garamendi, for a minute. mr. garamendi: mr. chairman, a bit from the unusual, but my colleague from new york requests a minute and i yield a minute to him. mr. gibson: i thank my friend. the issue is, here the administration says they need a ground partner to conduct these air attacks but we're not even going to have a ground partner for six to eight months and they're talking about launching air strikes within a month. this is a problem. the other problem is these forces on the ground have not shown themselves to be military-competent nor politically trustworthy. we should work politically in syria. that's the second point. and the third point is we ought to secure our borders. commonsense point. but look, they have expressed a desire to attack our country. and we need to protect ourselves from that. so empower the iraqi armed forces and the kurds, work politically to get a partner in syria, secure our borders and reject this amendment. with all due respect. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his

garamendi. this is a difficult decision, a difficult choice and likely one at does not have a good or better outcome than what we can propose today. i think the american people need to understand that as we act today many of us do with reluctance. i will vote in support of mr. mckeon's amendment, but i do so very reluctantly. i have fear that what we face is a situation in which we will arm folks who subsequently will take negative action against us. however, when weighing the consequences of taking no action, as many of my colleagues have indicated, i think we have no choice but to move forward as this amendment is recommending and the president has requested. i also believe that we are power back in congress at has drifted over many years to the president, irrespective of what party he is or she may be in in the future, and i think that this is an important constitutional step that we should all support. thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentle

garamendi: i thank you, mr. peters, for your leadership in bringing to the attention of this entire nation and certainly to the 535 members -- 435 members of this house, there's a way to manage our forests and to deal with the fires that have plagued us so extensively over these many years. i think all of us have seen this before. smoky the bear, only you can prevent forest fires. we need to add to it, but congress can help. so smoky turns to us and said, how can you help? well, we can help by changing the way in which we budget for the fighting of fires. instead of a rolling 10-year average and putting that money up every year, and in nine of the last 12 years blowing through that budget and then reaching back and taking the prevention funds, the forest management funds, those funds that would allow us to reduce the risk of fires in our forests and in our public lands, instead of doing that we'd have a different system, as mr. peters just described. and it's h.r. 3992, a bipartisan bill, democrats and republica

for more let me bring in john garamendi, congressman from california. you get the first question. we doing the right thing? your thoughts? >> we're doing the right thing and we're also going about it the wrong way. the president welcomes our involvement. ed, this is a new war. this is not the extension of the iraq 1 or iraq 2 war, and the constitution is very clear. the the president must come to congress to get our approval and authorization to use force. it is very, very clear it on me. they're arguing that they don't feed it and they can continue the wars of afghanistan and 2002 era. we need to limit. we need to be very, very careful. we need to limit exactly what the president said he wanted to do last night. we don't want to grease the slippery slope to all-out engagement in the middle east again, but if we fail to put through a very clear, authorization to use force that's limited, limited in its scope, limited in how much and where we can do it we're going to head right down that slippery slope and i guarantee you we'll have thous of boots on the ground leading the effort t

your thinking about that, congressman garamendi?i think they have not fully considered all of the factors involved. the extraordinary cost of the afghanistan war, the terrible outcome of the iraq war. we need to be very measured, very deliberate, and very, very careful. but we do need to vote. the law says we need to vote. the constitution says we need to vote. we didn't come here to play chicken. we came here to do our job, and that means we have to vote. we have to be very careful as we construct a resolution that will authorize the president to carry on an appropriate level of military action. i am not in any way going to vote to move back into iraq with heavy duty troops as we have in the past. air strikes, okay, we have the advisers on the ground. that's enough for me. realize this solution here does not lie in american military presence in this area. we've done that. we did it for a decade. it didn't work. we need to make sure that the countries surrounding this area, they're the ones that have the real risk here. we do have r

let me bring in john garamendi who is on the house armed services committee.hanks for your time tonight. i want your reaction to boehner saying that we're going to put this off until 2015. the lame duck session of the congress isn't going to get to do balls and strikes on how involved we're going to be in this conflict against isis. and i want our audience to consume this. we have been told before on other issues that the republicans won't do something until the next year. and that could take months. you know, 2015, is that the first weekend? the same way they were going to do unemployment benefits which we never got help on. you can't trust the republicans and i think they are hanging the president out to dry on this and this is a big political move. your thoughts on all of this? >> i'm mad. i'm down right mad. it's bad enough that we've not taken this up before the election and now to say not until the next congress that is outrageous. speaker boehner controls the calendar. he controls whether we're in session or out of session. and frankly it's a derelictio

john garamendi and other local leaders will take part in the celebration.l provide a connection between napa and solano counties. >>> and we are going to keep you on the roads at 6:48. >> it's been busy. we have another multi-car crash and unfortunately, this one is reported in walnut creek. a couple of lanes are blocked and chp is saying 6 or 7 cars are involved in this accident. southbound 680 approaching treat boulevard a couple of the left lanes are blocked and you can see it's slowing on 242 as well backed up almost to highway 4. all lanes are back open a couple minutes ago northbound 17 at laurel road. there were three separate accidents. as many as a dozen different cars involved in the crash. so again, both lanes just reopened. that traffic alert just canceled. it's going to take a while for this to clear out, though. we are seeing the delays back to scotts valley nine miles to get through the backup. delays are obviously pretty extensive in that area. bay bridge toll plaza metering lights were turned on about an hour ago backed up through the maze.

