[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 17 (Tuesday, January 30, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H309-H312]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 PLACER COUNTY RETAIL THEFT INITIATIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Kiley) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commend a new initiative by the 
business community and law enforcement in Placer County spearheaded by 
the district attorney's office called the Placer County Retail Theft 
Initiative.
  You can see here a printout of window signs that businesses in Placer 
County can now display. It says: ``This business is protected by Placer 
County's Retail Theft Initiative. Warning, Placer County is invested in 
holding those who steal from our residents and businesses accountable 
to the greatest extent the State law allows.''
  Now, the reason this is necessary is that there has been an epidemic 
of retail theft in California, owing to very misguided changes to the 
State's criminal laws, as well as very misguided choices by certain 
jurisdictions to defund police and to have prosecutors who refuse to 
enforce the law.
  What Placer County, a county in my district, is doing is saying that 
we are not one of those jurisdictions. We are a pro-public safety 
county and, what's more, even though the State's criminal laws around 
retail theft are very weak, the county is using the full authority that 
exists in those laws, maximizing the accountability that can be brought 
to bear on those who choose to steal.
  Therefore, these signs have been distributed. You can actually get 
them from the district attorney's office. My office has some, as well, 
if you are a business and would like to display one in your window. It 
serves as a real deterrent.
  What is making this possible is: the Placer County Board of 
Supervisors has voted to accept a $2 million grant for the Placer 
County District Attorney's Office new retail theft vertical prosecution 
team. With these grant funds, the DA's office will add a full-time 
deputy district attorney, a district attorney investigator, and a crime 
analyst to work on the investigation and prosecution of retail theft 
crimes.
  The vertical prosecution structure provided by the grant allows for 
cases to be handled by the same investigator and prosecutor from case 
filing through adjudication.
  You can see here the broad coalition that is behind this initiative. 
It is not just the DA's office. It is the sheriff's office; it is the 
Roseville Police Department; it is the Rocklin Police Department; the 
Auburn Police Department; the Lincoln Police Department; Colfax, as 
well as the business community of the Roseville area chamber.
  You have the Lincoln chamber, you have the Rocklin area chamber, you 
have the Auburn chamber, the Foresthill chamber, Colfax chamber, Loomis 
Basin chamber, an entire coalition that has come together in order to 
make this a very clear deterrent.
  Again, this is an actual sign that businesses can have in their 
window so that thieves who are walking by will see that, if they choose 
to prey upon this business, if they choose to steal, then that crime is 
going to be reported, and they are going to be held accountable to the 
full extent that the law allows.
  In this way, I believe Placer County is setting a model for 
jurisdictions across California. In fact, this isn't the first time 
that Placer has done this. Placer County was also the first county in 
the State of California to obtain a murder conviction for fentanyl.

[[Page H310]]

  Again, the State's laws, similar to retail theft, on fentanyl are not 
as strong as they should be. The legislature and Governor have refused 
to act to pass stronger laws, but the district attorney's office has 
managed to use the authority within existing law to bring the full 
measure of accountability on those who prey on the public.
  As Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire said: ``Placer County 
is known as a problem solver on key issues affecting our State. Our 
county's collaborative and innovative approach to statewide problems, 
coupled with our ability to address those problems proactively, makes 
Placer County a leader in addressing challenges affecting our quality 
of life. This retail theft initiative shows that we are united and 
dedicated to fighting retail theft in our region.''
  It is one reason, by the way, why folks want to come to our county. 
While the population of California has been steadily declining, it has 
actually been increasing in our county, and a major reason is the 
dedication of those who are in public safety roles and support that 
exists in our community for supporting law enforcement as a key facet 
of maintaining our quality of life.
  Now, of course, you can look at other parts of the State, like San 
Francisco, where you are seeing precisely the opposite, where there is 
this downward spiral of retailers continuing to close. It is like a new 
business every day seems to shut down. The city itself is 
losing population faster than any major city in U.S. history.

  Ultimately, the State of California needs to reform its broken 
criminal justice system. Initiatives like Prop 47 have dramatically 
reduced the consequences that are available for retail theft, and for 
open drug use. Other policies like Prop 57, Realignment, and many more 
have weakened our ability to hold offenders accountable.
  What Placer County has shown is that, even with being dealt a bad 
hand by the State, it is still possible for the community to come 
together to insist on accountability, and I think that what they are 
doing is a great model. I would certainly encourage any businesses 
within Placer who are seeing this to pick up one of these signs in 
order to protect your establishment.


