From Seashore to Stockyard | Gregory Burgess for Congress | CA-2
The Bills · Food Security & Rural Economy
R.O.A.R. — Restore Our American Republic

From Seashore
to Stockyard

CA-2 Food Security and Economic Resilience Act · H.R. ____

CA-2 runs from the Pacific Ocean to the high desert. It covers fishing ports, redwood forests, dairy ranches, and tribal lands. This one big bill covers all of it — fixing the fishing industry, protecting ranchers, creating forest jobs, and helping tribes take care of the land they've known for thousands of years. And it doesn't add a single dollar to the national debt.

9
CA-2
Counties
9
Divisions
in the Bill
100K+
Rural Jobs
Created
$0
Added to
the Debt
10yr
Sunset
Clause
95%
Kelp lost on
North Coast since 2014
3yrs
Salmon fishery
has been closed
$52M
Modoc grasshopper
losses — 2023
300→30
California sawmills
lost in 30 years
82%
Methane cut when
cows eat seaweed
$300→$30
Cannabis price crash
per lb, Humboldt
What This Bill Is

One Bill. Nine Problems.

Plain Language

CA-2 covers the ocean, redwood forests, farms, and ranches. All of them are in trouble at the same time. This bill fixes all of them together — because they are connected. Forest wood chips can become compost for farms. Ocean kelp can feed cattle and reduce their gas. Fishermen who can't fish can help restore the ocean while they wait. When one part of the land heals, all the other parts get better too.

🔗
Everything Is Connected
Forest wood chips → compost → healthy soil → better food. Ocean kelp → cattle feed → less methane → cleaner air. Fish waste → soil amendment → better crops. This bill connects those loops.
Circular Agriculture
Fully Voluntary
Nobody is forced to do anything. Every program in this bill is a choice — not a rule. Farmers, ranchers, and fishermen sign up if they want the help. States choose whether to join.
No Government Overreach
⏱️
10-Year Sunset
Every part of this bill expires in 10 years unless Congress votes to keep it. Laws should prove they work. If they don't, they go away. No program gets to quietly fail forever.
Built-In Accountability
🐟
Division B · Fisheries & Blue Economy
The Ocean Is in Trouble. Here's How We Fix It.
Plain Language

For three years in a row, California fishermen couldn't catch salmon — the fishery was closed. Kelp forests that salmon need have shrunk by 95%. Purple sea urchins have taken over and eaten the kelp. Dungeness crab seasons keep getting delayed. Fort Bragg's fishing fleet is struggling. This part of the bill pays fishermen to help fix the ocean while they wait for it to recover — turning a crisis into jobs.

🐟
Salmon Fisher Income Support
Fishermen who can't fish because the salmon fishery is closed get paid to restore the ocean instead — planting kelp, removing urchins, rebuilding habitat. They get paid while the fish come back.
Paid restoration work
🦀
Dungeness Crab Fleet Support
Crab seasons keep getting delayed because of whale entanglements and toxic algae. This program helps the fleet stay in business during delays and switch to safer fishing gear that doesn't trap whales.
Fleet stabilization
🌿
Kelp Forest Recovery
Purple sea urchins destroyed 95% of Northern California's kelp. Urchin-starved urchins can be harvested and turned into calcium-rich poultry feed and soil amendment. Remove the urchins — the kelp comes back.
Marine & farm connection
🪸
Seaweed for Cattle
A special seaweed (Asparagopsis) cuts methane from cattle burps by up to 82%. This program develops seaweed farming off the CA-2 coast — cleaning the ocean AND reducing greenhouse gas from ranches.
Ocean + ranch connection
🏭
Working Waterfront Protection
Fishing ports in Fort Bragg, Crescent City, and Bodega Bay need repairs and upgrades. This program protects dock access for fishing fleets and upgrades seafood processing so local fish stays local.
CA-2 working ports
🌊
Harmful Algae Monitoring
Domoic acid from toxic algae blooms poisons Dungeness crab and sickens people. Seaweed farming naturally competes with harmful algae — cutting bloom density 74–94%. This program funds both monitoring and prevention.
Food safety & prevention

🐟 Fisheries Facts

3
Consecutive years CA salmon fishery closed
95%
North Coast kelp lost since 2014
82%
Methane reduction when cows eat Asparagopsis seaweed
$2.5B
Annual spending cap — paid by offshore energy fees
🌲
Division C · Forest Resilience & Timber Economy
Turn Forest Problems into Forest Jobs
Plain Language

California had 300 sawmills. Now it has fewer than 30. Forests have gotten so dense from years of fire suppression that they now burn bigger and hotter than ever. Every year, wildfire costs the federal government over $3 billion just to fight — not counting the homes lost. This bill creates 100,000+ jobs by turning the problem (too much wood in the forest) into the solution (compost, biochar, and clean energy for farms).

