Permitting Rules Not Allowing California to Capture Massive Amounts of Water | Doug LaMalfa

Water has become a big topic in California in the aftermath of LA fires. Some people are saying we have enough water. All we need to do is we just need to store it. My guest today is Congressman Doug LaMalfa, who's from the water-rich area in Northern California. He's here to tell us what's going on in his region and what California needs to do right now to store a lot of water. I'm Siamak Khorrami. Welcome to California Insider. Doug, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Siamak, thank you so much. I appreciate it. We want to talk to you about what's going on with water in California. You just had a meeting with the governor. There's a lot of different messages for Californians. We've been told that there's drought in the last few years and there's not enough water for us in Southern California. Water agencies have been told to cut, cut back, 15% of their consumption. We have talked to a lot of farmers on this show, the people that have come to us and told us that we don't have enough water and they have been having to follow land that they've been farming before. Can you tell us what's going on? What was your conversation like with the governor and then what's going on with water? Well, we covered several topics and we'll focus on water for a moment right now and that with, as you bring up, it's always been a problem, a struggle, but people with a vision many years ago worked to resolve that with our different water storage systems. We have a federal project called the Central Valley Project that has, as its crown jewel, is Lake Shasta up there in the northern part of my district and the State Water Project, which its crown jewel, is the Lake Oroville Dam there, just I can see it from my front door, you know? So we have a lot of water storage up in the north. Those two dams combined hold eight million acre feet, but there's many other important lakes and dams as well. Trinity Lake nearby, Shasta, and the San Luis Reservoir, which we'll talk about in a moment. Folsom Lake, New Melones, and farther on south. So combined, those all hold about 12 or 13 million acre feet. So, and we have opportunities to make more storage too with a project called Sites Reservoir in the western part of my district, and then there's an opportunity to raise Shasta Dam another 18 feet, which would be fairly simple. That would give us 600,000 more acre feet. So it's a matter of do we have the will to do what we need to to store the water, because this is the time of year where you store water. You should see the amount of water coming off of the hillsides and through the various creeks and rivers and such. The Sacramento River, right near a town called Los Molinos, you ought to see the water coming down that. It's almost touching the bottom of a railroad bridge going across there. That's a massive amount of water, and they're not even releasing it from Shasta Dam. This is all tributary water that we should be capturing. And so when we're looking at how much water ends up in the Bay Delta that goes straight out to the Pacific Ocean that isn't being captured, that's where we're missing an opportunity right now. Yes, we need to build Sites Reservoir. It's spelled S-I-T-E-S, Sites Reservoir in western Colusa County and raise Shasta Dam, but we should be taking advantage of the water that's escaping right now underneath our noses. This is what I talked to the governor about, is that let's speed up the process to get these new reservoirs built, but also right now, today, we could be capturing much more water out of the Delta, and nobody would miss it. The fish wouldn't miss it. Nobody else would be fighting for it because there's such an excess. And that water could be pumped up into the San Luis Reservoir, which is only three quarters of filled right now. And then more of that water could be channeled into the aqueduct and go into recharging ponds, recharging zones there to help the water, the underground water. They have subsidence down there, it's called, where the land is actually depressed. It actually came up a little bit last year because we were able to chug water into the groundwater where it can percolate through those systems there. And then send the water on down the aqueduct to help top off the reservoirs in southern California that are available to put that water into. But we're not taking advantage of that right now because the pumps are only running at best half capacity in the Delta, and they should be running at 100% capacity. So I talked to them about, they have what is called an operating permit that this time of year is keeping the, it's suppressing the ability to run the pumps because they're afraid it might be affecting a fish population. There's so much water coming down, it's not scientific per se, but it can't possibly affect the fish that much to run the pumps when there is so much extra water, such abundant water in that Delta. So I asked the governor, hey, why don't we just put aside this operating permit for 30 days, get everything topped off while we have this excess water, and then we'll be in a good position in the spring and the summer and the fall, starting out with full reservoirs. That's what we're looking at. Now, Doug, is it possible to do this right now? You said we have the pumps, they're running at half capacity. What is this permit about and who's in charge of it? It's an issue of an environmental permit. It always comes down to the fish. It's always a battle over this fish, that fish, whether it's smelt or steelhead. But what I keep emphasizing, there is so much water coming through that system, it wouldn't affect fish negatively anyway. It wouldn't affect what's called the saltwater intrusion where the ocean pushes up in the Delta when there's not enough flow or if the