Ep. 380 Today’s Peep Rewinds Our Conversation with My Friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa who Passed Last Night. We Honor His Legacy with His Thoughts on Topics Such As Climate Policy, Dams, Wildfires, Public Safety & More

Sun poured through the blinds, but the day felt heavy—we lost our friend and frequent guest, Congressman Doug LaMalfa. To honor his legacy, we rewound to our milestone conversation that shows him at his clearest: a fourth-generation rice farmer who asked for baselines before billion-dollar climate plans, and who insisted that policy be built to work in real towns with real jobs.

We walk through the hard numbers behind EV mandates and freight: battery weight eats payload, which means more trucks on the road and more strain on an already fragile grid. Then we head upriver to the dam removals reshaping the Northwest, where hydropower once delivered steady, CO2-free baseload power. LaMalfa details the silt plumes, stranded wildlife, and downstream consequences that rarely make headlines. We dig into forest management and power-line clearance, backup generators and blackouts, and the uneasy math of telling people to evacuate while warning them not to charge their cars.

Public safety and homelessness bring the debate to the street level. We break apart the blanket labels: people down on luck, those battling addiction or mental illness, and those choosing camps because rules feel restrictive. Help works best when it’s paired with accountability and measured outcomes. On crime, we challenge policies that sideline useful tools and pretend problems are optics. And through it all runs a call to civic responsibility: read the fine print on ballot measures, vote early when you can, and demand results over slogans.

This tribute isn’t soft-focus. It’s spirited, specific, and grounded in work boots and committee rooms. If you care about energy reliability, water storage, forest health, safer neighborhoods, and smarter voting, you’ll find plenty to agree with—and plenty to debate. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves a good policy argument, and tell us: which issue should leaders fix first?