so congressman john garamendi is pushing lawmakers to support a bill that would rearrange emergency firefightingng reserves. >> the goal is to end that cycle to do it the exact same way we do with all other emergency, set aside reserve when you need it you tap the reserver you don't tap the operational budgets. >> reporter: in california firefighting works differently. the state does have reserve funds set aside for firefighting budget overruns but cal fire director says fires have no boundaries and if the feds take money meant to prevent fires, it affects the state and local fire departments too. >> it means that more resources go to a fire like the "rim" fire in yosemite last year and that means less resources are available in other areas of the state to attack the new fires that are starting. >> reporter: so while washington rangles over budget lines, are we more in danger? firefighters say maybe. no one will stop fighting the fires but now as we enter the most dangerous part of the season, the u.s. forestry department is in reaction mode not preventing fires, just fighting them. >> the firef

garamendi: thank you, mr. chairman.istened with considerable interest in the exposition just given by our colleague and i find myself in agreement with much of what was said, particularly the concerns. the unknowns. and the fact that this amendment is going to wind up in a c.r. and we're going to be voting on the c.r. and the amendment whether we like the amendment or not or we shut down government that causes me great concern. my real concern is beyond just this amendment. limited as it is, and i thank the chairman for making this as limited and sometime in december, i think december 11, that's good. the fact that the reporting is there, that's good. the fact that we are going to find ourselves right smack in the middle of a civil war that's gone on for three years and the previous three we couldn't figure out which side we wanted to be on and who we wanted to work with, aparently we now know who we want to work with, or we'll find out who we want to work with. a lot of unknowns here. a lot of concerns. the big concern

>> no question, i agree with congressman garamendi, and senator kaine.n if congress comes back and votes for it, it is a blatant violation of the u.n. charter. this is illegal to go into another country and bomb it. but more importantly, it is counter productive. almost knowingly counter productive. there is no military solution. they keep saying that, and by the way, candidate barack obama strongly agreed with everything i said. it is president obama who has changed his mind. and we have to bring him back to that desire to end the mindset that gets us into war because there are numerous useful nonmilitary actions here that doesn't involve doing what isis openly ex-ples itly wants the u.s. military to do, and almost guaranteed to be counter productive. look at the disaster in libya, look at the past quarter century, past several years and past six weeks in iraq, it makes things worse to go in and bomb a bad situation. >> what do you view the u.n., how the u.n. plays out here. i found it interesting that the u.n. informed the syrian ambassador these air s

. >> we start our discussion tonight with john garamendi. good to have you with us tonight. i want to know off the top, your perspective if this video is real, if there was an execution, what does this change for the united states and the strategy at this point and the discussion? >> i think it changes nothing except determination to get these people and to put this thing to rest. we have a strategy in place, already being played out, certainly in iraq. we are bombing isil. we are going about the business of putting together the coalition such as senator feinstein just discussed, kerry will be in the middle east. the nato meeting is underway tomorrow. the president is going to be in estonia, probably more to do with the ukrainian situation. but there's definitely a strategy that is in place to bring into the community into the area the community of nations in that area. and continue striking isil, the united states government using our extraordinary resources went after the leader of al shabab in somalia and probably took him out using hellfire missiles and other assets. for

garamendi, for five minutes. mr. garamendi: i thank you, mr. speaker. the success of our districts and the livelihood of our future of our communities we lies heavily on the devotion and services of those who go above the call of duty. the helpers willing to devote their time and energy to improving the lives of those around them, they deserve to be recognized. this fall, through my 2014 women of the year awards, i've made an effort to recognize, honor and celebrate the vital contributions of outstanding women in my district. hrough their work and volume untarism have -- volunteerism recognize pat, puente, gloria, leean, dr. francis nelson, gloria, linda palmer, loretta riley, michelle and nicole. these are exemplary examples of sacrifice and devotion. these civic leaders have helped improve their communities in various ways. they are advocates for education, agriculture, flood protection, environmental stewardship, the arts, promoting healthy communities, organizing events for world peace and raising community awareness to end bullying. throughout our

joining me now with a have you view from capitol hill is california democratic congressman garamendy. is the united states at war with isis? >> apparently we are at war if that's what the president says. if that is the case, then congress has a constitutional requirement to declare war. what's happening is a lot of lawyers parsing the legal words of the authorization used in afghanistan and in iraq, 2001, 2002, and saying it's a continuation of those wars. i don't think so. i think this is a new war. this is a new chapter in a longstanding problem in the middle east. and congress has the responsibility and the obligation of taking it up, declaring war or on authorization to use force and circumscribing, in my view, the nature of that war. >> but you have the white house saying something. but then as you're aware on thursday, secretary kerry as well as susan rice saying this is not a war, flip to yesterday, the white house, state, pentagon press secretary say that with identical phrasing. does this confusion hurt the president's cause and credibility coming from the white house? >> wel