pumps are going too hard, et cetera. This is not that time of year that we would have to worry about that. So they need to set aside the operating permit that's put in place by some combination of Army Corps of Engineers and US Fish and Wildlife and NOAA Fisheries and the state entities as well. And so they come up with these plans that by the time everybody's had their piece into it, that it's rather convoluted and arbitrary, the timelines, the amount of water you could be running through there. Put it aside. We have the opportunity. Let's pump this water and get these things filled up and it won't be missed. But we'll know that we're capturing it. San Luis Reservoir didn't get filled last year because of this sort of thing. It was filled two years ago under similar circumstances when there was mass amounts of rain and snow coming down. They topped it off two years ago. Last year, it never got above, I think, 80% or something like that. You may recall the story. It's been about three water years ago. Lake Shasta was desperately low and everybody on the Sacramento River system had their water cut down to only 18% of normal. Some districts said that's not even enough to turn on things and they ended up with zero by trading with other districts and such. So that was horrible. You should have seen what the western part of the Sacramento Valley looked like from all the dry rice fields and other dry ag lands and such. It hadn't been ever seen that bad before because really, we're not banking the water when we have the opportunity. And so, yeah, the dams are supposed to be made to withstand drought. We're supposed to have five, it's basically five years of light rain, not much rain, not much snowpack. We're supposed to be able to survive that in California. The shift has come now that so much water is going for fish needs, perceived or made up or whatever. The biological opinion is one of the tools that you use to determine that. So when Trump came in, they got a biological opinion that allowed more water to be shifted towards agriculture, towards people's use in Southern Cal like that. And as soon as Biden came in, they got rid of that biological opinion and said, put in place one that was gonna just push more water back out to the Pacific. And it's so maddening because we have the ability, you know, we're given, we have God-given smarts to be able to build these projects and manage water and we're just not doing it. And so that's, again, what I emphasized with the governor yesterday, like let's set aside this operating permit enough to run these Delta pumps strong enough to top off all our reservoirs. The water will not be missed by anybody else in a practical sense. Now, what does the governor think of that? Is he willing to do that? Well, he didn't tell me yesterday that he was ready to go on that, but I think he heard that and I think it's something they're gonna contemplate and I hope so. And I told him, look, you know, call me anytime. I'll just give you a straight deal. I don't, it doesn't have to be political, all that stuff. I'm a farmer from Northern California. I know many people on that. My dad knew all this stuff for many years when he served on water boards and stuff. And so it's pretty basic stuff. And I just, I would be happy to consult with him anytime on these things and give him the straight deal. I don't, you know, we don't have to play politics all the time and that's something he emphasized, like, look, we need to be able to come together on this issue and, you know, in Southern California, the needs are gonna have on rebuilding after the fire. And we talked about that too. And I said, you know, that we're gonna have to show, you know, we're gonna have to convince a lot of my colleagues around here on what kind of aid is gonna go to Southern California as it has in Louisiana after, you know, hurricanes in Florida and East Coast areas as well. And there's a lot of folks, you know, concerned that, well, we hear the Republicans wanna put conditions on this. Like, well, there's conditions on any money that is put out. Well, seemingly not, I guess, for Ukraine, but that's a whole nother story. But we need to be accountable where the money goes everywhere. And so what we talked about is that as much as possible where we can streamline rebuilding and not have, you know, California Coastal Commission dictating. And the governor said he's been really trying to put them in their place on that. Say, you know what, we need to get this done. So I appreciate that. And the other entities that wanna come in and bog things down with needless permits and studies and like, oh, we gotta, you know, check and see if, for example, they needed to move a power pole line right near Pacific Palisades. They found a variety of, called milk vetch, which is basically kind of like a ag cover crop. We grow vetch in places up north there as a cover crop. It's also like a nitrogen producer that you can till back into the soil to strengthen your ground a little bit. They considered it an endangered species where they need to change these power poles. They wanna change them out from wooden ones to stronger, taller steel ones with stronger equipment on that so in case a wind came or a fire situation happened, those wouldn't be part of the problem as for, you know, a fire being exacerbated by pole lines. This is something they wanted to do in that area. The environmentalists shut them down because they found a species, you know, du jour, like, you know, maybe this is endangered or something, you know, they can use that to stop projects. It's just maddening, one thing after another. So when we're talking about the rebuild down there, we need to put aside things that are just detriment because, you know, we made a trip down there with the president a couple Fridays ago and you saw that, I'm sure. And I got to talk