AUDIO:

The following is a rough machine transcript. Click the words to skip to that point in the audio.

TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, the executive director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And I have a full room here on Zoom, and I think that that speaks to the quality of our guest today, which I'll introduce in just a moment. I'm going to keep teasing this. Colin Fiske joins me from the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities. Hey, Colin. Alicia Hamann from Friends of the Eel River. Hey, Alicia. Jen Kalt from Humboldt Waterkeeper. Hey, Jen. And Caroline Griffith from the North Coast Environmental Center. Hey, Caroline.

All right. And I think we have a full room today because everyone is excited to talk to our guest, Congressman Jared Huffman. Hey, Congressman. It's good to see you. It is a busy time to be in Congress. You have a new debt ceiling that you're going to run up against pretty soon here. You have a new speaker of the House. What's what's the mood? What's the vibes, as you might say, in D.C. right now? Malaise.

REP. JARED HUFFMAN:

Yeah, it's despair. Somewhere between malaise and despair, I think.

WHEELER:

Yeah, it sounds like a pretty good time. So Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House, a lot was reported that folks didn't really know him when he was elected to be Speaker. Did you have any idea who this individual was before he received the Speaker's gavel?

HUFFMAN:

Yes, I did. I had served a few years on the natural resources committee with Mike Johnson when he first came to Congress. And I didn't appreciate fully just how deeply involved he was in this whole white Christian nationalist movement. But the more I get to know about him, the more I liked it better when I didn't know a lot about him.

WHEELER:

Yeah, to find out that he and his son would monitor each other's internet browsing behavior and their use of pornography, that's just kind of ...

HUFFMAN:

Yeah, that's weird. The whole covenant marriage thing, all of this sort of speaks to, and I can't trust myself, so I have to have an online buddy to keep me off of the bad sites, and I have to have an actual law to keep me married to my wife. This is deeply weird stuff, but it's just the beginning. I mean, it gets a lot worse than that if you look into his record.

WHEELER:

So do you have any regrets now on how this unfolded? There was talk at one point about maybe trying to come together around a more moderate Republican for speaker and having the Democrats unite in that area. Looking back, do you think that this was handled correctly?

HUFFMAN:

Well, first of all, us picking which MAGA Republican that we want to be speaker is a lot like choosing your favorite member of the Manson family, which is not a productive, there's no good answer, but it's really up to the majority party to select their nominee for speaker and to come up with the votes. Nobody's ever helped the other party to solve their problem. If they wanted our help, we would have done it. We would have done it with Tom Emmer, who at least voted to acknowledge the results of the election, who at least acknowledged same-sex marriage is law of the land and is otherwise really extreme on a bunch of other things, but there was enough trust and credibility that we could have given him most of our votes probably, and made him the speaker. They wouldn't let that happen though. They wouldn't bring him to the floor because he didn't hate gay people enough. And he acknowledged that Biden was president of the United States. So these are like now the new litmus tests to be a Republican leader. You've got to, at a minimum, really hate gay people and you got to really reject the election.

WHEELER:

Well, I don't envy you in DC. I sometimes wonder how someone so smart as you can can stay in such a place for so long. Are you still happy with the job?

HUFFMAN:

That's a tricky question, Tom. I really am glad to be doing this job. It's an honor and I feel like it's very important and I'm motivated to do it. Is it fun? Am I happy? No, this is a dreadful time to be in the national arena. It just is. And I think all of you and all of my other constituents probably feel some of that dread as well, just as citizens watching the show that is our politics right now and watching the world on fire. And feeling most of the time like we are really struggling to solve even the most basic problems.

WHEELER:

Well, Congressman, if you ever, ever get bored of being in the house, I know that you are a former environmental attorney here at EPIC. We're always looking for a hand. So we'll be glad to hire you. Starting wage is about $46,000 a year. I hope that that works out.

HUFFMAN:

Yikes. Okay. Good to know. Thank you, Tom. I'm going to keep my day job for now.

WHEELER:

But I think that makes sense. And since this is the EcoNews Report, we should probably ask you about eco things, right? And something that I know Jen Kalt is thinking a lot about is port development related to offshore wind. Jen, do you wanna talk with the Congressman about that?

JEN KALT:

I would love to. Thank you. And thanks so much for being on our show, Congressman. So you just recently announced an $8.6 million grant to the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit about what that funding will be used to do with regard to the port development that's being proposed here.