                      Independent Contractor Rule

  Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, the Biden administration's Department of 
Labor has announced a new independent contractor rule that amounts to 
one of the most potentially harmful economic policies that has come out 
of this administration or any administration in recent history. It is 
estimated that this new rule, which restricts significantly the ability 
to be an independent contractor, to work as a freelancer, to be your 
own boss, could cost upwards of 3.2 to 3.6 million full and part-time 
jobs.
  Also, here is the thing. This is not a matter of speculation. 
Sometimes, when you have a proposed policy, you can do an economic 
analysis and try to forecast what the effects might be. However, in 
this case, we know exactly what the effects are going to be, because we 
have already seen them play out in California.
  This new independent contractor rule is based upon California's 
infamous AB5 law, which was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019.
  The effects of that law have been absolutely devastating. In fact, a 
study out of George Mason University just a few weeks ago found that 
the law, in and of itself, has reduced self-employment in California by 
over 10 percent and has reduced overall employment by over 4 percent. 
That is potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been lost 
in California because of this one law. That is what really makes this 
law uniquely devastating.
  California has a lot of very harmful labor and economic policies, and 
we are seeing a lot from this administration, as well. Oftentimes, as a 
worker, as an entrepreneur, as a small business owner, there is a 
death-by-a-million-cuts effect where the costs imposed on your 
enterprise just add up to the point that things don't pencil out and 
you have to close down shop, lay people off, or move out of the State.
  Well, AB5 was different in that it was one particular law that, by 
itself, cost many, many people their livelihoods, completely upended 
their whole career with a stroke of a pen. We saw this effect 
immediately after AB5 passed in 2019.
  Before it had even taken effect, we heard countless stories of people 
who all of a sudden had no ability to earn a living. The careers that 
they had built over years, over decades, were snatched from them, were 
taken away with the effect of this one single law.
  Therefore, after the law went into effect, in a matter of weeks, we 
compiled a whole book full of stories, AB5 stories, and many, many more 
have been added since. As this new rule is about to take effect, I am 
planning to share some of those stories with the American public so 
that folks who are outside California know what is in store if and when 
this new Biden administration labor rule takes effect.
  For today's story, this is from John, who is a guest orchestral 
conductor. Very shortly after AB5 took effect, he said: I depend on my 
contractor status to maintain sustainable fees while not fleecing 
orchestras. He says: Because of this bill, AB5, I just lost my first 
scheduled job with an orchestra. That is $9,000 that would have put a 
dent in my student loans or helped pay my insurance, or paid for food 
and shelter is now gone, all because of AB5.
  There are countless other stories that I will be sharing from this 
floor.
  If you are an independent contractor in California who lost your 
livelihood because of AB5, please feel free to reach out and share your 
story with my office so that I can share it with folks across the 
country and certainly folks here in this House of Representatives as a 
warning about what the effects of this legislation are going to be.
  Now, we are fighting against this policy, this new independent 
contractor rule, which will destroy millions of livelihoods. We are 
fighting against it in every way that we can, using every tool 
available.
  First, I am introducing legislation under the Congressional Review 
Act to nullify the new rule. This is a fast-track procedure where 
Congress can override an executive agency.
  Second, I have secured language in the Labor Appropriations bill 
providing that no funds may be spent to enforce the rule. This would 
effectively render it a dead letter.
  Third, I have joined with Representative Elise Stefanik to author the 
Modern Worker Empowerment Act, which creates a clear legal standard to 
protect independent workers.
  Fourth, I have endorsed the Department of Labor Succession Act, which 
has already passed through committee, which is going to stop Acting 
Secretary Julie Su from remaining in that position indefinitely.
  Julie Su is Biden's nominee to be Secretary of Labor. She was 
rejected by the Senate. Her nomination was returned after almost a year 
last year in the face of bipartisan opposition, yet President Biden has 
insisted on keeping her at the helm of the Labor Department as an 
unconfirmed Secretary.
  Why is that? Because Julie Su was the architect of AB5 itself. She 
was Gavin Newsom's Secretary of Labor in California and was the chief 
enforcer of AB5. That is why, for anyone who questions that the new 
national policy is based on AB5, why in the world would they promote, 
of all people, the architect and lead enforcer of AB5 into this new 
role, if not to do the exact same thing for the whole country?