to some of the locals there. They're charging out of the chute. They wanna get things going again. They wanna, they will pay to get their own lands cleaned up, you know, after a fire, the footprint where a house was, you know, there's a lot of stuff in that footprint and that soil there needs to be cleaned up. We experienced this in paradise after the fire up there six years ago now. FEMA was very helpful on that. They paid for the vast majority of being able to clean those properties up where, you know, when a house burns down, it isn't just wood and nails. There's all sorts of plastics in there. There's household chemicals for cleaning products and things like that. There might be freon in the power and the air conditioning system. So, you know, there's issues there. So what they did up in paradise, the excavators came in and cleaned about a foot of soil out of the area underneath where the houses were as long as all the, you know, garbled metal and things like that are there. So that's not the easiest thing. And that's why I tried to emphasize at that meeting down there that it's gonna be a little more involved instead of, you know, just bringing a couple of dumpsters out and people put it in themselves. So they wanna expedite this. They wanna get it done quickly. And the people who said, look, we'll pay for it. You know, at least the group I talked to, you know, it might be tougher for some other areas that don't have the same income, but these are the things we need to streamline so they can get people back going again, get their lives going again. And that's, if the lesson can be learned tragically in paradise, but it helps those folks in Southern California, in Altadena, in Pacific Palisades and others affected. I talked to Mayor Karen Bass, who I've known many years in the state legislature here, said, if we can help on that, if we can help show the way with what people had to experience in paradise to, if it's helpful to folks down here, like my colleague in Hawaii, Lahaina, Jill Takuda, we visited over there after that fire. So any way we can help, you know, have those lessons learned to help these folks, then let's do it. And then that's gonna come down to if federal aid is gonna be brought in to help not just right now, the emergency portion, which has been unquestioned, you know, help get the fire out, help people get stabilized, and at least the initial threat. It's the rebuild part that is gonna be, you know, how much is the responsibility of federal taxpayers on any disaster, whether it's hurricane or earthquake or fire or flood or whatever, in this case, the fire. And that's what we talked about a little bit yesterday is that, governor, we have to be sure that we can streamline and get the best bang for the buck because we know everything in California costs double to do. To build a mile of highway seems to be double what it costs to build a mile of highway in Utah or somewhere. And so my other colleagues here in Congress aren't gonna be just so fast to say, well, let's just give California, you know, X billion dollars if they're not cleaning up their own act or making federal dollars go farther. And certainly with the atmosphere right now with DOJ and what's going on there and they're finding all these pretty criminal ways the water's being, excuse me, dollars are being wasted in the USAID and others. There's people being very fiscally, you know, fiscal watchdogs right now on what's going on. And so I want it to be successful in the Southern Cal. I want those folks to be able to get help, but we also have to help ourselves as Californians to make the case to everybody that, because we don't have a good reputation around the rest of the country. Sometimes I'm in committee and some of these ideas that come out, you know, like my colleagues are laughing at me and something like, what are you guys doing now? You know, cause some of it doesn't make sense. And so we were talking, we should be capturing water to help ourselves, you know, on this thing here, we're gonna ask for federal aid on that. And I think it's a good ask, but we have to show that we've done everything we can to make it an efficient process and that whoever's tax dollars they are, they're being used respectfully and carefully. And I think everybody is happy to do that with proper oversight and I guess prioritization of getting the work done. Our sponsor today is Shen Yun. There's been some negative press on Shen Yun recently. Shen Yun's mission is to revive ancient and traditional Chinese culture. Shen Yun performance started by a group of Falun Gong practitioners in New York. Falun Gong is a spiritual and religious group, which believes in living by truth, compassion and tolerance, putting others first. The Chinese Communist Party, CCP, has been persecuting it since July of 1999 in China. Since Shen Yun started, CCP has been targeting it in the US and across the globe by playing different kinds of schemes to cancel the shows or impact the performance. The current negative reporting originated from some Chinese social media accounts. And we know that CCP is given a new directive to go after Shen Yun and Falun Gong in the US by tearing the public opinion against them. If you hear something negative on Shen Yun, make sure to do your own research and your own due diligence. Despite all of CCP's campaigns against Shen Yun, the show has managed to grow significantly across the world. I highly recommend you go see it. I've been going to it for the last 14 years as they change the performances every year. They're coming back to California. Make sure you go see it. Now, Doug, you mentioned when President Trump was there, there was more pumping done versus when President Biden was there. There was more water. Is there a way for the federal government to help out or is there another process? Are there different pumps