HUFFMAN:

Yeah, thanks, Jen. So thank you for taking me into a happier subject. This is a piece of very, very good news for me and for Humboldt County. And what the funding is going to go towards is the planning side of all of these great possibilities for offshore wind, developing a heavy lift terminal, putting together a bay wide master plan for offshore wind so that all of this stuff works with all of the values that we have for Humboldt Bay. And the other good thing about this is it's a significant down payment, I believe, on a federal commitment to Humboldt County and offshore wind. I don't think that the Department of Transportation would be doing this if they didn't like the project a lot and intend to keep supporting it. So it's a very good sign.

KALT:

That's great and we really appreciate all of your work getting this funding because our listeners may know that the Harbor District is very small staff, they have very little capacity to be proposing such a huge project. I did wonder if some of the funding might be used to address contamination because you probably realize a lot of these sites around the Bay are contaminated need to be cleaned up before they can be redeveloped.

HUFFMAN:

Yeah, they did not leave Perrier in those tanks at the pulp mill when they left. I know about some of the contamination. I'm sure there's other problems and you would think that's appropriate to be in a bay-wide master plan for a heavy lift port development. So I want to say yeah, but I'll double check. I think that's probably included in the planning and design.

KALT:

Okay, great, thank you.

WHEELER:

So, Congressman, you have provided a ton of leadership trying to figure out what to do with the Eel River and the dams and the salmon, the conflict there. Luckily, I have an expert in the Eel River in Alicia Hamann from Friends of the Eel River. Alicia.

ALICIA HAMANN:

Hi, Congressman. So, as you know, we're expecting to see PG&E's initial draft decommissioning plan for the Potter Valley project next week. About six years ago, you convened a broad group of stakeholders to explore the potential of a win-win future for the basin that you branded the Two Basin Solution. So I guess it was a win-win future for both the eel and the Russian basins.

HUFFMAN:

Copyrighted that though.

HAMANN:

You really should have. Yeah. And as folks probably remember, there was somewhat of a failed attempt to kickstart that vision back in 2019. But it looks like we may end up seeing some version of that included in this in this initial draft from PG&E. So how do you feel about the prospects that we might get that two basin solution after all? Thank you.

HUFFMAN:

to Alicia and thanks for your years of engagement and leadership on this as well. You were right there at the table in all of the many conversations and meetings that we've had over the years. I am cautiously optimistic to answer your question. We still have some details we need to see. I mean, I haven't read PG&E's draft abandonment and decommissioning plan, but it's very imminent. You're right. So imminent that PG&E has sent me a link to a website and a password that will access all of this as soon as it is posted, but I won't know when that is for a few more days to come, but it's getting pretty real. And you're right. We believe that there will be many elements of a two-base solution that this plan is likely to call for the complete removal of Scott Dam, which is huge for the Eel River. I believe it will also call for removal of Van Arsdale. Those are the two big fish passage problems, and it will include a proposal that Sonoma Water and some Russian River Basin interests together with the Round Valley Tribe have submitted to develop some infrastructure modifications to continue a run of the river diversion. Still a couple of different design possibilities for what that looks like that need to be worked out, but it just sounds an awful lot like, it kind of exactly like the two-basin solution we've been working up all these years.

HAMANN:

Yeah, yeah. It feels really exciting to be at this moment where we're just about to see the details of these plans. One follow-up question. So PG&E, they're obviously eager to rid themselves of this liability-ridden project. They've suggested that dam removal could begin as early as 2028, which I personally am really thrilled about. Can you suggest ways that in your role you could help us make sure that PG&E sticks to that date? Are there things we should be looking to the federal government to help with? What kinds of ideas do you have? Yeah, I'll keep thinking about that, but I think this is really unusual, because the conventional wisdom

HUFFMAN:

as we started into this FERC relicensing procedure a couple of years back, was it's FERC relicensing. It will take decades. That's the way it always seems to go. But just a combination of changed circumstances has sort of flipped it. This could be the one big FERC proceeding that actually moves really fast for a couple of reasons. One, PG&E wants to make a clean break and get out as just a cold-blooded corporate business decision. This is a money loser. They're not generating power anymore. The dam is a liability. You all have done a lot of great work with others to highlight the seismic vulnerability of the dam, so they don't even fill up Lake Pillsbury anymore. And they don't try to make power. So there's every reason for PG&E to not want to prolong this and to try to make a break and get out. Now you look over at the Russian River Basin side and the water supply interests over there. Because PG&E is not making power, they're diverting only minimum flows into the Russian River Basin, and that is the current status quo. They will never be able to divert more than that unless and until we do this two-basin solution and get on with it. So we actually have strong incentives, I think, for the Russian River stakeholders to want to hurry this up as well. Not all of them have figured that out. Some of them are just sort of still in a default defensive mode to oppose and to slow down. But the ones that are tracking and really thinking this through, I think, do get it and are motivated along with PG&E to move this quickly. Yeah.