  Fifth, as chair of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I 
will continue to conduct rigorous oversight of the Department of Labor, 
and we will do everything possible to protect American workers against 
this independent contractor rule and other administration overreaching 
policies.
  Finally, it is worth mentioning that there are now two different 
lawsuits, as we anticipated, challenging the independent contractor 
rule.
  One is reviving a previous challenge to a previous version of this 
rule on procedural grounds.
  The second, which was recently filed by a group called Fight for 
Freelancers that has partnered with Pacific Legal Foundation, is 
challenging the rule itself on a few grounds--on the ground that it 
doesn't comply with the statutory authority that has been granted to 
the agency, that it violates a statute that prohibits arbitrary 
rulemaking by an agency, and, finally, it is a constitutional challenge 
saying that the vagueness of the law essentially amounts to a violation 
of due process.
  That is all to say that we have hope of stopping this destructive 
policy from

[[Page H311]]

taking effect, and I will continue to share the stories of those who 
have already been affected in California in hopes that we can save 
millions of American workers the same fate.


                   Homelessness Crisis in California

  Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, we recently received some good news, as the 
United States Supreme Court has decided to hear a case called City of 
Grants Pass v. Johnson, which could mark a turning point for the 
homelessness crisis in California.
  Just to provide some context, let's consider the full breadth of that 
crisis.

                              {time}  1900

  It has been 20 years since Governor Newsom rolled out his plan--he 
was then the mayor of San Francisco at the time--to end homelessness in 
San Francisco within a decade. It has now been 20 years since he 
announced that, and this anniversary happened to coincide with the 
Department of Housing and Urban Development's annual homelessness 
report to Congress.
  Among the findings of the HUD report are that California has the 
highest homelessness rate of any State. California has had a 30.5 
percent increase in homelessness from 2007 to 2023. That is the highest 
increase of any State.
  California accounts for 28 percent of America's homeless and about 50 
percent--that is half--of the Nation's unsheltered homeless. San 
Francisco, for its part, has the second highest percent of unsheltered 
homeless youth and unsheltered veterans of any city in the country.
  So there are a lot of reasons for these appalling statistics and the 
tragic realities that they represent. It is political failure where we 
have had policies dealing with crime, for example, that have released 
many people from prisons too early and don't have appropriate 
consequences for criminal activity. There is our State's soaring cost 
of living that is a result of many different political failures. There 
is the inadequacy of our State's approach to mental health and 
substance abuse. Then there is the complete wastefulness and lack of 
accountability when it comes to the billions and billions and billions 
of dollars that are being spent at the State and local level to address 
the homelessness crisis.
  In fact, as the State has continued to spend more and more--many, 
many times more--than it has ever spent, the homelessness problem has 
only continued to get worse, and, there is, in fact, an audit coming in 
California that is finally going to look at homelessness spending.
  Nonetheless, on top of all of these political and policy failures, 
there have been significant judicial impediments to dealing with the 
homelessness crisis; that is, a series of decisions by the Ninth 
Circuit Court of Appeals beginning with the Boise case and its progeny 
that have made it difficult, if not impossible, to enforce anti-camping 
ordinances and to otherwise clear out homelessness encampments from 
public spaces.
  Mr. Speaker, if you talk to city leaders, county leaders, and leaders 
of municipalities across California, they will tell you that this line 
of cases is the bane of their existence and that it is a significant 
obstacle in the way of commonsense policies for dealing with 
homelessness.
  So the Supreme Court has now taken up this case, and I am very 
hopeful that the Court is going to do the right thing and that it is 
going to restore the proper authority to local officials to deal with 
homelessness in public spaces.
  The initial line of cases that the Court will be examining is based 
on a very distorted view of the Eighth Amendment, and so I believe that 
the legal argument here is one that will coincide with what is best 
from a policy perspective. So I will be urging the Court to make the 
right decision here, but at the same time, if and when the Court does 
that, when it provides these new tools to folks at the local level, we 
will finally have the political accountability for our State leaders to 
address homelessness in the right way so that we don't another 20 years 
from now continue to set the standard for having the most homelessness 
of any State in the entire country.