that the federal can pump out of? Well, see, we're going back to what's called the biological opinion. And that's something that takes a couple years to produce, basically assessing what is the environmental situation, in this case, the Delta and the Delta area. And so under Trump, they put one together under his team with his Department of Interior and his Bureau of Reclamation and others that were in his administration to come out with one in 2019 that gave a fairer shake for water to actually being able to be used by people in agriculture, in the cities and others further down south of the Delta. So that biological opinion stuck long enough for Biden to come in and wipe it out when they came in place and they put back in a newer type biological opinion. And look at the word, biological opinion. It's something that could be very variable in how it could be interpreted or what the data even is. And that's what we need to have is a lot more clarity on what data are they using or how arbitrary is it that they use these opinions to now govern how water is going to be used or transferred or not. And so we saw that it went right back to pre-2019 biological opinion or something closer to it. They want to take even more water and move it out through the Delta because they have what's called a percentage of unimpaired flows. They want to pretend as if there was no dams or no water infrastructure that would divert water. Ultimately, I think they would like to have 100% unimpaired flows, meaning as if there was no infrastructure, if Shasta Dam's gone, if Lake Orovo's gone, if Folsom was gone, if San Luis Reservoir doesn't really stop flows per se, it's a place to pump water into, it doesn't have a lot of watershed, or any of them. Extreme environmentalists want to just take everything out. There's a dam in peril right now in Mendocino County called Lake Pillsbury, which is important for drinking water and it's important for the agriculture there, including part of wine country over there. And they don't care, they just want to knock it out. PG&E is, I think, the owner of the dam and they've had their heads caved in so much on everything else, they've just, I think, given up on that one. And so, can someone else come in and operate that? Because you're going to miss that water, you're going to miss that, it used to have a pretty good hydroelectric generation there. But it's just one thing after another. Up in my district, four Klamath dams on the Klamath River were just taken out this year and they're just giddy about it, supposedly for fish passage. And the crazy thing about it is a couple flaws is that pre those dams being put in, there was actual natural shale cliffs, so to speak, that fish weren't going to get above to get to the Klamath Lake or that far up the river. But they'll do anything to have on, check the box and say that we've got more miles of fish habitat. Well, part of the flaw too is that Klamath Lake is a warm lake. It's not the ideal salmon passage lake like the ones, and river like the ones farther north in Oregon, Washington. They have a lot colder water up there. Klamath Lake has a lot more phosphate in it, a lot more green plant material that's coming in out of the lake and down the river and such. But they took the dams out anyway, so we've just lost out on a bunch of hydroelectric power and the ability to regulate water when they need to, such as preventing flooding. Well, now farther down the line, they're getting flooding this year, surprise, surprise. So just this environmental thing, the extremity of it is just, this is not what the laws were passed in the 70s on Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act. They've all been weaponized. And there's a process called NEPA, N-E-P-A, that has been weaponized to basically stop projects, stop permits from being issued. The environmental organizations say, you didn't study enough different species under this NEPA to satisfy them. So they sue over it, and then the San Francisco judge rules, yeah, you didn't do enough. So boom, you lose two more years trying to get a permit done to do any project. It has to do with water, it has to do with producing electricity. You know, one of the criminal things that happened was that a desal plant that was gonna go in in Southern California, I think it was near Huntington Beach, a group called Poseidon was working on that. I think they worked for about 20 years on that and spent millions and millions to try and get through, jump through all the hoop and many others to get the regulations lined up so they could build a plant and take water out of the massive Pacific Ocean, desal, supply those folks in those areas. And 20 years worth of battling and jumping through every hoop, well, do this, do that, do this. And they still turned them down after all that investment and all that time. So what are we supposed to do about water supply if you can't build a desal plant and there's foot dragging on building more storage and foot dragging on pumping the water that you do have where it needs to be? That's where people need to wake up to the idea that environmental movement is negatively affecting them on so many things. You know, their choice of cars, electric cars, electric trucks. You know what this is gonna cost you when this all kicks in by 2030 or 2035? And then how inconvenient it's gonna be in that our power grid doesn't hold it up, hold up to, you know, make enough electricity. We already got rid of San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant a few years ago, which was at the time 9% of the power grid. San Luis Obispo, the Diablo Canyon, it's on life support right now. It got a couple extra years of operating. The legislature extended it five more years. That's 9% of the power grid right there. And so take that away. Like, where do you make up 9%? You gonna do it with