HAMANN:

Well, it's encouraging when everyone is, or most folks are working toward a common goal.

HUFFMAN:

It is.

WHEELER:

All right, let's go to another watershed within your district, and let's head up to the Smith River. Caroline, what's going on in the Smith?

CAROLINE GRIFFITH:

Oh, a lot of things going on in the Smith River. Beautiful place. And I have a connection to Southern Oregon. Used to live up in Cave Junction. And I know we have listeners who are hearing us on KXCGA out of Cave Junction that are probably delighted to also hear this, that in the summer, you were a sponsor, a co-sponsor of the Southwest Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act, which would permanently withdraw certain federal lands that are tributaries to the Illinois River and the North Fork of the Smith River from mining claims. These are areas that have, over the years, had numerous different schemes pop up, mostly nickel mining schemes. And I believe we're under a current 20-year withdrawal. But this would make that permanent. Can you talk a little bit more about what this bill would do and where it's at?

HUFFMAN:

Yeah, so you're right. We were able to get a temporary withdrawal through the administrative process a few years back, working with my then colleague, Peter DeFazio from Southern Oregon. So Peter has left the Congress and my new Southern Oregon neighbor is Val Hoyle, who is a huge champion of this legislation and is a partner in all of these efforts. It's a huge priority for her. It's a huge priority for both senators from Oregon. So I don't know, given the divided nature of Congress right now, exactly how viable it is to move a bill like this to the floor and get it through the regular order. But we'll certainly try to creatively attach it to other bills and find something that's moving. I'm not aware of huge opposition to it. There's probably some from like some mining interest or something, but it's really popular among those who represent these places. And I'm going to do everything I can to get it passed.

WHEELER:

For the Econews Report, we're talking with Congressman Jared Huffman about his legislative priorities and what's going on in Washington D.C.

GRIFFITH:

Yeah, I don't know if you've ever been able to visit the Illinois River at all. It is a spectacularly beautiful place. I would suggest as soon as you wrap up your legislative session and have time, you go and check it out.

HUFFMAN:

It can't be better than the Smith. There's no way.

GRIFFITH:

I think, you know, that's a pretty, they're, they're neck and neck in my book. But it is interesting also to think about, because there's also the Smith River National Recreation Area Expansion Act that has been introduced in the Senate. And just thinking about the different overlapping ways that legislation works to actually get things done. And I guess I kind of follow up in a little bit of a tangent, another one of those bills that has been introduced by yourself and that you've been a champion of that is kind of in that same way, layered with other bills is the Public Lands Act, which we've like, every single time you've come on, we've been on like, Hey, what's up with that Public Lands Act? So, Hey, what's up with that public?

HUFFMAN:

Oh gosh. Well, thank you for liking that bill so much. I really appreciate the fact that you all know about it and have been advocating for it, and we continue to do everything we can. It's ready to go, I guess is what I would say. It's been through the process, passed out of the House a couple, maybe three times now over the last few years. And so no one can argue that we got to start over or wait a long time. We just need that political window to open. And the way it often works with bills like this is we will find ourselves probably debating a National Defense Authorization Act or something like that. There'll be some horse trading exercise where the ability to do something on public lands opens up, and we insist on getting that in there. And then I'll have to hold my nose and vote for a defense authorization bill, but I'll do it. And we will pass a really important legacy bill for public lands. But I can't tell you whether that's this year or next year, sometime soon, I hope. Well, thanks for not giving up.

WHEELER:

So you have a very difficult district, it is extremely long and thin and it covers just a very diverse constituency from hard red right Republicans in Del Norte County, to Marin Bay Area liberals and everything in between. Colin is a transportation champion, and I think has some questions for you about how you are conceiving your work, advancing transportation, responsible transportation for this kind of diverse district.

COLIN FISKE:

Yeah, hi Congressman. So, I know back in February, you and several of your colleagues signed a letter asking the Department of Transportation to fully fund the federal active transportation program so we can get more infrastructure for safe and low-carbon transportation. And I guess I was wondering how you think about the potential and also the challenges for active transportation in a district like yours that has so many urban but also low-density rural environments.

