🌊 Del Norte County
Where the Klamath meets the Pacific — and fishing families fight to survive
Del Norte is California’s forgotten corner. It sits at the very top of the state, where the Klamath River empties into the Pacific and the redwoods tower over Crescent City. The Yurok Tribe — the largest federally recognized tribe in California — has fished these waters since time beyond memory. But today, salmon seasons keep getting canceled. Timber mills closed decades ago. Healthcare options are among the worst in the state. And your congressman’s office is hundreds of miles away. Gregory Burgess has drafted real legislation to change that.
🎣 The Fishing Crisis
URGENTCrescent City’s fishing port was once the backbone of Del Norte’s economy. Today, salmon fisheries face unprecedented closures — multiple consecutive years with no commercial season. The Dungeness crab fishery faces season delays from domoic acid and whale entanglement rules. Kelp forests have lost roughly 95% of their bull kelp. These aren’t just numbers. They are families losing their boats, their income, and their way of life.
The federal government has the power to declare fishery disasters and fund recovery. But disaster payments are slow, and there’s no long-term plan to rebuild the fisheries or help fishing families transition to new marine industries like kelp farming and sustainable aquaculture.
🌲 Timber Jobs Are Gone — Nothing Replaced Them
ECONOMICDel Norte was built on timber. When the mills closed, nothing came to take their place. The county still has vast forests, but they’re overgrown and fire-prone. Meanwhile, mass timber and cross-laminated timber (CLT) are booming industries elsewhere. Del Norte has the trees, the workforce history, and the need — what it doesn’t have is a congressman who has written legislation to make it happen.
🏥 Healthcare: Too Far, Too Few, Too Expensive
DAILY LIFEDel Norte has some of the worst health outcomes in California. Specialty care means driving hours. Recruiting doctors to a remote county is nearly impossible without loan forgiveness and housing support. When Medicaid gets cut, Del Norte doesn’t just lose a program — it loses its healthcare system.
📜 Bills That Fight for Del Norte
These are complete, drafted bills — not talking points. Every bullet below is written into the legislation. Click to read the full text.
🎣 From Seashore to Stockyard — CA-2 Food Security and Economic Resilience Act
FISHING · FOOD SECURITYThis is the comprehensive food security and fishing economy bill written specifically for CA-2’s coastal and farming communities. For Crescent City and the Del Norte coast, it addresses the collapse of commercial fishing from every angle — salmon, crab, kelp, and the port infrastructure that makes it all possible:
- Salmon disaster compensation for fishing families during closures — faster and more reliable than the current federal disaster process
- Crab fleet support during domoic acid delays and whale entanglement season restrictions
- Fisher-to-Kelp-Farmer transition program — helping Crescent City fishing families move into kelp restoration and sustainable aquaculture as salmon seasons remain closed
- Working waterfront protection to keep Crescent City’s harbor infrastructure from being converted to non-fishing uses
- Kelp forest restoration funding to begin rebuilding the 95% of bull kelp that has been lost since 2014 — the nurseries where young salmon grow
- Local food hub grants for Del Norte with cold storage and farm-to-table infrastructure, priority funding for communities where the nearest grocery is more than 20 miles away
🎉 Klamath Basin Restoration & Tribal Justice Act
SALMON · TRIBAL RIGHTS · WATERThe Klamath River empties into the Pacific at Del Norte’s southern border. The Yurok Tribe — whose ancestral territory centers on this stretch of river and coast — is the largest federally recognized tribe in California. The dam removal that began under the previous Congress was a meaningful step, but the work of restoring salmon runs, honoring tribal water rights, and rebuilding the river economy is far from done. This bill addresses all of it:
- Klamath salmon restoration funding for habitat recovery, fish passage, and spawning bed rehabilitation in the lower river reaches within Del Norte
- Yurok Tribe water rights recognition with legally binding protections — not just consultation, but enforceable guarantees
- Tribal co-management authority over fisheries and river stewardship, incorporating Yurok Traditional Ecological Knowledge alongside Western science
- Commercial fishing recovery grants for tribal and non-tribal fishing families whose livelihoods depend on Klamath salmon
