harrowing journey north. the impact of the fugitive slave law passed two years later. billion wu, sunday night at eight eastern on c-span's q&as. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcast on our free c-span now app. c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including cox. >> omar can be hard. squatting in a diner for internet work is even harder. that's why we are providing low income students access to affordable internet. so homework can just be homework. cox connect to compete. >> cox supports c-span as a public service along with these television providers giving your front row seat to democracy. >> joining us on capitol hill this morning is congressman doug lamalfa, republican of

california, member of the agriculture committee. represents the sixth district, sorry, the sixth term representative, the first district manages the family farming business, largely founded by his great grandfather in 1931. congressman, before we talk to, you i want to show our viewers the moment you had with president biden leaving the house floor after his state of the union address. you got to talk to him about the california water. crisis i want to show that moment. we will come back and talk to. you >> thank you for your time tonight. i wanted to catch up with you. half 1 million acres in agriculture last year. >> i appreciate it. >> congressman, let's begin with those numbers that you. gave half 1 million acres, you don't know where the food is going to come from. explain. >> he was an opportunity to get

that in the presidents ear. once again, i did it a year ago as. well i want to have conversations about how the federal government, what can they come doing to impede water following and agriculture in our home states. as you know, california is a very major portion of our agricultural situation in this whole country. here it is a key element to so many crops that are grown here. 90 to 99% of several them come from california. you talk olives artichokes, you talk so many feel, crafts i'd like to point out tornadoes, because if you don't have the tomatoes being grown in california, they're not going to have tomato paste for pisa over pasta back in new york, for example. it's very important that we continue to farm in california, otherwise the crops are going to have to be either done without or imported from another country. it's just imperative that we continue to do things to add to

water supply. we can raise the shasta dam and northern california built another dam called sites reservoir. that would be 2.1 million acre feats, it's a heck of a lot more crops. what seems to be happening is they are more concerned that there's water flowing out to the ocean for fish. it has a way for 30. airs there's one called the delta's melt. they can't hardly find us delta's melt. this was after they've increased waters dramatically over the years. this year we've had an amazing amount of water and snow pack hit the sierra's and all of our states. at the same time, in california we have declared a drought emergency and flood emergency in some areas. that is california, fo you we've lost 6 million acre feet in a short perime going out to the ocean. havingbuild more water storage and around the pumps that we have at th south end of the delta to fill what's called the st. louis reservoir, which holds 2 million acre feet. we have dramatically more water. we've know how to do this. we've done in the past.

we built a federal water project all the cbp. and a state water project in the 30s in the 60s respectively. we have to do more. we can't have the federal agencies just continue to stand water out to the ocean and down the river because of fish flows. we've seen the price of food go up so much in this country. shortages, why are we sort of eggs. ? this is the united states and we should not be for food. >> what role, if any, do you believe climate change is played? you know, all they seem to want to talk about, racial issues, climate change. we wasted the last four years getting hardly anything done due to that or overreach on covid restrictions put on by federal and state government. we have to be getting cracking on doing the things. everyone we will climb at a four minute, what should we be doing? we should be building more water storage facilities so we can hold rainwater that would normally escape to the ocean. i want to remind people that the whole thing seems to boil

down to co2 and western countries are supposed to stop producing co2. meanwhile, china and others on the pacific rim continue to do they want. co2, carbon dioxide is only 0.04% of our atmosphere. when asked people on the streets, 30 40 50%. that's all this place wants to talk about. co2 in climate change. they would basically have us move into caves any crickets rather than live the life that were used to living here in this country. so, climate change, if you want to say that's what the problem is, then miami cutting more timber anthony out the florida so we don't have fire and smoke looms might come from the millionaire acre, excuse, me million acre fire that happened in my district in 2021. the smoke plume went up in the atmosphere and settle down on new york, washington, philadelphia, places like that. if you want to play the climate change game, we should be thinning for us, we have a sustainable amount of trees per acre, we are building more

water storage facilities in order that we capture more rainfall that is in snow pack. slowly timer leases as the snow back six of their notes during june, july, august. >> before we get calls, congressman, talk about the situation in the western states and the colorado river. explain the history and what is the latest on resolving the sharing of water resources. >> that's a difficult issue. the people of a lot of great vision back in the 30s built the great system we have there on the colorado. it's not a heck of a lot of water. it is a tougher situation, several states plus mexico all have shares of that water supply. it hasn't rained a whole lot there in the last few years. so, we have to track with the water is going to there and make sure the states that are involved all go back to the original agreements and divide the water proportionately with