🪵
Tri-Zonal Forest Management
Divides forests into three zones: protected wilderness at the core, managed working forests in the middle, and active buffer zones at the edges. Each zone gets the right treatment — not one-size-fits-all rules.
Science-based management
🏭
Timber Economy Comeback
Reopens mill permitting with 45-day turnaround. Tax credits up to $37,000 per forestry employee. Prioritizes timber from forest thinning — cutting the fire risk while creating the lumber that builds homes.
CA-2 timber jobs
♻️
Forest Slash to Farm Soil
Wood chips and branches left over from forest thinning (called "slash") currently get burned or left to rot. This program converts that slash into biochar and compost for farms — cutting wildfire fuel while building farm soil. 100,000+ jobs.
100,000 rural jobs
🔥
Wildfire Defense
Funds aerial firefighting and better home hardening — the "Zone Zero" 5-foot noncombustible buffer around homes that dramatically cuts the chance a house burns in a wildfire. Also supports firefighter pay and safety.
Community protection
🪶
Tribal Cultural Burning
Indigenous peoples managed these forests with fire for thousands of years. Cultural burning increases forage for elk and deer up to 13 times, keeps forests healthy, and reduces wildfire risk. This bill recognizes it as a sovereign right.
Karuk · Yurok · Hoopa
💡
Biogas from Forest & Farm Waste
Forest slash + cattle manure + biogas digesters = clean energy for farms. The same system that reduces wildfire fuel also ends methane from manure lagoons — turning waste into power and compost. Circular agriculture at scale.
Clean energy · Clean farms
🐄
Division D · Ethical Livestock & Regenerative Agriculture
Pay Ranchers for Doing It Right
Plain Language

Right now, ranchers who treat their animals humanely, build healthy soil, and reduce pollution don't get paid any more than ranchers who don't. This bill changes that. It pays ranchers extra for doing things the right way — and connects them to the forest slash composting system so farm waste becomes clean energy and healthy soil instead of a problem.

🌾
Regenerative Grazing Payments
Ranchers who use rotational grazing, cover crops, and practices that build healthy soil get paid extra for it. Healthy soil holds more water, needs less fertilizer, and sequesters carbon from the air.
Pay for good stewardship
🐾
Animal Welfare Tax Credits
Tax credits for ranchers who meet or exceed animal welfare standards — more space, better conditions, humane handling. Good for animals, good for the rancher's market, good for the brand of CA-2 food.
Humane livestock
🐺
Wolf-Livestock Coexistence
Gray wolves have returned to Modoc, Siskiyou, and Shasta counties. Each wolf costs ranchers $69,000–$162,000 a year in losses. This program creates Wolf Prey Zones in marginal lands — keeping wolves fed on deer and elk instead of cattle.
Modoc · Siskiyou · Shasta
🌰
Acorn-Finished Livestock
California has over 2 billion native oak trees producing up to a trillion pounds of acorns annually. This program develops acorn-finished pork (similar to Spain's famous Ibérico ham) and acorn flour — creating new premium markets.
Acorn economy
🧪
Organic Transition Support
Switching to organic farming takes 3 years — and farmers lose money during that transition period. This bill pays farms to make the switch and focus on drought-resistant crops and healthy soil that holds water even in dry years.
15–25 year transition
🦗
Pest Management Emergency Fund
In 2023, Modoc County ranchers lost $52 million to grasshoppers while the government was too slow to respond. This creates a $5 billion trust fund and requires fast federal pest response — before crops are lost, not after.
$5B trust fund · Modoc County
🏔️
Division E · Federal Lands & Displaced Stewards
Public Land Should Serve the Public
Plain Language

In 2025, a federal settlement pushed 11 ranching families off 12 ranches at Point Reyes National Seashore — with no public vote, no Congressional approval, and nondisclosure agreements that silenced the families. The land the American public paid $600 million for in 1962 was effectively handed to a private conservation group. This bill makes sure that can never happen again — anywhere in America.

