Fighting for Landowner Rights

This week, I introduced the America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act at a press conference alongside Western Caucus Vice Chairman, Rep. Bruce Westerman (AR-04).

This legislation promotes state, local, and tribal-led conservation efforts to recover species, reform the outdated Endangered Species Act (ESA), and provide Good Neighbor Authority to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Endangered Species Act has failed in its mission to recover and delist species and instead has been used as a tool by the federal government to control landowner rights, like Central Washington has seen with grizzly bears.

We must improve conservation efforts by empowering state- and local-led efforts and avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to species recovery.

The America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act delivers critical support to the individuals on the ground who have been tasked with preserving and restoring at-risk habitat to better manage species, and as Chairman of the Western Caucus, I am proud to co-sponsor this important legislation.

Advocating for Common-Sense Agricultural Reform

This week, I spoke with farmers from all over the country at the National Potato Council's annual event. The Council works to protect our nation’s potatoes and their farmers by advocating for causes that allow the our country—and Washington state specifically—to provide the best potatoes on the market. 

There, I discussed important issues that potato and other specialty crop farmers are dealing with daily, as well as my commitment to a strong, reliable, and legal farm workforce.

My Farm Workforce Modernization Act is key as the farm workforce continues to evolve and farms continue to take on the burden of not having a reliable and affordable labor force.

This legislation would provide farmers and other agricultural producers in the nation with a reliable, affordable, and legal workforce, and provide common sense agricultural reform to get our crops onto tables worldwide. Central Washington is truly an “international supermarket,” and I remain committed to doing everything in our power to support the rights of our farmers. 

This week, I co-sponsored the Protect America’s Lands Act, which prevents the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from implementing rules that would allow Natural Asset Companies (NACs) to list their assets on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The proposal to list natural asset companies (NACs) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) would provide a mechanism for corporations, extreme environmentalists, and foreign entities to lock up our lands indefinitely.

Simply put, it’s an affront to our western way of life and threatens multiple-use mandates for our public lands. For far too long, President Biden has bent to the will of environmental groups intent on weaponizing the judicial process to tie up resource development, grazing, recreation, and domestic energy production, which threatens the economic prosperity of our rural communities.

Prohibiting the exchange of NACs is crucial to maintaining our western way of life, and as the representative for rural communities across Central Washington and Chairman of the Western Caucus, I will continue to fight against this draconian proposal.

This week, I sent a letter alongside my congressional colleagues from the Pacific Northwest to the Secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), Roger Millar, after the secretary made far-fetched claims during his testimony at the House Transportation & Infrastructure hearing, “The State of Transportation,” and his answers relating to the Lower Snake River Dams.

In December 2023, the Biden Administration and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released a final package of commitments in the ongoing CRSO litigation and mediation. In this package, numerous provisions were included that would serve as a de-facto breaching of the Lower Snake River Dams. This would be a fatal blow to the Pacific Northwest economy.

During the hearing, Congresswoman Chavez-DeRemer (OR-05) asked the secretary if he believed that WSDOT would be able to meet its objectives after adding a substantial amount of rail cars and trucks to railroads and highways—a foregone conclusion in case of a breach—to which he replied in the affirmative.

Unfortunately, this is incredibly difficult to believe, and likely not possible. Ensuring that the Lower Snake River Dams remain is of the utmost importance, and I am looking forward to Secretary Roger Millar's response.