what's available. we have to also make sure that the water we do have this coming into that isn't being wasted or you solely for dubious environmental purposes. >> all right, let's hear from gary, he's in jacksonville, florida. democratic collard, gary, we are talking about the water crisis situation in western states with congressman and farmer doug lamalfa. >> good morning, senator mott, i have a few issues. -- mass shooting that's on the republicans that were rescinded, the assault weapons ban. second, the ppp loans that marjorie taylor greene got -- let's address that. in the four, this you worried about censorship. we have here in florida books that were banned by -- j.d. challenger, stuff like that. they want to control what studies are done, after

american studies and college, desantis, governor of florida, let's evolution about censorship. >> congressman, there was a phone call left over from our previous conversations about republican investigations in the house. do you have a reaction to that? >> well, he had a lot of things on there. so, for example, i don't think we need to censor books at the college level. it should be wide open. everything ought to be available to college aged kids. it seems like the sensors happening on the internet with conservative talk and conservative folks expressing their opinions. we see it happening. we saw it on the twitter interviews yesterday here in congress. because most ways on that. the garbage that yankees are being subjected to kids, that's what we try to protect. minot have to be dealing with so much sexuality as they're being forced now. dry clean story hour. i can't imagine how anyone thinks that's a good idea. the other sexual-ization of young kids in school, let them be kids for crying out loud

until they reach an age. why should that happen to minors at all. that ranches out into other things that miners are being subjected to with areas of sexuality but i won't go into that today. >> michael in illinois independent >> good morning. i assume that he is a california fireman? wherever -- >> northern california. >> all right, well, listen. i am from a blue state. we are always demonized. yeah, you are two as a matter-of-fact. but i want to know why you people are not paying your fair share for all these water projects that i'm paying for. almost every state that's part of that colorado watershed is a

parasite. i have to send more federal dollars to those states then they have ever paid in. and you sit there and you are in congress. why? your dad gotta -- well i don't want to attack him. >> let's not. >> do you want to respond? >> i've heard that a lot. the water rights in my farm go way back there was ever a state water project. we've had water rights to come out of the river. the state built a project in a dam right there. that was to help the rest of the state. most of the farmers already had a water right. this infrastructure helped a lot of other parts of the state and that sense to it's been paid back. farmers pay for the water. the central projects, the federal one, that's being paid back over the years as well the farmers up there having their water taken away and they've had dry crops and dried fields with very little crops.

the federal government is taking away their water. it was created on behalf for them. they pay for it. the borough of regulation can't even account for how much they owe after 30 plus years or longer on that project. the government doesn't know how much they. oh we're trying to rectify that. so, by and large, agriculture will pay for what it does and what it uses. we get hydroelectric power from the stands. everyone benefits from it. low cost, 24-hour saturday week available power that you don't have to wait for the sun to come up and turn on the solar panels or the windmills to turn to make power. it is green, it is reliable, it's co2 free power that we have coming from our hydroelectric dams. if they want to tear the dams out on the climate river they want to get rid of the nuclear power plant. and you have a five-year reprieve. so these are both co2 sources of power that we need to keep. the environmental groups on one hand -- they want to get rid of it.

they don't like it. >> congressman, you have been named chair of the house agriculture subcommittee on forestry. you mentioned the forest earlier. what will be on your agenda as chair? what's hearings are you looking at conducting? >> the issue with our western forest is a little bit different when your east coast our southern states. there's a lot more rainfall and there's less areas. they don't have the quite it same issues they can like you saw the tennessee couple of years ago in such. in the west you see these stories all the time. year after year, summer after summer fall after fall. massive wildfires. as i mentioned we had one called the dixie fire in 2021 that caused 1 million acres. say that yourself. 1 million acres in one fire and it devastated the forest. it's mostly federal lands that are not being managed. trees grow and grow unless

something limits them once in a while. i'm not against trees and we are all for trees and for us. nature in its own away every once in awhile comes through and has a massive fires the history goes back there would be massive fires millions of acres in montana and places like that for some of the first spanish settlers when they came to california they call it the place with the brown air. three 400 years ago. when we manage the forest and when we had the right around trees breaker, 50 to 60 adult trees per acre, that's actually something that looks nice. it's good for the. wildlife they can, honda comply. it isn't a tinderbox. so, we've been for the last year, because the forest service has been displaced with people that were all around for us. we have a lot -- who are trying to shut that down. of course, environmental groups are hyperactive suing over every timber harvest project that tries to get done. including after a fire.