windmills? You gonna do it with solar panels? Oh, heck, you know, right now the solar panels aren't producing much up there because it's cloudy, it's stormy, there's not a whole lot of sunshine. And then the windmills, if the wind blows too hard, they have to shut them down because they'll fall apart, you know, they'll fly apart. So neither one of those are this super ideal source of 24 hour electricity, seven days a week. Hydroelectric power is, our nuclear power plants are. I know we're covering a lot of wide range, but this all ties together into, we have a big bunch of environmental groups that are causing so many problems for what we need as people. That drives inflation, it drives the cost. You know, a dollar an egg now, are you kidding me? So it's just, it's this litigation that is made up and they get paid to do it. They get reimbursed handsomely to bring up litigation on that. And so- So when they sue, do they make money from this and does that continue the process of? They get reimbursement for high cost attorney's fees and a lot of times there's rewards or damages involved that they get to skim as well on what they're suing for. It isn't just a matter of it being about the species. There's always money involved and they make out well. And when they keep, you know, they lose a lot of cases but they don't have to pay for those cases. You know, when there's no disincentive to bring a case that you might lose ultimately, then they keep doing it. And so if, you know, this terminology loser pays and these frivolous lawsuits, all they do is storm the wall, see if they stick and like, boom, if it doesn't stick, oh well, they still get paid and they move on. And Doug, in a scenario where you mentioned like they were going to change the power poles and there was this endangered species and they didn't change them. Supposedly endangered, yes, it was called milk vetch. We grow vetch all the time up north. It looks like the same plant. Now all that ecosystem is destroyed in that area. Yes. Is there any discussions with these groups about what they're doing? Sometimes they're specifically focused on one silo thing but the impact of that may be a bigger danger or disaster for the environment. You know, you try and argue logically about that and sometimes we're successful. We've worked with groups, when I was a state legislator, we had some success on forest management in a very narrow way on that. We had a couple of people that we could actually really get along with on that but there's so many others that are coming in, you know, a wildlife group or a center for biological this, you know, they make up a name and they rent an office with a phone and a desk and a fax machine and boom, they're the center for something that can come out and sue and then they get credit as being a stakeholder. They make a little logo and they put all the little logos on the sheet like look at all these groups here that are against this project and they make money at this and so when you try and logically point out that if you don't manage the forest, you're gonna burn a million acres like they did in my district on what was called the Dixie Fire a couple of years ago, then is there a win in that? You know, I was up on that fire, you know, looking around and talking to firefighters and such, I was going down Highway 36 in Plumas County one evening there, they let me kind of go through a zone there that was cut off to the public but it was safe enough to go through. Three cougars ran right out in front of my pickup in that area because they were being displaced by the fire. They were young like teenage cougars there. One of them actually bumped into the side of my pickup as I was going by. You don't see that normally. So what do you have going when you burn a million acres like that? What's it doing to that wildlife? What's it doing to all the other, you know, the deer, the raccoons, all that such? And then what are you gonna get out of your water supply when a million acres of now ash is gonna start washing down into the brooks and streams and rivers and end up in a lake, you know, whether it's Lake Almanor up there or Lake Oroville, it's all gonna come into that. Lake Oroville is a water supply for almost 20 million people and so isn't that great, you know, for your Southern California folks watching here that the watershed up there is negatively affected because forest management doesn't happen so that we can put fires out much more readily or maybe they won't start to begin with in these situations. Instead, you know, that fire started just not that far above Oroville again and burned all the way up nearly to Mount Shasta on that Dixie Fire, you know, well past, not quite Shasta, but well past Mount Lassen and those areas and so a million acres and that's all gonna end up in the watershed. It's gonna affect the water supply for a bunch of people because it's gonna end up in those streams. There's no win on this. We need to do, we need to cut some trees and we need not to be afraid of the idea of cutting some trees because the Sierra Club and those guys will say, you know, they're gonna clear cut everything from here to Oregon, you know, like no, that's not what happens. That's nonsense. It's carefully done. It's done on a basis, you know, whether when it's a timber harvest, getting the type of lumber we need for people's wood supply or paper products or whatever. Yes, they do what's called an even aged area. They might harvest a 30 acre area. They don't do miles and miles and they'll leave a few trees behind on that and then, you know, on private lands, they plant it back and boom, 20 years later, you can hardly tell a difference on that but it's a constant cycle. You know, I'm a farmer. We have an annual crop. For foresters, it's a, you know, a 60 year crop, an 80 year crop, you know, whatever the criteria is