During debate on the House floor, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) rose in opposition to a Republican-backed effort to remove the San Francisco Bay Longfin Smelt from the endangered species list.
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00:00Mr. Speaker, this resolution, House Joint Resolution 78, continues a very familiar pattern that we're seeing from this Republican majority.
00:09Distractions and scapegoats, instead of dealing with real crises, real problems, solutions to the challenges that are facing working families,
00:20including American farmers and rural communities all over this country.
00:24So today they're bringing us a resolution that tries to blame an endangered fish, the Bay Delta longfin smelt, for California's water problems and shortages.
00:34They're doing that instead of addressing major problems that are actually impacting farmers and rural communities.
00:41So let's be clear. Removing protections for the longfin smelt will not make it rain.
00:47It will not rebuild California's snowpack. It won't refill our reservoirs, not even the reservoir that President Trump recently drained in a public relations stunt
00:59that had nothing to do with fighting fires or water supply.
01:04California's water shortages are driven by climate change and also prolonged drought, aging and outdated infrastructure and over allocation.
01:13It's not the fault of some tiny fish. Meanwhile, farmers, including those in my district, are grappling with worsening droughts, wildfires, floods, extreme weather,
01:23and now the fallout from President Trump's disastrous trade policies for agriculture.
01:30All the while, Republicans won't talk about any of those things.
01:34Instead, they bring us here to debate whether a small fish should be allowed to go extinct or be protected under the Endangered Species Act.
01:44And all the while, the significant damage that their policies are causing continue to pile up in rural America, including President Trump's tariffs.
01:54He's treating not just our adversaries, but some of our neighbors and our best friends in the world like their enemies.
02:02He's turning them into adversaries. Tariffs on key trading partners.
02:08These have already cost farmers tens of billions of dollars in lost exports.
02:12They're shrinking markets. They are soaring input costs.
02:15They're going to make it hard for farms to stay in business.
02:18We see the sweeping budget cuts and mass layoffs at critical agencies like NOAA and the Bureau of Reclamation threatening the services that farmers depend on.
02:27Water deliveries, weather forecasting, climate data, and much more. Farmers need that stuff.
02:32They don't want to go back to the farmer's almanac in order to make key business decisions.
02:38We see hundreds of millions of dollars in water supply infrastructure projects suddenly in limbo because of Doge, while our colleagues across the aisle say nothing.
02:46We see the entire rural health care safety net, including nursing home care, including services that anyone with a person with disabilities and their families depend on.
02:57All of that in limbo as we brace for catastrophic cuts from Republicans as they try to fund their tax cuts for billionaires.
03:06If this Republican majority were serious about helping farmers and rural communities, they'd be working to reverse these harmful policies.
03:14They'd be standing up for rural America right now, and instead, they're wasting our time.
03:21Look, just because we are debating a three-inch fish today doesn't mean we need to think like one.
03:28Now, about the impacts of these policies that my friends don't want to talk about.
03:34You don't have to take my word for it. You can listen to farmers across America.
03:38Here's Caleb Ragland, a president of the American Soybean Association, who says,
03:42Our grave concern is we could permanently lose another big chunk of our export market that we're dependent on for our production.
03:49The U.S. farm economy is in a tough spot, and we just don't have any room for error right now.
03:55Here's Chris Harner, owner of Harner Farm in Center County, Pennsylvania.
03:59Quote,
03:59We got a letter from one of our suppliers that once the tariffs kick in, they will be passing on the cost.
04:06Paul Kruger, a corn and soybean farmer from Bladen, Nebraska, says,
04:10Quote,
04:11Any time our country gets involved with any sort of tariffs that affect the agriculture industry, every farmer just kind of groans.
04:18We're powerless to do anything except take what comes out in the wash.
04:23And here's Travis Johnson, who farms cotton, sorghum, and corn in Texas, Rio Grande Valley.