🔑
Right of Return Act
Any ranching family pushed off federal land without Congressional approval has the right to return — or get fair compensation. Mandates that any future federal land deal affecting agricultural stewards requires a public hearing and Congressional sign-off.
Point Reyes · National standard
🌿
Active Adaptive Stewardship
People who live and work on the land often know it better than anyone. This bill gives working ranchers, farmers, and tribal members a formal role in managing federal lands — not just as consultants, but as designated stewards with real authority.
Steward designation
💧
Water Security and Trinity River
Up to 90% of the Trinity River's water has been diverted for farming, killing salmon. This bill creates a balanced plan: enough water for salmon to survive AND enough water for Central Valley farms to grow food. Tribal co-management is built in.
Trinity County · Water rights
🏛️
Pastoral Zone Protection
The Point Reyes Pastoral Zone — the working ranchland around the seashore — is legally protected under this bill. No federal agency can convert it to non-agricultural use without explicit Congressional authorization. The public owns this land. Congress should decide what happens to it.
Point Reyes PRNS
🎖️
Cultural Heritage Restitution
Multi-generational farming families who lost their operations through federal administrative decisions — without proper process — are eligible for cultural heritage restitution payments. Multi-generational farming knowledge is a community asset.
Heritage farming families
🌊
Klamath River Restoration
The four Klamath River dams were removed — the largest dam removal in U.S. history. Now 400 miles of salmon habitat need to be restored. This bill funds that work and puts the Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa tribes in charge of the restoration.
$100M/year · Tribal leadership
🌱
Division F · Post-Cannabis Realignment & Farmland Transition
The Emerald Triangle Needs a New Economy
Plain Language

When cannabis became legal statewide, the price crashed from $3,000 per pound to $300 — a 90% drop. Small family cannabis farms in Humboldt and Mendocino counties are going out of business. The greenhouses, the irrigation systems, the climate-controlled grow rooms — they're still there. This bill helps convert that infrastructure to grow gourmet mushrooms, specialty salad greens, and microgreens. Same buildings, different crops, legal market.

🍄
Cannabis Infrastructure Conversion
Convert cannabis greenhouses to grow gourmet mushrooms, microgreens, and specialty salad greens. The climate-controlled facilities are already there and worth millions. Grants and loans help families make the switch to legal, growing markets.
Humboldt · Mendocino
🌰
Acorn Flour Industry
California produces up to a trillion pounds of acorns a year. Nobody is using them. Acorn flour is gluten-free and nutritious. Existing tree nut processing machinery can make it. This program builds the acorn processing industry — starting in the Emerald Triangle.
$4.2B global market
🏪
Regional Food Hubs
Small farms can't easily sell to grocery chains — the logistics don't work at that scale. Regional food hubs aggregate local products, handle cold storage, and connect small CA-2 farms to larger buyers. Keeps more food dollars local.
Local food economy
🏡
Family Farmland Protection
Big corporations now own more and more of California's farmland. This program buys land from willing corporate sellers and offers rent-to-own deals to beginning farmers, veterans, and people from communities historically left out of farming. Completely voluntary.
Voluntary only · No eminent domain
🎓
Workforce Retraining
Former cannabis workers get free job training for regenerative agriculture, aquaculture, seafood processing, and forest restoration. The skills of the cannabis industry — precision irrigation, climate control, plant care — transfer directly to these fields.
Skills transfer
🤝
Equity and Underserved Communities
USDA has documented decades of discrimination against Hispanic, Native American, African American, and Asian American farmers in CA-2. This program specifically outreaches to these communities and removes the barriers to program participation.
Community equity
🪶
Division G · Indigenous American Sovereignty & Co-Management
Traditional Knowledge Has Equal Standing
Plain Language

The Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa, Wiyot, Tolowa Dee-ni', and other tribes of CA-2 have fished these rivers, managed these forests, and farmed this land for thousands of years. Their knowledge of how these ecosystems work is not folklore — it is science accumulated over generations. This bill gives Traditional Ecological Knowledge equal legal standing with Western science. Tribes co-manage the resources they've always known best.

