[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 50 (Thursday, March 19, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H2615-H2616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1210
                       AMERICA MUST COME TOGETHER

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Kiley 
of California was recognized for 30 minutes.)
  Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I recently changed my voter 
registration to Independent. Accordingly, I asked the Clerk of the 
House to update my party designation to Independent in all official 
publications and databases of the U.S. House of Representatives.
  This reflects the way I have always approached my role as an elected 
Representative: to be an independent voice for the communities that I 
represent, to hold politicians in both Sacramento and Washington 
accountable, to work with both sides to find common ground, and to 
answer directly to my constituents and always put our district first.
  While it is unusual for a Member of Congress to have no party 
affiliation--in fact, I am now the only such Member in the House--this 
is the norm for most elected positions throughout the country. In 
California, for example, almost all offices are nonpartisan: your 
mayor, city councilors, school board members, county supervisors, 
sheriff, and district attorney. Every day, these officials work toward 
practical solutions to the problems affecting their communities, 
unencumbered by partisanship. I think we could use more of that in 
Congress.
  It is no secret that I have been critical of partisanship in 
Congress, from the longest government shutdown in U.S. history to an 
epidemic of gerrymandering that has spread from State to State.
  If there is one thing that Americans agree on, it is that political 
division has become a serious problem for our country. We need to 
reorient our politics toward bringing us together as Americans rather 
than tearing us apart as partisans. That means, for example, finding 
concrete ways to make life more affordable rather than each side 
blaming the other for why it isn't.
  We are also living in a moment of great uncertainty and perhaps 
dramatic transformation, where technological change could bring 
incredible opportunities along with unfamiliar risks and dislocations. 
The ordinary rituals of partisan politics are simply inadequate in 
these extraordinary times and are simply incapable of meeting this 
generational challenge. Our ability to work as one team serving all 
Americans is now more important than ever.


                  Sequoias Provide Living Link to Past

  Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, this week, I was delighted to 
see that a bill that I am sponsoring, the Save Our Sequoias Act, passed 
the House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support.
  This act, as the name suggests, is designed to save, preserve, and 
protect one of the truly great marvels that we have here on Earth. The 
sequoia is the largest organism on the planet, and it actually 
continues to grow throughout its lifetime. They can live for millennia, 
so these trees serve as a living link to our past, a link to antiquity 
itself.
  When you see these marvels, which we have so many of in California, 
it truly inspires a sense of awe and humility as you contemplate both 
their scale here in the present and their link to our past.
  The bad news is that these incredible marvels are under threat. Over 
the last decade, we have seen 20 percent of them destroyed, largely 
because of the growing intensity of wildfires. The time has come for us 
to take urgent action to ensure that they can continue to inspire awe 
and serve their important ecological purpose as well for generations 
and millennia to come.
  Specifically, the Save Our Sequoias Act enhances coordination between 
Federal, State, Tribal, and local land managers. It creates a giant 
sequoia health and resiliency assessment to prioritize and inform 
forest management practices. It declares an emergency to expedite 
environmental reviews and consultations while maintaining robust 
scientific analysis. It establishes a comprehensive reforestation 
strategy to generate giant sequoias in groves destroyed by catastrophic 
wildfires. It directs the Secretary of the Interior to develop and 
implement an insect-monitoring strategy to limit potentially fatal 
infestations. All of this is designed to expedite forest management and 
wildfire prevention for the remaining giant sequoia groves.
  Mr. Speaker, I was speaking a moment ago about the need to find 
common ground and things that can bring us together, and this is a 
small--well, actually quite large, but in the grand scheme of things 
small--example, but I think it is an encouraging one.
  This is an example where we have been able to come together and say 
that this is something that is larger than any of us; this is something 
that transcends partisanship; and this is a way that we can be stewards 
of our heritage and protect a true treasure for those who will inherit 
it from us for generations to come.