04:29He says,
04:30There's a lot of uncertainty around, and I hate to be used as a bargaining chip.
04:35I'm definitely worried.
04:37Moving to California, here's Ryan Talley, vice president of Talley Farms in San Luis Obispo.
04:43We don't have months to wait something out, he says.
04:45We have to continue our operations at the intensity that we currently farm.
04:49We're going to have to take those rising prices and deal with it the best we can.
04:55This is what Republican agriculture policy is doing right now.
04:59Losing export markets, raising costs, telling farmers to just deal with it.
05:05They are complicit in the dismantling of rural health care, in the freezing of funding for rural infrastructure,
05:13in the threat to programs like SNAP that many families across rural America depend on.
05:19And it gets worse.
05:20President Trump, Elon Musk, and their enablers are gutting critical federal services that include scientists.
05:27They're hollowing out NOAA and weakening the Bureau of Reclamation.
05:31And, you know, they should listen to the people that these decisions are actually hurting.
05:35I know I'm quoting a lot right now, Mr. Speaker,
05:38but I want to make sure my colleagues across the aisle are listening,
05:41since they're not having any town halls these days.
05:44But they need to hear from farmers and the folks in these rural communities that their policies are hurting.
05:51So in response to mass firings at NOAA and the National Weather Service,
05:55Andrea Young of Hidden Creek Farm in Farquhar County, Virginia, said this,
06:00I can't bring the animals to safety.
06:03I can't cover up those tender plants.
06:06I cannot know that a rainstorm is coming, and so I shouldn't water, she said.
06:09I cannot function as a farmer in an indoor environment.
06:13And the general manager of 14 California Central Valley Project irrigation districts,
06:19in a recent letter to the president about layoffs at the Bureau of Reclamation, said this,
06:24they say the elimination of reclamation staff will not further the goal of achieving significant cost savings to the American people.
06:32In other words, they are harming the agency that these irrigators depend on,
06:37and they're not even saving money for the budget.
06:40Mr. Speaker, the damage from all of this is real.
06:43Real farmers, real communities, real harm caused by failed leadership.
06:48And while all that is happening, we're here debating whether to strip protections from an endangered fish.
06:54They're turning a small fish into a very large scapegoat, pretending it will somehow provide real support to farmers.
07:02The truth is the listing of the Bay Delta long fin under the ESA is both scientifically and legally sound.
07:08The long fin population has declined over 99 percent since 1980s.
07:14Think about that. In just a few decades, only about one percent of the population is left.
07:20That's like the number of environmentalists left in the Republican Party these days.
07:24The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service followed the law, the data, and the science,
07:29just as Congress intended, just as a bipartisan Congress intended when they passed the ESA back in the 1970s,
07:36just as Republican President Richard Nixon intended when he signed it into law.
07:41The system is supposed to work that way. Protecting species like the long fin is not just about a single fish.
07:48It's about protecting the ecological health of the entire Bay Delta, the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas.
07:55This delta is the heart of California's water system.
07:58Its health underpins clean drinking water for millions, healthy soil for agriculture,
08:05waterfowl populations that hunters depend on.
08:08It is so important, and it requires a broad ecological balance to sustain the farms, fisheries,
08:15entire ecosystems, and so many communities and millions of people that depend on it.
08:20You can't destroy an ecosystem and expect farms, cities, and wildlife to just thrive.
08:25These things rise or fall together.
08:28This resolution takes us in the wrong direction.
08:31Let's actually do something real for farmers instead of deflecting and debating distractions.
08:37Let's repeal the mindless tariffs on our allies and top trading partners.
08:41Let's protect the Bureau of Reclamation and NOAA from these disastrous sabotage cuts.
08:46Let's protect rural families and communities by opposing cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.
08:52I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution that merely distracts and deflects and scapegoats
08:58instead of solving the pressing challenges facing farmers and the rest of rural America.
09:04I yield back.
09:05I reserve.