[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 5 (Thursday, January 9, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H85-H87]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     COMMEMORATING ANTHONY PESCETTI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Crank). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2025, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Kiley) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, I wish to commemorate the life of Anthony 
Pescetti, of Granite Bay, who passed away unexpectedly in early 
December.
  Anthony Pescetti lived a life of service. He was an elected member of 
the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, serving 7 years, from 1987 
to 1994.
  Later, he served two terms in the California State Assembly, from 
1998 to 2002.
  During his time in public service, Assembly Member Pescetti was well-
regarded for the level of communication that he brought to the office 
and was considered fair and easy to approach. He took pride in 
listening and keeping in touch with his constituents, holding monthly 
breakfasts for the public in each community of his district.
  Assembly Member Pescetti was also an advocate for his district and 
secured various victories, such as for public safety and recreation, 
during his tenure.
  Assembly Member Pescetti followed his internal compass. He decided 
not to run for reelection in 2002, and after 4 years of training, he 
was ordained deacon with the Sacramento Catholic Diocese. He went on to 
serve at St. Mel Parish, St. Ignatius Loyola Parish, and later at 
Presentation Parish in Sacramento.
  Anthony loved people, and people loved him. He put a tremendous 
amount of work and effort toward his community to improve their quality 
of life.
  He also enjoyed his family life with his wife, Kathy, and their son 
and daughter, Anthony and Sarina. The world was a richer place with 
Anthony Pescetti, and we will sincerely miss him.


                     Recognizing Chief Rick Bartee

  Mr. KILEY. Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize retiring Roseville Fire 
Department Chief Rick Bartee for his years of service in the Roseville 
area.
  Rick Bartee's devoted career of service to the Roseville community 
and his country has spanned over four decades, including the last 9 
years as chief of the Roseville Fire Department.
  Chief Bartee's longstanding commitment to public safety goes back to 
the age of 18 when he first joined the fire service. He built a strong 
educational foundation, earning his bachelor's of applied science 
degree, studying public safety and emergency management at Grand Canyon 
University.
  Before embarking on his service to the city of Roseville, Chief 
Bartee had a decorated career in several capacities, including his over 
three decades of service for the Phoenix Fire Department.
  Over the course of his tenure, Chief Bartee conducted the duties of 
engineer, captain, battalion chief, shift commander, managing the 
Homeland Defense Bureau, deputy chief, and many others.
  Chief Bartee's dedication to public safety also went beyond his 
department and region. Throughout his time in the fire service, he also 
served on FEMA's urban search and rescue team.
  Chief Bartee was onsite at some of the most destructive disasters our 
country has seen, providing much-needed response and relief. He sifted 
through the rubble at Ground Zero after 9/11, responded to the Space 
Shuttle Columbia disaster, aided along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane 
Katrina, and responded to many other catastrophes during his service to 
the task force. He has demonstrated selflessness in his deployments, 
locating and extricating disaster victims.
  Chief Bartee's experience and scope of duties over his accomplished 
career, in conjunction with his devotion to service, enabled him to be 
an exemplary leader as chief of the Roseville Fire Department.

                              {time}  1515

  Over the last 9 years, Chief Bartee has been steadfast in his 
leadership in overseeing 130 firefighters in the department.
  During his tenure as fire chief, Rick also performed the duties of 
Incident Support Team Leader of the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task 
Force. Chief Bartee's expertise in specialized training and disaster 
relief has truly brought invaluable knowledge and experience to the 
region.
  Chief Bartee's lifetime dedication to service and public safety will 
leave a longstanding legacy, as his selfless leadership will benefit 
the Roseville area for many, many years to come.
  The unwavering commitment to the public and leadership by example of 
people like Chief Rick Bartee ensures the Roseville area will remain a 
wonderful and safe place to live.
  Therefore, on behalf of the United States House of Representatives, 
it is a great honor and privilege to recognize Roseville Fire Chief 
Rick Bartee for his career in public service. I join the Roseville 
community in wishing him the very best in retirement.