on type of trees they're planting and stuff. So there's not a, it's not a scary thing. It actually is a helpful thing. If you don't want million acre fires or the one last year that happened in my district just out of Chico called the Park Fire, another 400,000 acres, you know, when are people gonna get tired of this? When are they gonna get tired of the bad air quality? You know, we have the Clean Air Act, we have the Clean Water Act that are massively being violated by bad forest management. You know, they beat the heck out of some farmer if he accidentally does something in a ditch there that causes some dirt to get in the ditch or some fish to be inconvenienced. Boom, they're criminals. But isn't it criminal what's happening with the lack of management of our forest lands, especially the federal lands that they own so much of? They don't own it, the people own it, but they are supposed to be managing, you know, Forest Service has 193 million acres under its purview. Are they treating anywhere near the amount of acres that's ever gonna catch us back up on this? The answer's no. Now, Doug, do you think this is gonna change with the new administration in office? Do you think things will change fast? I think President Trump and his team there and, you know, his new folks, Doug Burgum and the Secretary of Interior and the folks that they're, you know, placing, I'm really happy with what I'm hearing and what I think they're going to be doing. Because the President, he understands this stuff at least at a level to say we wanna get this stuff done. He can't know every detail in the world on all this stuff. And I wanna work with him on California water more and all these things. And so, but I expect really good things to at least try to happen. Now, the lawsuits are gonna happen and the environmental groups are gonna just line up as quickly as they can and try and stop everything. We saw, you know, like, I didn't get to talk to the governor about this yesterday, but, you know, the state legislature lining up $50 million just to fight Trump, mostly on illegal immigration. I mean, what is so hard to understand about illegal in the immigration? People coming across the border without permission. We always welcome immigrants, but what the news never talks about, oh, we're a country of immigrants, we're a country of migrants. Migrant is actually a wrong word for this. It drives me crazy. It isn't migrants. Migrants are people that, you know, move about and that basically are in a place by permission. So that's like a, it's a pseudonym that shouldn't be used. But that all said, why are they bending over so backwards to try and accommodate illegal immigration, illegal aliens coming into our state and our country? And that's their priority, you know? I mean, at the same time, people are suffering in Southern California from the fire. The legislature's up there in Sacramento trying to put $50 million just to fight Trump on immigration. How come people aren't more angry about that, you know? But I think there is a wave of people that have been looking at what the Democrats have been doing and prioritizing, and I think they're starting to have their fill. You know, the people expressing that on the Southern California fires, you're seeing celebrities, you're seeing longtime folks that have been aligned with the Democrat way of thinking. They're saying, you know, we're sick of this. So I know it might be hard to embrace Republicans, but if you wanna just talk about the things that we do and not worry about the party label, we can do a lot of positive things. And we get accused of, as Republicans, of not caring about the environment. Well, for crying out loud, what does that mean? You know, I'm a farmer, as I mentioned. We've been farming the same land for 90 years. Now, if I'm not taking care of my land, then I'm gonna, you know, just on strictly dollars and green ice shade aspects, I'll be ruining my asset. But I actually appreciate my land. I appreciate the things that are on that, and so do the generations before me and after me. And any other farmer would tell you the same thing. Any forester would tell you the same thing. They love the trees, but you also know that you have to remove a certain amount of trees and then you plant them back. Otherwise, you're gonna actually harm your forest. You're gonna harm the wildlife. You're gonna harm the water quality. And when the fire goes up, you're harming the air quality. You know, that million acre Dixie Fire actually affected here in the East Coast when there was such a concentration of smoke. It went up in the jet stream, plume, came across the country and settled down over Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and all that. There was actually health advisory days not to go outside because of the fire in my district affecting the East Coast. And when we had the fires in Canada last year, or whatever it was, they were, so that's nearby in Canada, just north of here. That came down and affected the area as well. So should a California fire be messing up the East Coast air quality? No, we should need to be managing those lands. And so, you know, I talked with the governor about that and I'll talk to anybody that'll listen. Probably boring your viewers right now with so much of it, but it's just a deal where we're not getting it done and it's harming just about everything you care about. Now, Doug, is it tough for you to be in D.C.? You're representing California and when we have these type of incidents and also we are putting money aside to sue the federal government, how is it like for you to be there? How am I supposed to sell that to my colleagues from the southern states or from the Midwest or anywhere in the country when this is what they see? And that's why I mentioned to the governor was that we have to be able to make a saleable situation