🎣
Tribal Fisheries Co-Management
Treaty-protected fishing rights are honored and strengthened. Tribal fisheries managers have co-equal authority with federal agencies in managing salmon, steelhead, and other species in CA-2 rivers and coastal waters.
Yurok · Karuk · Hoopa
🔥
Cultural Burning Rights
Cultural burning — the traditional fire management that tribes used for millennia — is recognized as a sovereign right and funded as an official forest management tool. Tribal burns have proven to increase forage for elk and deer up to 13 times.
Sovereign right
🌾
Indigenous Agriculture Support
Funds tribal regenerative agriculture programs, including traditional food systems, native seed preservation, and tribal-managed composting and soil health programs. Traditional crops and food practices are funded as cultural preservation.
Traditional food systems
📚
Traditional Ecological Knowledge Protections
Tribal knowledge cannot be commercialized without consent. No corporation or federal agency can patent or appropriate indigenous agricultural practices, plant varieties, or ecological knowledge without explicit tribal agreement and fair compensation.
TEK protections

"Their knowledge of this river goes back thousands of years. The Klamath dam removal was the beginning. Restoring the river — the right way, with tribal leadership — is the next step."

— Gregory Burgess, Candidate for CA-2 · On the Klamath Basin Restoration & Tribal Justice Act
Division A · Fiscal Framework

Every Dollar Accounted For.

This bill adds zero dollars to the national debt. Here's how it pays for itself.

💰 Where the Money Comes From

Offshore Energy Industry Fees
Companies that drill and harvest energy offshore pay fees into the Trust Fund. They use the ocean — they help restore it.
Timber Harvest Restoration Revenue
Fees from sustainably harvested timber from forest thinning operations flow into the Trust Fund.
Carbon Fee Revenues
Agricultural carbon fee revenues are exempted for regenerative farms; net fees from other sources fund soil health programs.
Fishery Recovery Revenues
When the fisheries recover, a portion of licensing revenues flows back into the Trust Fund — paying forward.
Savings from Existing Spending
Wildfire prevention saves $3B+/year in suppression costs. Pest management prevents billions in crop losses. These documented savings offset program costs.

🔒 Seven Layers of Budget Protection

1. Hard Spending Caps
Year 1: max $400M. Year 2: max $600M. Years 4–10: max $1.2B or actual revenues, whichever is lower.
2. Named Revenue Sources
Every program names exactly where its money comes from. No fuzzy math. No "future savings."
3. OMB Budget Certification
The federal budget office must confirm every dollar is covered before any money goes out.
4. GAO Watchdog Review
Every program is reviewed every 3 years. If it isn't working, it gets fixed or ended.
5. 10-Year Sunset
Every program expires in 10 years unless Congress votes to keep it. Laws must prove they work.
6. No Deficit Spending
Explicit ban on deficit spending in every title of the bill. If money runs short, programs shrink — they don't borrow.
7. Automatic Correction
If revenues fall below the required floor, automatic safeguards reduce spending proportionally before Congress acts.

⚖️ Constitutional & Legal Grades

TestWhat It MeansGrade
Constitutional AuthorityEvery program cites which part of the Constitution allows itA
States ChooseNo state is forced to join — every program is voluntaryA
Major Questions DoctrineCongress expressly authorizes all major policy decisionsA
Tribal RightsAll tribal provisions require free, informed tribal consent firstA
No Government OverreachNo forced participation, no property seizures, no blank checksA
PrivacyNo warrantless inspections; minimum necessary data collection onlyA
Deficit Neutral DesignNamed revenue sources, hard caps, automatic correction built inA
Division I · 10-Year Pilot Targets

What Success Looks Like.

The bill sets specific, measurable 10-year targets. If CA-2 meets them, the programs get renewed. If not, they get fixed or ended. No program gets to quietly fail.

🐟
Salmon fisheries reopened
Commercial salmon fisheries re-opened for at least 3 consecutive years within the 10-year period.
🌿
Kelp canopy doubles
North Coast kelp canopy coverage increased by at least 100% from the baseline.
🌲
Wildfire costs cut by half
Federal wildfire suppression costs reduced by 50% in CA-2 treated forest areas.
💼
100,000 rural jobs created
Verified new jobs in forest restoration, composting, regenerative agriculture, and fisheries restoration.
🌱
Organic farmland triples
Certified organic agricultural land in CA-2 increased by at least 300% from baseline.
💧
Water quality improved
Nitrate and phosphate levels in CA-2 waterways reduced to below EPA health advisory levels.

"CA-2 goes from the Pacific Ocean to the high desert. It has fishing towns, redwood forests, dairy ranches, and tribal nations. Nobody in Congress has written a single bill that covers all of them — connected together, paid for, and ready to go on Day One. That's what Show Your Work means. This is that bill."

— Gregory Burgess, Candidate for CA-2 · No Party Preference · R.O.A.R. — Restore Our American Republic

This Bill Is Already Written

Every section, every funding source, every constitutional citation. Fully drafted and publicly available. Read it before you vote — that's the whole point.

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