                          Important Tax Relief

  Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, we have some good news in the bill that has 
just been released that is a major tax bill here in the House of 
Representatives that will be moving through the House and likely coming 
up for a vote very soon. The good news is that several measures that I 
have cosponsored that provide important tax relief have made it into 
this tax bill.
  I wanted to provide a few examples because these are significant ways 
in which we are now using the tax code in order to stimulate the right 
kinds of economic activity.
  One of the measures that made it into the bill is H.R. 2673, the 
American Innovation and R&D Competitiveness Act. What this does is it 
eliminates the 5-year amortization requirement for research and 
experimental expenditures thereby allowing continued expensing of such 
expenditures in the taxable years in which they are incurred.
  What this does is it enhances the competitiveness of U.S. companies 
particularly when it comes to competition with China and otherwise 
across the board.
  Another provision that is very important that has found its way into 
this bill is H.R. 2406, the ALIGN Act. What it does is it makes 
permanent the expensing of certain new business equipment. This 
expensing allows the deduction of the full amount of an expensable item 
in the same taxable year instead of being depreciated under the current 
IRS rules. Once again, this is a very important provision for 
stimulating manufacturing and enhancing our competitiveness here in the 
United States.
  A third measure which has made its way into this tax bill is H.R. 
4970; that is the Protect Innocent Victims of Taxation After Fire Act. 
This measure which I have cosponsored excludes from gross income for 
income tax purposes any amount received after 2019 and before 2026 by 
an individual taxpayer as a qualified wildfire relief payment.
  It defines such payment as compensation for expenses or losses 
incurred as a result of a federally declared forest or range fire 
disaster.
  So this is just common sense and much-needed. It corrects an 
injustice for Californians who had suffered greatly because of our 
State's catastrophic wildfires and then found they were going to be 
taxed on the settlements and compensation that they received.
  Finally, within this broader tax bill is another measure that I have 
cosponsored, H.R. 3238, the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act. 
Now, this does a number of things to stimulate housing production that 
we so direly need in the State of California.
  It increases the per capita dollar amount of the affordable housing 
credit and its minimum ceiling amount beginning in 2023, and it extends 
the inflation adjustments for such amounts.
  The low-income housing tax credit subsidizes the acquisition, 
construction, and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing for low- 
and moderate-income tenants. That is what we are talking about here. 
This measure that has now been included in the broader tax bill extends 
and updates it to create new housing opportunities in California and 
across the country.
  It also increases the number of credits allocated to each State; that 
is, the legislation would increase the number of credits available to 
States by 50 percent for the next 2 years and make the temporary 12.5 
percent increase secured in 2018 permanent which has already helped 
build more than 59,000 affordable housing units nationwide.
  It also increases the number of affordable housing projects that can 
be built using private activity bonds. This provision would stabilize 
financing for workforce housing projects built using private activity 
bonds by decreasing the amount of private activity bonds needed to 
secure housing credit funding. As a result, projects will have to carry 
less debt and more projects will be eligible to receive funding.
  Finally, this improves the housing credit program to better serve at-
risk and underserved communities. This legislation would also make 
improvements to the program to better serve veterans, victims of 
domestic violence, formerly homeless students, Native-American 
communities, and rural Americans.
  I look forward to the opportunity to support this bill and enact 
these provisions into law that will stimulate our economy, will 
stimulate housing, and

[[Page H312]]

will provide the full measure of compensation for wildfire victims in 
our State.