                        Optimism for California

  Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, near the beginning of last 
year, I rose on the floor of this House to say a few words about my 
home State of California and how it was on potentially a path back to 
sanity, and how that opportunity lay ahead of us.
  The reason for that optimism was that there were two potential policy 
changes then being considered that could set our State on an entirely 
new course when it comes to the key issues of public safety and 
homelessness.
  California voters were about to consider Proposition 36, an 
initiative to make crime illegal again in California by largely 
reversing the disastrous proposition known as Prop 47.
  Then there was a case before the United States Supreme Court, which I 
wrote an amicus brief for, called the Grants Pass case that would 
potentially liberate our communities from a Ninth Circuit decision that 
made it virtually impossible for them to clear out homeless 
encampments.
  These two opportunities together presented a path back to law and 
order,

[[Page H86]]

sanity and livability in California, especially in our major cities. Of 
course, we were victorious on both counts.
  With respect to Prop 36, despite the Governor, the supermajority 
doing everything they possibly could to stop it from passing, 
California voters gave it a smashing victory, almost 70 percent of the 
vote, passing it in each and every one of California's 58 counties.
  The U.S. Supreme Court in the Grants Pass case overturned the Ninth 
Circuit's existing Boise decision and said that our communities once 
again have the ability to regulate encampments and to stop homeless 
from camping in our parks, on our sidewalks, around schools, and in our 
public spaces.
  I am very pleased at this point to be able to say that the prediction 
as to the potentially transformative nature of these changes that I 
made back then is turning out to be true. I want to cite just a few 
examples today of how the passage of Prop 36 and the decision in Grants 
Pass are already serving to turn California around.
  Here are just a few recent headlines. From KRON San Francisco: 
Fremont police credit Prop 36 for nine shoplifting arrests.
  CBS San Francisco: Petaluma theft suspects arrested, one with prior 
convictions subject to Prop 36 charges.
  KTLA-TV in Los Angeles: Man charged with drug possession now facing 
consequences of recently passed Prop 36.
  From the San Francisco Examiner: Shoplifter at Brawley Walmart faces 
jail because Prop 36 passed.
  KTLA-TV in Los Angeles: Southern California woman facing enhanced 
charges with Prop 36 now in effect.
  Victorville Daily Press: San Bernardino County theft suspects face 
potential increased penalties under Prop 36.
  KXTV Sacramento: Folsom police arrest 30 people in retail theft 
sting, including two with possible Prop 36.
  KRON, San Francisco: San Francisco DA files charges in city's first 
Prop 36 case.
  KXTV Sacramento: Crackdown on retail theft continues after passage of 
Prop 36.
  KCRA Sacramento: Yuba City police say man caught stealing packages 
will face felony charges, citing Prop 36.
  The list goes on and on. One sting operation resulted in 110 arrests 
of people who will now finally face consequences because crime is once 
again illegal in California. Keep in mind, the law has only been in 
effect now for a few weeks.
  There was even an example where there was dash cam footage of a 
suspect who had been arrested and then was surprised to learn that 
stealing was once again a felony in California and expressed dismay 
about these new laws.
  Let this serve as a public service announcement to potential thieves 
in California that crime is illegal once again in our State, and there 
will be consequences for criminal activity.
  On top of that, in the wake of the Grants Pass decision on 
homelessness, we have seen a number of communities actually start to 
clean up encampments and to reclaim their public spaces.
  For example, in Stockton, homeless under an overpass were given 72 
hours' notice of a clearing and were notified they would be arrested if 
they refused to leave.
  In San Francisco, multiple clearings are now occurring every day. 
Much of the debris being removed, by the way, is either drugs or human 
waste.
  In San Jose, around 100 people were removed from the airport.
  In Santa Ana, homeless were cleared from private railroads, and five 
were arrested. It turns out the arrestees had prior convictions for 
drugs and murder.
  In L.A., 50 to 60 people were removed from a beach and healthcare 
workers arrived with police to assist with any medical issues the 
homeless were having.
  The benefits of this are twofold. Number one, it is restoring a sense 
of order to our public spaces so that people feel safe going there 
again, so they don't serve to spawn further criminal activity; and, 
number two, it is giving us an opportunity to get homeless individuals 
into shelters, get a roof over their heads, and get them the help that 
they need.
  With these two developments, with crime now being illegal again in 
California and with our communities reclaiming our public spaces, I am 
more optimistic about our State's future than I have been in a very 
long time. I can tell that the people of California are truly ready to 
move our State in a new direction.


