Agriculture

The Second Congressional District of California is home to world-famous agricultural products, including some of the nation’s best wine grapes, pears and apples, as well as dairy and meats, which create jobs and feed our country. I will keep working to strengthen our local farms and ranches, consumers, and communities.  I will continue to support our agriculture system’s transformation from prioritizing the needs of the largest agribusinesses to ensuring healthy, nutritious, local, and organic produce is available and affordable for all.  

Our region is also at the forefront of the legal cannabis industry. I support legalization for adults, regulation and taxation of this industry, while also supporting greater enforcement against illegal cannabis grows, which cause great environmental damage and perpetuate the black market. I am working in Congress to reform federal law to allow responsible cannabis businesses to be treated as lawful enterprises in California and a growing number of other states that have legalized cannabis. I am also proud to lead legislation that would allow our craft cannabis producers to ship and sell their products directly to consumers. 

It is past time to decriminalize cannabis at the federal level. After decades of focusing enormous resources on criminalization, the national conversation about marijuana has finally begun to change. The federal criminalization of marijuana has done more damage than good – ruining lives through mass incarceration (which disproportionately impacts communities of color), establishing a huge, dysfunctional black-market economy and straining limited federal enforcement and judicial resources. I am a cosponsor of several bills to decriminalize cannabis, provide access to banking services, and protect states like California that are now regulating marijuana for adult recreational use. I am also proud to lead legislation that would allow our craft cannabis producers to ship and sell their products directly to consumers.   

As we move toward more rational marijuana policies at the national level, it’s important that we address the immediate threats to our environment and public safety posed by trespass growing operations and other harmful practices. Throughout my district and increasingly throughout the United States, we’re seeing trespass marijuana grows threatening endangered wildlife, contaminating fragile salmon streams, and making forests unsafe for work and recreation. That’s why I introduced the Northwest California Wilderness, Recreation, and Working Forests Act, which would restore lands impaired by illegal marijuana growing operations. This bill incorporates community input from public listening sessions and stakeholder meetings on the North Coast.