that blocks progress. We are also protecting taxpayers by managing our forests and public lands better, so we are not paying out billions later in disaster response, wildfire costs, and cleanup. We are reversing the Biden policies that locked up land, killed jobs, and handed too much power to Federal bureaucrats. Mr. Speaker, the plan is really about energy, jobs, and putting America first. It is long overdue.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, it is Small Business Week, and we are getting back to the basics: less red tape, lower taxes, and policies that actually help people who run a business and hire workers. Small businesses are the building blocks of our economy. They do not need more interference from Washington or their home State. They need us to be out of the way of what they need to do to provide the things people actually want. That is why I am working to stop the largest tax hike in American history and to make the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions permanent. These lower rates help businessowners grow and reinvest in their own workers. Under President Trump, we saw how lower taxes and fewer regulations actually sparked real growth. We are building on that by passing bills that support small businesses and American manufacturing in America. When Main Street is strong, our country is strong. We are going to keep doing what works and stop what doesn't, what actually hurts. That is how we get this economy moving in the right direction and actually being dedicated to the needs of the American people and the economy that drives it.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, my flight was delayed at both ends. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 115 and YEA on Roll Call No. 116.

Mr. LaMALFA

Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, in northeast California, as in other parts of the country, we are seeing an introduction of a wolf population that is devastating not only to the beef industry and the at least 200 spring calves but also to the rest of the wildlife in the neighborhood. Places like Sierra County, Siskiyou County, Modoc County, Lassen County, and Plumas County are being devastated by this introduction of the gray wolf. This is somehow dressed up under the idea that it is endangered, yet the delisting of the gray wolf in the United States has been long sought where we can find tens of thousands of them in upper Midwest States and lower Canada. Why is it that we have the logic that they have to have one in each county of each State for them to somehow be seen as not endangered anymore? They are indigenous to a particular area. They do not need to be introduced and devastating the landscape, devastating the people where kids have to sit in cages at bus stops in order to be safe. Just recently, an elk was chased right up onto the front porch of a constituent in northern California, killed, and partially devoured right on the property, right next to the building. Does this mean we are getting a better quality environment because of that? Does that mean we are getting public safety? No. It is getting worse.