                 California Legislature Special Session

  Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, as we speak, the California 
legislature has gaveled in a special emergency session of its 
legislature. You might say, well, of course they have, L.A. is burning 
to the ground right now.
  However, it turns out that is not actually what this special session 
is about. No, no. The legislature has gaveled into a special session 
called by Gavin Newsom to provide millions of dollars in funding for 
filing lawsuits against the incoming Trump administration. That is what 
their priority is at this very moment.
  Mr. Speaker, there could not be a starker illustration of the abject 
political failure that has gotten our State to this point and that has 
served to bring about the horrifying scenes that the whole country is 
seeing on their television sets right now and that folks in Los Angeles 
are suffering through.
  I want to go over a few of the failures that have gotten us to this 
point, but I do want to say first that my prayers are with the people 
in L.A., the victims of this horrifying apocalyptic set of fires, with 
over 100,000 people under evacuation orders, with at least five--sadly, 
probably more--people who have lost their lives and their families, and 
with our firefighters and first responders who are working around the 
clock doing everything they possibly can to get this blaze under 
control.
  I am truly grateful for all of the communities in California and 
across the entire country that have come together to try to help the 
L.A. area in this hour of dire need. It is appreciated beyond measure, 
and I thank them.
  After we do manage to get the fire under control, there are going to 
be a lot of questions that need answering. Indeed, even though we don't 
know the specific cause of each fire, we can already identify the 
failures that we know have contributed to these conflagrations, these 
catastrophic events that have hit our communities time and time again.
  Our politicians have obsessed over things like banning lawnmowers, 
banning leaf blowers, all the while neglecting our forests and leaving 
our communities vulnerable. In fact, when it comes to the forests, it 
is worse than neglect. The State and, frankly, the Federal Government 
have put up unnecessary hurdles to doing proper forest management, to 
clearing vegetation, to doing prescribed burns, which has turned many 
of our forests and areas adjoining residential areas in many cases into 
tinderboxes and caused fires that have in many cases become truly 
catastrophic, community-destroying events, and we have seen it happen, 
sadly, time and time again.
  The perversity of it all is that these restrictions on being able to 
manage our forests--which have decimated the timber industry, by the 
way--are imposed in the name of the environment, but nothing could be 
worse for the environment than a catastrophic wildfire.
  Indeed, when you look at all of the emissions that are saved by every 
single emissions reduction program that California has, all of that 
gets wiped out many times over when you have a catastrophic wildfire, 
so there simply could not be a more backwards policy.
  In fact, last year, in the fall, a decision was made to halt 
prescribed burns. Now, we don't yet know if that would have made a 
difference here, but we do know that the lack of doing prescribed burns 
in a systematic, efficient, and timely way has contributed to this 
problem.
  To make matters worse, Governor Newsom, when he came into office, 
started claiming that he was doing forest management, but he wasn't 
telling the truth. An investigation by Capital Public Radio, the local 
NPR affiliate, found that Newsom had exaggerated the amount of forest 
management work that had been done, the number of acres treated, he had 
exaggerated that number by a staggering 690 percent.
  Our political leaders in California have allowed millions of acres to 
become overgrown and thereby left our communities in a vulnerable 
condition.

[[Page H87]]

Not only that their mismanagement of our water supply has, among other 
things, diminished our capacity to respond to wildfires.
  First of all, it has been decades since California has built 
significant new water storage, not since the State water project. 
Secondly, even the water that we do have, when it comes down, much of 
it gets diverted intentionally into the ocean, again, supposedly for 
environmental reasons.

