Richard Pombo: “I believe that the gentleman points out that the portion of this private property that was supposedly the ancient…”

“I believe that the gentleman points out that the portion of this private property that was supposedly the ancient forest, the headwaters, redwood, the big redwood trees, is specifically exempted from the amendment that was adopted in committee. We have been talking about that on and off during this debate. But it was specifically exempted in committee. Here we go again. I think that this debate has been very, very instructive. It really does outline what the debate has been over the Endangered Species Act over the past several years. That is what we want to use as the Endangered Species Act, which is supposed to protect fish and wildlife from becoming extinct. We want to use that to accomplish other goals. We have heard that we wanted to use it to accomplish something that the fishing industry wants. But more importantly, we have heard it said that we want to use the Endangered Species Act to punish this particular company, that we want to go after this company and punish them for whatever transgressions they have committed over the years, whatever it is, real or imagined that they may have done. We want to use the Endangered Species Act to achieve that goal. This entire listing of putting the marbled murrelet as threatened has been politically driven from the very beginning.”