to the rest of my colleagues because it's everybody's federal tax dollars, all 50 states that are involved here. And if California is not acting responsibly, they're not gonna be as likely to support legislation. I'm gonna be in there trying to make the pitch for it. I wanna get our folks help, but I also have to be able to believe myself we're doing the right thing. And so if the California Coastal Commission is gonna come in and put all these requirements, you're gonna add cost and time and delay and all that for things that already existed. You know, there's talk of not allowing any of the building on the coast side, you know, on the ocean side of Highway 1 or Highway 101, whichever one it is in a particular zone or Pacific Coast Highway. They might be talking about banning no building on the seaward side of it. Like, well, why? Just because you don't like it? You don't like it in the view shed? You know, you have these people that are deciding we just don't like certain things. Like, well, too bad. You know, people have rights with their property or at least they used to. And there's horrific things being inflicted on property rights in California and in the West, you know, because of these pronouncements by environmental groups. How the environmental law has superseded just about every other right in the Constitution. And that's what it looks like these days. So, but I gotta be able to make the sale to my colleagues back here. And we're already on shaky ground, no pun intended with California earthquakes, but with my colleagues that look at things, you know, talk to a Texan about what we do. And they're like, what are you all doing, man? It's hard to make a good sale out when they're asking for, they're gonna ask for many, many billions of dollars. And I want us to be successful on that. And I want to emphasize that with the governor. Like, we have to show that we're going to be efficient and timely. And the poor people we talked to, those good souls we got to talk to at Palisades there at, you know, the president's gathering there, they were just looking at us like, we want to get this done. We want to do what we can on ourselves to get it done. Let's help them get there. Based on your conversation with Governor Newsom, do you see the governor and the state leaders here working with the federal government? Do you see them collaborating? Well, you know, I know his visit later in the afternoon was gonna be at the White House with the president and such. And the president does like to work with people if they can work on a mutual basis and such. You know what I mean? I know he has his way of doing things that rubs some people the wrong way and all that. But if you give him a chance, I think he would like to be able to work with folks. And so for the governor, he's in a vulnerable situation right now. He has to come hat in hand to DC and ask for help. So I kind of saw that, I believe he really realizes that now in our conversations. First really, really good conversation I've had with him. And I appreciate him coming by and spending that time with us. He spent, we spent good time and we talked about a lot of issues with water, with forestry and with Southern Cal. And he expressed wanting to be, you know, work with things that are bipartisan. So that's, I said, I agree, sir, that's how we win. That's how we all get things done. So I think if he'll pay attention to how we can streamline and make things more efficient, he'll have a lot of success in DC. And I will help point that out. I'll say, you know, credit where it's due if we get that done. So I had a couple of personal asks on helping some of the people that are being just, I feel like victimized by government in Northern California. And two topics would be in Siskiyou, they still have a declared drought on a couple of the rivers, river systems in Siskiyou County. These good people, 150 plus year farmers and ranchers, they're slowly having their water taken away by invoking an emergency drought. So I asked them to look at that and say, why is there a drought when these people are actually flooding out, you know, in certain cases? So they need help. I asked for mercy on them. Every time there's a hot idea in Sacramento, it seems like they take it out up in Siskiyou County, up at the top of the state. These are good people. This is a beautiful area. I'm very proud to represent. And then another example would be, if you want something to look into, look at this Point Reyes National Park, the seashore park there in Marin County on there. Farmers and ranchers have been displaced that have been there for at least 150 years. And they were threatened back in the early 1960s that they were gonna have their land taken over because they wanted to make a park there, a national park. So they agreed. Okay, we will sell you the land rather than having it taken by eminent domain. But they got to keep the permanent grazing rights on that as long as each family involved stayed involved in that. You know, so it would pass through the generations of the family. If the family pulled out or sold out, then, you know, it would end there. But slowly, they've been pushed out of there by NEPA, by weaponization of NEPA, we've talked about, weaponization of environmental law. The groups come in with massive amounts of money and they wear them down and they finally are at the point of giving up because of the weaponization by environmental groups and all their massive money behind them and the judges behind them and all that stuff. They're not doing anything wrong there. These folks are good, good farmers. They're good stewards of the land. They're good ranchers. The cattle work and get along nicely with the Thule elk that they claim to be trying to save there, okay? Thule elk thrive there next to cattle. It's perfect. So, but that doesn't allow it to be part