                              {time}  1530

  I can tell you that in 2023, when we had record storms in California, 
I visited the site of the Folsom Dam, and you had water cascading out 
of the dam, 10,000 cubic feet per second, almost all of it going 
eventually into the ocean.
  At that time, by the way, we had a flood emergency declared, of 
course. Yet, somehow we were also still under a drought emergency. 
Californians were told, you are not allowed to water your lawn. The 
legislature was passing draconian restrictions on indoor water use to 
25, 30 gallons a day.
  Businesses were banned from having lawns in front of their property. 
In some parts of the State, you had to have a low-flow device for your 
shower head, and then they would punish you if you used too much water 
when you took a shower, if you didn't take a 5-minute shower.
  All the while, we are sending staggering amounts of water into the 
ocean, and we are failing to build the storage that would actually 
catch the water and preserve it for when we need it.
  Another example, relevant to the situation in L.A., the California 
Coastal Commission actually rejected the building of a desalination 
plant just a couple of years ago.
  California, over the course of many years, has, in a political way, 
chosen to allow its forests to become overgrown and to impose 
artificial scarcity on its water supply.
  At the same time, our State, and many of our municipalities, such as 
Los Angeles, have had completely backward priorities and have 
demonstrated a total failure of just basic competence when it comes to 
government performance and the provision of services.
  That was highlighted very clearly in this case. When you had the Los 
Angeles Fire Department telling the city, do not deprive us of our 
funding. Yet, the city decided to do it anyway. The fire department 
said that the reduction in funding would severely limit the 
department's capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-
scale emergencies.
  As the city council, the mayor, were deciding not to fully fund the 
fire department, they had plenty of time for things like passing a 
resolution reaffirming Los Angeles as a sanctuary city. It was already 
a sanctuary city. It is already a sanctuary State, but they decided 
that was their priority, not to prepare for the risk of wildfire, not 
to fully fund the fire department, but to pass another resolution 
making itself a sanctuary city, yet again.
  We will be learning more, I expect, about how it possibly could be 
that we have fire hydrants that are not working, that water isn't 
coming out of them, and how we didn't have the necessary personnel on 
hand despite the high wind conditions. It serves to underline on the 
one hand the misguided priorities, and on the other, the lack of basic 
competence.
  Additionally, Los Angeles and California, more generally, have 
continued to lead the Nation in homelessness. California has roughly 
half the unsheltered homeless in the United States. There is a whole 
host of reasons that this is not a good thing, but one of them is that 
encampments tend to lead to a lot of fires.
  In fact, in just one year, in 2023 alone, there were almost 14,000 
fires related to homelessness. Again, we don't yet know exactly what 
caused the set of fires that are still ongoing, but we do know that 
this city has been as bad as any in terms of letting homelessness 
proliferate, allowing encampments to go unchecked, and, thereby, 
creating more dangerous conditions for its residents because of the 
risk of fire.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I will point out that California has an 
insurance crisis that has been growing and growing and growing, year 
after year after year, and our State's political leaders have simply 
allowed it to happen.
  They have done not nearly enough to mitigate the risk of fire that is 
the underlying cause of the increased rates. They have done essentially 
nothing until recently to stabilize the situation, to stabilize the 
markets. As a result, you have insurers that have now pulled out of the 
State entirely, and millions of people are losing coverage.
  In my district, we have whole communities where everyone has lost 
coverage, and they are kicked to the California FAIR Plan, forced to 
pay three times as much, four times as much, five times as much as they 
were paying before. The FAIR Plan is now on the verge of collapse, 
accounting for the absolutely catastrophic losses that we are seeing in 
Los Angeles.
  Mr. Speaker, what is happening and is still ongoing, sadly, in Los 
Angeles is a truly unimaginable tragedy in terms of the images that we 
are seeing, in terms of the dislocation that it is causing. I expect 
that we will learn that, at least to an extent, it was an avoidable 
one.
  This should serve as a major wake-up call that our State needs to 
start doing things differently, that we need to get back to basics. We 
need to get back to basics in California: Build our roads; manage our 
forests; store our water; maintain our grid; fund our police and our 
fire departments; do the things government is supposed to do, do them 
well, and do nothing else.
  If we can get back to basics as a State, then we can stop 
catastrophes like this from happening in the future. Perhaps someday, 
in the not too distant future, we can start leading the Nation in the 
right ways again.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________