we need to salvage their that's been burned. they want -- some species here. meanwhile, you have a limited window of time to recover trees that have been scorched that will soon die off and not have any value after one or two years. so, the value of the trees can make wood products on paper products that we still need. they still want them. we can't recover some of that cost of restoring the forest and replanting it. environmental groups say, oh, you didn't, there might be a woodpecker. you have 4000 acres in one fire. they were trying to do a 7000 acre restoration project less than 2% of it. and they shut that down with a lawsuit. this is the battle we have. have more hearings and have people understand that the left and the environmental groups are deterring good forest management. again, the first thing people worry about, you guys are going to clear that everything. no, that's not the case. we like for us. it is much more sustainable if

we're going to have them around that we manage them. nature manages in a much harsher. way it grows and grows and then comes through with a big fire and lifestyle out. so, we can live next to these. i had two towns that were completely devastated by fire damage in the 2021 fire. of, course many of you have heard of the town of paradise, in 2018 was devastated. about 30,000 people there. 90% of the buildings in that town were gone. it's recovering. we are seeing things happen there. in 2021, in the town of greenville, just wiped out. another town there. i was actually there just a few minutes before it happened, a town called canyondam. these are the counties of california. h those towns. because of lack of forest management, the fire came down, the wind shifted and pushed it through the towns. we thought maybe they had held him off. it's really tiresome to see those areas be devastated by that. these are areas that used to be lumber towns that provided the

product that people needed. it provided the lumber others needed to build houses, of course, california we have a housing shortage. they want what we call affordable housing. which means a democrat program to subsidize the heck out of it instead of having low cost inputs and low-cost lands that we are allowed to develop on. >> let's hear from jerry who is in long beach washington and as a republican. good morning, jerry. >> yes, good morning. representative, you are absolute breath of fresh air. i have been concerned about this for a long time. i've written to my senator back when i was in wisconsin about this whole water issue. this thing is so much bigger than driving cars around. it just. is the environment is changing. why don't we worry about how to survive the next generation of this? i want to count everybody out there. on youtube, there is a really

great documentary, it's called pomp and dry, pump dry, the global crisis of damaging groundwater, and i'd like very much for the congress to set up a special committee to say, how can we pump water, from the mississippi river from the columbia river, into the groundwater so we have food to eat in the future. thank you for your time. >> jerry, make a great point. in california, we've had so much surface water from our storage projects. people's vision built this many years. ago we haven't built the dam in california have any substance since 1979. we have this growing population of people in the state and a growing population in the country that need the food that we grow. so, you talked about some groundwater. we have some subsidence, that's where the ground is lowered. so much it's been pumped out of the. ground farmers of had their water taken away from them, it used to come from the surface water. so far, this year, some are

getting the zero allocation, some are getting a 30% allocation. this kicked up recently from a 5%. now, how do you operate anything under 30% allegation of the input you have, whether your manufacturer, whatever kind of business you are? and this, case your manufacturing food. they, say well you can only have 30% of the water for all your land. well, how you make land payments? the government still want to pay taxes on. the jerry, something to watch out for up there to, you have a lot of water supply. it's a little bit drier on the east side. there are people who want to tear down your games to. they want more fist patches and stuff. where does the value per fish meet the deeds of humans of people to have the food supply and the electricity? a massive amount of electricity gets distributed to the western states. again, clean hydroelectric power, co2, we're all worried about co2. so, there is a lot of talk on both sides by the environmental groups. they want to tear out the dams,

they want to take out the water supply. they think it's going to restore fish. flow we can do other things are going to help fish. for the last 30, years we've seen this all one-way coming right out of the hides of agriculture. if the people doing this want to go to the end of the food lines, we are going to be, okay we're going to in a dire way. the united states has always been a leader in providing for its own food supply. and helping so many other people around the world when there's famine. who is the first one there? the united states. they're helping out. we're not gonna below do that a whole lot longer because of those inputs being taken away, the price of energy skyrocketing. the diesel on my farm being doubled on everyone's farm. the fertilizer is tripling. that's all going to come out of the price. oh, i'm not there, anymore the neighbors aren't there anymore. if they can't make that up in price, the consumers have to pay. consumers have to pay. this i guess we can just import cheap food somewhere else. how long to they cut us off? how long are they doing to keep doing that? we don't need to rely on imported food. have a nose, we're relyinenoughe

pharmaceuticals from china, 90% of our pharmaceuticals are coming from that source. they decided to cut us off one day. as well, they want to electrify everything, like cars, stoves, everything else. where are these critical minerals going to come from him for not doing it here in this country? so, we need to produce here. food, energy, the minerals and things that we've made. everybody wants to battery powered cars. i don't know that many people really want that. it's an agenda pushed upon them. unfortunately, the automakers are afraid this pushback of this place here. no, we don't think we should do that. i think the first one i've seen really push back a little bit has been the president of toyota. where is the american manufacturers? they've jumped in with both feet saying, yes, electric cars. most people would like to keep what they have. they can't afford to replace. these so, we see just a constant agenda across the whole stripe, our freedom being taken away by those forcing

