Richard Pombo: “Yes. We are talking about literally billions of dollars that are involved here. Recently in California we had the fairy…”

“Yes. We are talking about literally billions of dollars that are involved here. Recently in California we had the fairy shrimp listed. The fairy shrimp, I believe, will have a larger impact on California than anything that has been on the endangered species list or any proposal to the endangered species list that we have had yet. We literally have all the way from Bakersfield to Redding and now we are getting reports out of the Riverside and San Diego areas of fairy shrimp in those areas as well where any mud puddle that holds water for 14 days in the springtime is habitat for the fairy shrimp. This definitely affects all farming and ranching activities. We have farmers who have fairy shrimp in their cow troughs, in their watering troughs, in their watering holes. We are looking at on the listing of the fairy shrimp alone billions of dollars that are affected in the State of California. The fairy shrimp is a third of an inch long, an eighth of an inch across, an invertebrate that has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, and there is absolutely no cost to the agency to go out and list this and declare all mud puddles habitat for the fairy shrimp. What we are trying to do is instill a little common sense into the way the agency responds.”