- Monitoring and accountability for post-dam-removal restoration — real benchmarks for salmon return, not just project completion
🏫 CA-2 Comprehensive Affordability, Fair Housing, Education, and Community Health Act (CA-2 CAFE-CH)
TIMBER · BROADBAND · RURAL ECONOMYThis is the most wide-ranging CA-2 bill in the platform — 19 separate divisions addressing nearly every challenge facing the district. For Del Norte specifically, Division M (Redwood Country Rural Prosperity and Biomass Energy) was written with the North Coast counties in mind, and Del Norte is explicitly named as a priority area:
- Mass timber manufacturing grants up to $15,000,000 per facility with priority for Del Norte, Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino counties — turning the region’s forests into a 21st-century industry with high-wage local jobs
- Biomass Circular Economy Program: forest slash and timber residuals converted to biogas energy and compost, creating rural jobs while reducing wildfire fuel loads
- 100/20 Mbps broadband to every home in Del Norte, with gigabit speeds for schools, hospitals, and libraries — because economic participation in 2026 requires reliable internet
- Tri-Zonal Forest Management: Zone 1 protects old-growth stands over 80 years old. Zone 2 thins the wildland-urban interface to 60–80 trees per acre. Zone 3 creates sustained-yield timber jobs. Conservation and jobs — not one or the other
- Indigenous cultural burning recognized as a sovereign right — honoring Yurok and Tolowa Dee-ni’ fire knowledge as legal land stewardship
- Tribal co-management over ancestral federal forests, with Traditional Ecological Knowledge integrated into all management plans
🏥 North Coast & Redwood Country Healthcare Empowerment Act
HEALTHCARE · RURAL WORKFORCEDel Norte has some of the worst health outcomes in California — a direct result of having almost no local specialty care and being unable to recruit and retain medical professionals to a remote, high-cost area. This bill was written specifically for the rural North Coast healthcare crisis:
- Physician and dentist loan forgiveness up to $300,000 for providers who commit to working in rural shortage areas including Del Norte — the most competitive healthcare recruitment incentive in any CA-2 bill
- Nurse and pharmacist loan forgiveness up to $120,000; EMT and allied health up to $90,000 — all tax-free
- 25% bonus for psychiatry, primary care, OB, emergency medicine, and addiction medicine — the specialties most desperately needed in Del Norte
- Tribal Health Service positions receive an additional 10% enhancement — supporting Indian Health Service facilities serving the Yurok and other CA-2 tribes
- Mobile health units for Trinity, Modoc, Siskiyou, and Del Norte — bringing basic care to communities hours from the nearest clinic
- Telehealth infrastructure grants so Del Norte residents can access specialty care without a four-hour round trip
📄 See All 38+ Bills in the Full Platform
The four bills above are the highest-priority bills for Del Norte, but the full “An Honest Economy for All” platform includes 38+ drafted bills covering wildfire insurance, farmland protection, clean energy, worker wages, housing, trade policy, and more — many of which also apply to Del Norte. Every bill is written in full congressional format. Nothing is hidden.
Browse All 38+ Bills →⚠️ What Has Your Congressman Done?
Congressman Huffman championed Klamath dam removal — which benefits salmon restoration at the river’s mouth in Del Norte. That was a real achievement. But he fought much harder for dam removal than he did for the water security guarantees that Siskiyou County farmers were promised in the original deal. And he overrode the Hoopa Valley Tribe, one of his own constituent tribes, which opposed the restructured agreement. Meanwhile, has he introduced comprehensive fisheries legislation for Crescent City? A mass timber economy bill for Del Norte? A rural healthcare recruitment plan specifically for the North Coast? The answer is no. Gregory Burgess has written all four. Read them for yourself.
📝 Show Your Work
“Del Norte sits at the edge of California, and sometimes it feels like the edge of the country. But being far from Washington doesn’t mean you should be forgotten by it. ‘Show Your Work’ means every community — no matter how remote — gets a representative who does the work before asking for the vote.”
Read Every Word. Hold Me Accountable.
These aren’t campaign promises. They are drafted bills — real legislation you can read, challenge, and improve. That’s what representation looks like.
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