of the story. So, that point ray at seashore is right now kicking good dairy people, good beef people off there because of the weaponization. So, this is something that we talked about too. So, I hope you guys can take a look at that. California, all over the Western states with, you know, people getting sued over having built a stock pond. You know, I could go all day long and you don't want me to do that, but it's so unjust and these are things that people are producing that people want anyway with dairy products and beef products, you know? And so, just a handful of folks are running them out. So, it's just one thing after another and that's what drives me to try and help decent people. You know, whether it's these farmers and ranchers or small business folks or the people in Southern Cal that want to just get through a whole bunch of permit and regulatory nonsense and get their lives back going in Altadena and Pacific Palisades and other affected areas. As we've been through it up in Paradise where, you know, that town was 90% wiped out by fire and 85 people lost their lives and two other towns up in my area, Greenville and Canyon Dam, which are almost completely gone due to fire, we've learned the lessons. Let's help other people know from our lessons up there and help them get going again. So, we can do better and it isn't that hard and nobody's gonna be negatively affected by it. It's not a bad environmental problem. No one's gonna be treated unfairly by just doing these common sense things. Now, Doug, do you have any other messages for Californians? If you want to have different results, you have to change the people that are in charge in Sacramento or the ones that you send to Washington, D.C. that are so focused on non-priorities for families, for small businesses, for things that are everyday. You know, I mean, these guys are hell-bent on getting rid of your gas and diesel-powered vehicles that I'm belly up on my farm if they take away my tractors and trucks and things like that. I can't run around with electric harvesters and electric tractors. It doesn't work. The power grid doesn't even support it. Same time, they want to make more things dependent on electricity. They're pulling out the hydroelectric dams in my district. They want to do another one, as I said, in Mendocino and I'm sure they have their sights set on them up in Washington on the Snake River. Hydroelectric power is beautiful. CO2-free power, if you're worried about CO2. I'm not worried about CO2. It's only 0.04% of the atmosphere. That's been turned into a whole scare story as well. But that all said, nuclear power, hydropower, they're beautiful sources of power and they're reliable for 24 hours, seven days, 365, you know. And so, but when you have these folks, all they're concerned about is bringing more migrants, as they call them. They're not migrants, these are illegal immigrants into the state and giving them mass amounts of benefits, hotel rooms that we could never afford to stay in. These folks are staying in and flying them by aircraft into the country here. Who's paying for these airline tickets? What are these guys' priorities? $50 million to go fight Trump? Well, Trump won pretty strongly across the whole country and a whole bunch of California. If you look at the map of the red versus blue counties in California, there's a whole lot more Californians that, you know, some people don't like how Trump comes off, okay, sometimes. They voted for him anyway because they're tired of the nonsense. So if they wanna change something, you gotta look at your legislators and who you're sending to Washington and Sacramento and say, what are they standing for? Are they standing for things that, you know, do you want more $1 per egg? Do you want more $5 gas when the rest of the country is getting down to three and a half bucks? You know, do you want your highways to cost double per mile? Do you want us to continue to pursue this silly high-speed rail project which they need another $100 billion to even think about finishing? And there's no $100 billion anywhere. We're stopping it here. We're not sending more money to that. President Trump isn't. Trump started a commission, an inquiry. Yesterday, I saw news where he wants to take a lot closer look at this California high-speed rail boondoggle and say, why is this such a rat hole of money? People want lanes on their highways fixed. You know, up in my area, the right lane of Interstate 5 is, you know, that's where the trucks are. You got these holes and terrible cracks and things like that. So everybody has to drive in the fast lane, even the guys going too slow, you know, because they don't wanna be in that right lane. You see a lot of Oregon and Washington plates going 55 in the fast lane. But anyway, it's just, it's a lot of nonsense. And when people finally get tired of it, you know, don't be so scared of the Republicans on that. You know, we're pretty sensible people. We want people to thrive and have options and live their lives. And, you know, it all comes down to election getting hung up on like one or two same old issues that have nothing to do with everybody's day-to-day lives. So, you know, Californians, give the Republicans a shot at how we can manage and run things. And I think you'll find you'll prosper. You'll have a lot more freedom, a lot more choices. Again, sorry to make a political pitch there, but that's how it's gonna change. Because man, the crazy stuff coming out of the state legislature, they're not even focused on what families need or economy needs. They shouldn't be allowed to propose so many bills because they all think they need to occupy the press with some new bill idea that's just got nothing to do with anything, so. Congressman Doug LaMalfa, it was great to have you on Californian Senate. Thanks a lot. I appreciate the time. Thank you.