HUFFMAN:

That's a great question. And I think it's a reason you can't sort of have a one size fits all program. When we look at electric school buses, for example, or any kind of electric buses, they're going to make a lot more sense in urban and suburban places. And if you get into places where the routes are really long, at least right now, you may like Humboldt County Transit, for example, prefer hydrogen. And that's the call that they have made. And I'm going to defer to them on that. I hope that it's green hydrogen and not fossil hydrogen. That's super important. But I think I'm going to need to defer to the transportation and transit experts in these different places. There'll be some things that are pretty common to every part of my district. I think everybody wants more bike and pedestrian pathways and more opportunities for non-motorized mobility. But on things like transit, you're right. It's different in rural areas. Same thing for school buses. I guess the one thing I sometimes remind folks in rural parts of my district about when they sort of assume that maybe electric buses are not good, not good fits. They are wonderful mobile generators as well during a disaster. And so when PG&E does a power outage or when a natural disaster hits and you need to keep your hospitals and other community resources going, these school buses and public buses turn into days and days of power for a community and provide a lot of resiliency. So I'm trying to get folks to think of it that way.

FISKE:

point and thanks also for bringing up the the broad support for trails and other active transportation infrastructure. I think sometimes people look at our rural region and think there's no opportunity for walking and biking and rolling but as you know we still have lots of cities and small towns that that have where really the bulk of the population is that have lots of opportunities.

HUFFMAN:

Well, they need to just take a walk on the Hammond Trail Bridge there and see for themselves.

FISKE:

Yep, that's wonderful and thank you for securing the funding to make sure we still have that opportunity in the future.

KALT:

I want to ask a question that's kind of related to what you were just talking about, but with regard to the offshore wind port, circling back to that, we've been advocating for a zero emissions strategy so that this port would be basically as electric as possible from the very beginning. And I wondered if you could speak a little bit about federal funding that's available for that. I know there's quite a bit for the transition from a fossil fuel port, but we just don't even want to start with that for our clean, green, renewable offshore wind energy project. Do you see a path forward for starting from day one as a green port?

HUFFMAN:

We obviously want that. I want that. I guess I need to take a look at whether the incentives that we have in the Inflation Reduction Act somehow had the unintended consequence of incentivizing a new port to start out as fossil-based and then convert eventually to electric. That would be unfortunate if that's the way the incentives are built. It doesn't mean we have to accept that or live with it, but I will take a look and maybe there's something we can do to prevent that unintended consequence.

KALT:

Apparently the staff at the Harbor District have been looking into the EPA Clean Ports Program, and it sounds like there's a fair amount of funding for electrified port equipment, everything from tugboats to cranes and whatnot. So that's a positive, that's a positive thing right there for sure. There's quite a bit of money in that pot.

HUFFMAN:

Well, I'm going to go to bat for the Port of Humboldt to get every dollar that we possibly can. And I want electrification and I want the highest environmental standards. So I look forward to working with you on that. Well,

WHEELER:

Congressman, maybe you can provide an explanation of why you are in favor of offshore wind as one of our renewable energy technologies of the future. For folks who are your constituents up here, give them the case, why are we pursuing this technology? It'd be nice to hear from you.

HUFFMAN:

Yeah. Well, my view is, in addition to the fact that we have a really unique offshore wind resource in Humboldt County, I mean, the wind just blows out there in a very favorable way. And there are a bunch of other things that line up to make it a really good setting for offshore wind. But the bottom line for me is that I feel like we have to do it. If we're serious about transitioning away from fossil fuel and having a zero carbon power sector, offshore wind is going to be absolutely necessary in California to make that happen. It is affordable power. It's reliable power. We're going to have to invest in some new transmission infrastructure. But you're just not going to find too many better opportunities to do that. And if we keep waiting around for clean energy to just materialize from somewhere else, wherever that may be, while we continue to burn our fossil fuel, we're missing it. We're running out of time for this. And as I tell my Republican colleagues all the time, because they are just very comfortable with fossil fuel and they want more of it, it's like having a clam bake at the end of the world. They're missing it.

WHEELER:

They're missing it. Well, climate change is here. It's already impacting California's water resources, including water resources in your district. Alicia, do you want to talk about the Futures Act? Yeah, well.

HAMANN:

Congressman, to be honest, I've kind of lost track of where this act stands. I know it passed out of the House, I believe last summer, maybe. And I guess I'm just wondering, what is the future of the Future Act? I believe it passed as part of the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act. Has that moved on to the Senate or what's the plan?