                  Tax Relief for Fire Hardening Homes

  Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, last week I introduced the SAFE HOME Act 
which provides a tax credit for folks to harden their homes against 
wildfires.
  Right now in California we have not only experienced devastating 
catastrophic wildfires in recent years, but, as a result, we are now in 
the thick of an insurance crisis where folks' rates for fire insurance 
have absolutely skyrocketed. People are losing their plans left and 
right, insurance companies are pulling out of California, and more and 
more people are being kicked on to what is called the FAIR Plan, which 
is not a good option for a lot of folks and imposes enormous costs.
  This is having ramifications for homeowners, for businesses, for 
folks looking to buy a home, and for folks looking to sell a home. In 
one of my counties it has even impeded an affordable housing project 
from even getting off the ground, and the situation continues to get 
worse and worse and worse.
  We have seen State Farm and Allstate say they are now no longer 
issuing plans in California. Other insurance companies such as 
Merastar, Unitirn, and Kemper Independence have said they are not going 
to renew policies in 2024 for homeowners.
  Unfortunately, we have not seen much, if any, meaningful action from 
the Governor or from the legislature in California.
  So folks really, really need relief. People are having to pay 
thousands more than they anticipated, and a lot of people simply cannot 
afford it.
  So I have proposed a number of policies over the last few years to 
try to provide individuals with relief. What the SAFE HOME Act does is 
it at least provides folks with some relief based upon the work that 
they themselves have done to try to reduce the risk of wildfire.
  What is so frustrating to a lot of people is they do everything they 
possibly can to mitigate the risk of fire in their home, to harden 
their home, and to create a firebreak. Nonetheless, they don't get 
rewarded for it. The insurance companies don't take that into account, 
and they still see their rates skyrocket just like anyone else.
  So what we want to do with this bill is provide some relief to those 
people, and at the same time, to create an incentive for more people to 
harden their homes so as to reduce the risk of wildfires. So, 
specifically, the SAFE HOME Act which I have introduced creates a 25 
percent refundable tax credit for wildfire mitigation.
  It includes a phaseout starting at $200,000, and it drops by 25 
percent every $25,000 in income above $200,000. At $300,000 in income 
the credit is phased out. There is also an inflation adjustment for any 
year after 2024 equal to the cost-of-living adjustment.
  The credit is only made available for a primary home that a Federal 
natural disaster declaration has been made within the preceding 10-year 
period with respect to a wildfire or is adjacent to an area that has 
had a disaster declaration, and it would sunset on December 31, 2032.
  So it is a modest measure. It is not going to impose enormous costs, 
but it will provide real relief to folks who really need it and who are 
doing the right thing by trying to reduce the risks to themselves and 
their neighbors.
  So I am hoping that this is a measure that will receive broad 
bipartisan support, but I recognize that it is not a comprehensive 
solution to this very serious problem. So I call upon my colleagues 
especially in California but also other States who are seeing similar 
issues to come together to provide a backstop, the needed policies to 
do whatever we can at the Federal level to stop this crisis from 
continuing to spiral out of control. I also call upon the State leaders 
in California to do their part, as well.
  Finally, we need to recognize ultimately that the way to truly get 
the insurance crisis under control is to stop having catastrophic 
wildfires in California on a regular basis which, of course, come with 
loss of life, loss of property, and destruction of communities, as well 
as not to mention a tremendous amount of environmental harm.
  We have seen effective forest management practices work, and we have 
seen ineffective forest mismanagement practices lead to tragedy.
  Mr. Speaker, I will give you just an example from one fire in 
California which leveled the town of Grizzly Flats in my district and 
spread far elsewhere and almost consumed the city of South Lake Tahoe. 
This is the Caldor fire in El Dorado County.
  The Federal Government was supposed to have done a mitigation project 
that could well have stopped the Caldor fire from ever spreading, but 
years and years and years went by and the project never got done. The 
fire started. It leveled Grizzly Flats. It put many, many people out of 
their homes.
  By the way, the Biden administration has still not delivered the 
individual assistance that was promised to the residents of Grizzly 
Flats. As the fire spread and it made its way toward Tahoe, Mr. 
Speaker, you might remember these surreal scenes of ski slopes that are 
just aflame. However, it didn't end up destroying or even making a dent 
in the city of South Tahoe because of the absolutely heroism of the 
firefighters there and the first responders, but also because there had 
been mitigation work done in the Christmas Valley thanks to a policy 
change that had fairly recently been made in this Congress which 
provided a categorical exclusion from environmental reviews for 
projects in the Tahoe area. If it were not for that policy, that work 
likely would not have been done, and the fire could have been that much 
more devastating.
  So I am sponsoring legislation that would build on that success 
story, and it would have a policy change where you could have the same 
expedited process for doing fire mitigation work throughout the 
national forest system.
  Mr. Speaker, when you go and talk to folks in the Forest Service and 
the other groups and stakeholders and folks in government who are 
working to mitigate the risk of wildfire, they will all tell you this 
would make an enormous difference.

                              {time}  1915

  In order to get the fire insurance crisis under control, it is above 
all necessary that we do everything we possibly can to stop these 
tragedies from continuing to occur in California.
  I am sponsoring a number of measures to do that, but we have to act 
with urgency because the risks will continue until we do.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________