agendas. not necessarily by the people, choices are gonna be taken away. what do they have, but their housing looks like. as i said a while ago, i think all the people who land private planes in davos would soon have us be the ones that live in cades a crickets while they enjoy it steaks and caviar and fly around the world. >> you mentioned this at the top. i know you brought a map that deals with wasted war. do you want to talk to that? >> say that please. >> you mentionedthis at the top. the amount of water. there is a map that we have atoes along with that. >> you can see, this is a particular period of time that was monitored here on this graphic. so, it shows here that 6.4 million acre feet flowed out to d.c. during this period of time. it keeps doing ore. after the period oftime as. water with forward thinking projects like we used to do. so, why are we going in a drought? there's a gentleman from washington saying why should we

put up ground subsidence? we should have more of this water putting in these retires areas where water can percolate from the surface down into the soil and then back into the water too. the pool of water. so, we have people there that are just now issuing permits to do that. why are these permits being done a year ago or five years ago? saying hey, when the rain gets there, we will channel the water to these recharge areas. so we can have the underground aquifer beat recharging. when we get an opportunity of zero plentiful rain like that. so, we have to issue parents. like, where is the mediocrity in doing this? why are they running the delta pumps at 100 percent? because of a fish issue. how is the fish affected when there's a gazillion acre feet that's going out to the ocean and it sweeping the fish with them. well, they always have a bureaucratic reason on that. i give him credit, they put the pumps back up a little bit recently after some of us have

pointed that out. it's interesting, this is getting a lot more national attention with urban areas on east coast as well as up and down the state there. noticing how much water is escaping to the ocean. and we are not capturing unlike division areas we had years ago. we can still build some other projects that are mid sized dams compared to these ones like we had in lake shasta. we need to be taken advantage of when we do get the rainfall and snow back. we're impounding that we are using that for the things people need. not just environmental ones. here's a graphic to. bei ng 50% of the waterfalls and california, and ends up being environmental water. 40% of it used to go to agriculture. that number is contracting. as i, mentioned at least half 1 million acres have been left out. 250,000 just in northern carroll for. now i'm probably lowballing the number. if you want to take how many years the land has been idle.

-- hey, why don't we set this land aside. we will build solar farms on. it we can't eat a freaking solar panel. this is a problem that we are going to cover up this productive -- because we cannot plan ahead enough to get the water supply it needs to help the subsidence. to recharge the aquifer as well as the dish and share of the water that people built for peoples needs. it's amazing we have the nine lake shasta at the federal project. and they don't keep that lake deeper and water longer so it will be colder. they can release colder water for fish. they think raising and lower the temperature by one degrees is going to have this massive positive effect on fish spawning. and it just turns out to be another manipulation by government against the basic needs of the people. and i think they're tired of. that climate, change electric

cars handy overreach they did on covid, i think people are really getting sick of having their government like -- the balloon, we can't get straight answers. there's gonna be another briefing this morning. we can't get a straight answer of why they would do something different about that and let it take intel over our whole country. people are getting tired of the government, in my home state of california, i think it was jerry up in washington, and the other blue states, it's just dictating to them. it's not eating their basic needs of a basic water supply and food supply. the manufacturing and all the things that come from the by-products. why can't we mine here, i could go on a rant all day. it's a deal. what i want to do with my hearings on this, put forestry back on a track. have the forest service be much more aggressive on putting the forest back into the sustainable fashion with the writing on a trees and a ratio per acre. the trees aren't competing for water supply. it's not a tinderbox.

back in 20, one the firefighters that were out, the district, they said they had never seen, there's an index, there's a measurement for how dry the conditions. are they've never seen anything as dry it can cause explosive fire in those areas. so, once i got going, it was almost impossible to stop except for a night maybe when the wind would quit blowing. they do their efforts. they did heroic. efforts hats off to the firefighters from calla fire, and the work that u.s. force service. firefighters muscles are doing it. now, the top bright brass, they need to be getting on the program. here i call it the pace and scale. we need a faster pace, we need a much larger scale of work being done in the forest. for service has under 200 million acres. they had a plan that brought out last. near the country 20 million acres over ten years. let's do the math on that. 20 million is 10% of the 200 million. over ten years, that means 1%

will be treated. it means it'll take 100 years to get across all the forested areas if they treat all of them with the type of thinning and harvest and things that if we done. we need to take this material. why is the united states the number two importer of wood of the western country? we make it right here. we should also be doing the things that keep the jobs here instead of offering or the lumber. and things like that. it will help our communities thrive instead of having the poor populations we have. all the other social problems that have in poor areas. that's a lot of the mountain communities and they're like mine. they should not be subjected to that. they are good people. they were doing a good thing until the environmental wave of the 70s. that's got him down. >> congressman, republican a california, member of the agriculture committee. now the chair the agriculture subcommittee and for steve, thank you for your time. rep>> we want to welcome to our table this morning congressn