HUFFMAN:

You're talking about my, I think we called it the Drought Futures Act. That's right. So the future is so bright for that act that it is in many parts, current law. It became, there was about an $8 billion Western water title in the, we call it the bipartisan infrastructure law. It was mostly Democrats. There were a few Republicans, but the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and that was lifted out of our Drought Futures Act in large part. So a good part of it is already law. The pieces that didn't make it into the IIJA are now a standalone that we've modified a little, and we're trying to push it, probably tough to get more done in this Congress under a Republican majority, but we do have a few more things we would like to do on Western water and we will keep pushing. Great.

HAMANN:

what what are some of those remaining.

HUFFMAN:

elements? Oh gosh, I think we can do more on large scale water recycling. I think we can do more on watersheds in terms of the resiliency and watershed restoration, upland meadow restoration, and other things can actually contribute to better yields in watersheds. Kind of that intersection between natural systems and forest management in many cases and actual water supply. It's a whole bunch of things that we can still do. Well, that all sounds great.

WHEELER:

Great. All right, Caroline, do you maybe want to close with the final question here?

GRIFFITH:

Yeah, sure. So in preparation for you coming today, I was checking out your website, just looking at some of the things that you've introduced lately. And there's a there's a there's a lot that you're a part of, and a lot of legislation you're helping to push. And I wonder if you have one in particular that we haven't talked about yet. That is your favorite that you're like, yes, this one is the one that's going to be what I'm remembered for later or the one that when I'm when I'm old, I'll look back and say that was so great when we introduced that legislation and passed it. If I

HUFFMAN:

Had to save one of my children from a burning building, which one would it be? That's hard. Of course, I love all of my bills, but are you asking about environmental bills only?

GRIFFITH:

No, no, open it up for any of them.

HUFFMAN:

Oh gosh. I mean, I'm a little bit focused on the stuff I've done most recently. So I'll just mention two. On the environmental side, I've got probably the most comprehensive, aggressive plastics legislation ever introduced in Congress. The Break Free from Plastics Act that I'm doing with Senator Jeff Merkley in Oregon. And I really want to get ahead of what the fossil fuel industry and the plastic industry is trying to do to us. We are seeing the volume of plastic go up at a time when we know we've got a plastic pollution problem. It's actually in our body tissue. It is ubiquitous. It's everywhere. And recycling is going down. So you look at their plans. They want to like more than quadruple plastic production in the decade to come. Partly, they want to do this because they know that they're going to start selling less oil and gas in the future. And they want to be able to keep making lots and lots of money from their fossil fuel. So that's a big reason why I want to do a big and bold plastics bill. And this bill is it. Jeff Merkley is a great partner to have on it. And I hope you will take a look at it. The other one is not an environmental bill, but it kind of focuses in this other space that I work a lot on, which is the separation of church and state. And you asked me at the top of this discussion about Speaker Mike Johnson, who is a big time white Christian nationalist, a person who claims there is no separation of church and state that there never was intended to be, and that he should just bring all of his religious agenda right into the public square and start legislating it. That ought to be deeply troubling to everyone, religious or not, because most of us don't want to live in a theocracy. So anyway, anytime I see religion driving public policy, devoid of fact, devoid of science, devoid of other considerations, I've got concerns. And in health care, there is just a great example of this happening. If you listen to Sirius XM radio, or watch late night TV, you get bombarded with the ads for these Christian health share ministries, just call 1-800-BIBLE. And you don't need traditional health insurance. There's this alternative where like minded Christians can agree to share each other's costs and the customers love it, it takes care of your needs. It's posing as an insurance product, and it's really not. None of the safeguards that apply, none of the transparency and disclosures and regulations, consumer protection, none of it applies to this industry. And it's a complete grift. People find if they get seriously sick, that there's all kinds of trapdoors and fine print in their so called policy where these companies get to say, well, you know, you haven't led a sufficiently Christian lifestyle. And it's right here in the fine print, we're not going to pay your medical bills. So I think it's high time that we bring some transparency and accountability to to this industry. And I just introduced this week, the Health Sharing Ministries Accountability and Transparency Act. So those are two bills.

WHEELER:

Very cool. Well, Congressman, we know you have a busy schedule, so thank you so much for joining us. You've always been such an easy person to get onto the show. We're very lucky here on the North Coast to have such a responsive Congressman, so we appreciate you. Thank you so much, and thank you for joining the show.

HUFFMAN:

Yeah, always a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thanks y'all.

KALT:

WHEELER:

much. Bye now. All right. This has been another episode of the Econews Report. Join us next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.