[[Page H2616]]

  



                   Science-Based Approach to Literacy

  Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise to convey the good news 
that a bill that I am an original cosponsor of, the Science of Reading 
Act of 2026, has passed the Education and Workforce Committee with 
unanimous bipartisan support.
  This bill says something very simple, which is that funding for 
literacy should not be used for discredited approaches to teaching 
literacy. This is particularly urgent in my State. Sadly, California 
has the highest illiteracy rate in the entire country.
  A lot of that stems from the fact that we have a lot of challenges 
when it comes to education in California, and we have not, for a long 
time, in many schools, taught literacy in the right way.
  In fact, this has been a nationwide phenomenon where, starting in the 
1970s, there was a departure from the traditional approach where 
students were taught to read by identifying letters and the sounds they 
represent. Instead, a new idea took hold called whole language, leaving 
behind the explicit instruction of phonics as old-fashioned.
  This new method, which came to be known as three-cueing or balanced 
literacy, encourages students to read by guessing an unknown word based 
on its context and structure within a sentence or even adjacent 
pictures in the book. This approach was at odds with the science of 
reading, which aims to ensure students develop strong foundational 
skills.
  In fact, it is a misapprehension of a false equivalence between 
spoken and written language, where the human brain is wired to learn 
spoken language sort of by osmosis, whereas there is this language 
instinct but no reading instinct. Reading has to be taught in a very 
explicit way.
  That is what the science of reading is all about. It emphasizes five 
core skills that every child must master: phonological awareness, 
phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
  Almost every State has corrected course and is returning to the 
science of reading, some more than others. California has been late but 
is now finally getting there itself. We have seen that States that 
embrace the science of reading, returning to the basics and a science-
based approach to literacy, have seen incredible results. We saw 
Mississippi, for example, go from being one of the worst States in the 
country in literacy to one of the very best, simply by returning to the 
science of reading.
  Now that we have passed this bill through the Education Committee, I 
look forward to it passing the House of Representatives and the Senate 
and getting signed into law so that we can declare once and for all 
here that the reading wars are over.
  We can return to science-based literacy instruction throughout the 
country, and this will be of great benefit in my State. We can overcome 
having the highest illiteracy in the country, as well as the Nation as 
a whole, where we continue to fall behind our peer nations when it 
comes to academic achievement. A big, big part of that is our failure 
to teach reading in the right way.
  This is a very encouraging sign. I am glad this bill has bipartisan 
support. I hope that it will quickly move its way through the rest of 
the process and be signed into law.

                              {time}  1220


          Raising Alarm on Escalating Gas Prices in California

  Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise to, again, raise alarm 
as to the escalating gas prices that Californians are continuing to 
face, which at this moment is $5.56 per gallon, on average, throughout 
the State. Of course, some places are much higher.
  This is about 50 cents higher than the second place State. Even the 
State with the second highest gas prices in the country is paying 50 
cents less than in California. It is over 50 cents higher than Hawaii, 
which is an island State.
  Mr. Speaker, while we have seen some volatility throughout the 
country over the course of the last month, in California, the main 
problem and the main source of high prices is the policies that we have 
at the State level.
  I have introduced a bill here in the House to address part of that, 
to put a cap on how high a State can raise its gas taxes. That will 
provide some relief to folks in our State, but we need to see more 
aggressive action from policymakers in Sacramento.
  Unfortunately, they have been going in the opposite direction, where, 
by some estimates, we could soon have $8 per gallon in California or 
even higher, which is something that our residents simply cannot afford 
when we already have the highest cost of living and the highest poverty 
rate in the entire country.
  There are a few things that we can do right now, and that our State 
lawmakers, the Governor and the legislature, can do right now, to spare 
Californians from having to pay so much more than anyone else in the 
country.
  Number one, they can suspend the gas tax in its entirety. That right 
there would save folks quite a bit right off the bat.
  Number two, they can reverse, rollback, or at least mitigate the 
regulations associated with the cap-and-trade program. In particular, 
they can make sure that the California Air Resources Board doesn't 
adopt a new set that has, by many estimates, the potential to raise gas 
prices by a dollar more or even more than that. That action is expected 
to happen very soon. The legislature and the Governor have the ability 
to stop that from happening.
  Finally, California could relax its restrictions on its specialized 
fuel blend, which has made it so that we are now having to source our 
gasoline from places all around the world, in addition to the fact that 
California simply is not pursuing energy domestically.
  That is a fourth thing we can do: relax restrictions on being able to 
develop our own energy and allow for us to accept our own sources of 
gasoline, as well as relaxing the fuel blend, so it is not so 
restrictive, and we are not having to go to the Bahamas in order to 
bring gas into California.
  By the way, when you have these tankers that are coming into the 
State from the Bahamas and other places, those aren't particularly good 
for the environment. The backward policies we have in Sacramento have 
given us both the Nation's most expensive gasoline and its most 
environmentally unfriendly gasoline.
  Mr. Speaker, we are doing what we can. I am doing what I can here in 
the House of Representatives. I am glad that I have seen some 
bipartisan support for the idea from Sacramento that we need to take 
some bipartisan steps to give Californians the relief that they truly, 
truly need.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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