[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 57 (Thursday, March 31, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H4019-H4020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ENERGY COSTS AFFECTING U.S. FARMERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of talk about energy 
and energy costs in this country and, of course, in my home State of 
California, where you can easily find fuel over 6 bucks a gallon. Let 
me translate this conversation into what it means for farmers and what 
farmers mean for food supply.
  Now, we know the United States farmer provides the best, the 
cleanest, the most efficient process, more grown per acre per unit than 
anywhere else in the world. So, it is amazing to me that, just a few 
days ago, President Biden announced that we are going to have food 
shortages in the world and even here. We are already seeing the empty 
shelves. We are already seeing the high prices--supply and demand for 
everything.
  In the United States of America, food shortages make me ask: What are 
our priorities as a country and as a government here or in my home 
State, the government of California?

[[Page H4020]]

  We are looking at energy costs. Everything requires energy when we 
have a product that goes from a field, from a mine, or from a 
manufacturer to your home, Mr. Speaker. The fuel costs to operate a 
tractor, a combine, the trucks that bring you fertilizer and that bring 
you seed, the trucks that take away the grown product to the processor, 
to the mill, and finally bringing it to your store shelf or even if you 
have it delivered to your house, Mr. Speaker. All those energy costs 
ripple through everything we do and have as citizens of this country.
  What is being done about energy costs? Well, I just saw a blurb a 
minute ago that the President wants to tap into our energy reserve, the 
stored oil that we have someplace that always seems to be a political 
football around here to solve some problem when it is really supposed 
to be a reserve for very acute times of danger for our country. Now, 
they are using it as an economic flattener or what have you.
  We have reserves in the ground in this country that we are not 
tapping, but our tone-deaf government here and our State of California 
won't do anything about that. Instead, let's export it from Venezuela, 
and let's export it from the Middle East. Maybe we will do something 
about Russia. We will see if that takes effect.
  We are not doing anything to help our own people with the energy 
crisis and energy costs here. We are dancing around that collectively 
as a government in this administration. Why? What is their priority? 
When John Kerry says he hopes this thing Putin is doing in Ukraine 
doesn't stop our ability to reach our climate change goals, how tone-
deaf are these people? Are you kidding me?
  We are going to continue to enjoy even emptier shelves for our food, 
tires, and everything else because of high energy costs and a 
government in Washington and in Sacramento unwilling to do anything 
about it other than half measures or zero measures.
  What does this do to our food supply, as we talked about? My 
colleagues in the State legislature proposed a sales tax holiday, a 
fuel tax holiday, which would knock about 51 cents off of a gallon of 
fuel. It is not the be-all or fix-all, but it can do something 
temporarily to help while we get our energy going again, supposedly. It 
would help. They turned that down. Instead, they proposed a tax 
increase on production of fuel in California. Unbelievable. Damn, who 
are you guys working for? Amazing.
  In my home State, as we try to produce food, tens of millions of 
acre-feet of water and snow fall upon our State each year. We hear 
drought, drought, drought, record drought. Yes, it is lower than 
normal, but we are not capturing the water we can.
  We could raise Shasta Dam, a Federal project, which Federal dollars 
were put toward. We could build Sites Reservoir in northern California 
and add 1.5 million-acre feet of stored water.
  But no. They are letting the water get away out through the delta for 
salinity and for fish populations that don't even exist. The delta 
smelt is gone.
  The Klamath Basin up in the north, zero allocation for agriculture 
last year and this year. Statewide, we are looking at probably 70 
percent of irrigated acres by the time it is all added up. They are 
going to be idle this year.
  What does that mean to the American people? That is California's 
problem; you guys don't know what you are doing out there anyway. Well, 
tomato production is going to be down quite a bit, so that means less 
tomato sauce for New York, less olives and olive oil for New York.
  This is what we are doing to our food production. Fertilizer costs 
are going to drive costs even more, and we will not be farming in 
California much longer.

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