Richard Pombo

I would ask the gentlewoman, how many policies and proposals are there out there that the administration has that this could possibly impact?

So the people that are affected by this directly, those people who have chosen to live and work near our national forests, are opposed to it; and yet this amendment, if adopted, would adopt this policy?

Has this policy that has been proposed, not even enacted, but a proposed policy by the administration, is there any consensus out in the gentlewoman's area or anywhere throughout the West?

I quote: On January 20, 1993, William Jefferson Clinton took the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to faithfully execute the office of President; implicit in that oath is the obligation that the President set an…

The gentleman has said that the Boehlert amendment does not address maintenance. The gentleman's amendment is asking for a GAO study. So neither one deals with the real problem that we have of preventive maintenance.

I did see the article that they considered it a national treasure and that it was worth delaying the opening of a hospital for several months and the spending of several hundred thousand dollars per fly by the taxpayers of Riverside County.

Yes; that is correct. It was in southern California. It was a fly that was listed as endangered, and the result of that was that we had a hospital delayed because of that.

Reclaiming my time, in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say that this is nothing more than furthering the agenda of locking up our public lands, locking them up to using them for any resources extraction, as well as locking…

I am not talking about the roads that are built already. I am not talking about the roads in existence, not the roads that we have already built. We are talking about the roads that the gentleman wants to stop us from building. How are we…

The money that is coming in from private industry, that is creating thousands of jobs, regardless of the efforts of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, they still have some timber jobs, that if that money does not come in…

The gentleman is telling me that all of the money that goes to the schools and fire suppression and everything else is still going to be paid for by the taxpayer?

Mr. Chairman, yes, it is true that this debate really is not about the Endangered Species Act. I wish we were debating the Endangered Species Act on this floor today, but we are not. We are debating about whether or not we should protect…

I have supported HCPs. As the gentleman is well aware, in my endangered species reform bill. We strengthened the HCP process so it would be capable of establishing HCPs that would actually work. My colleague, the gentleman from southern…

I guess if you own 400,000 acres in one block, it is much easier to come up with an HCP which will work, because you are allowed to rotate your cutting throughout the entire parcel. Unfortunately for most small property owners, that is not…

Is it his opinion that if we went to an incentive-based system that operated where the individuals were rewarded for their stewardship or rewarded for being good stewards of the lands and, quite frankly, had more of an impact on what…

Under current law, Mr. Speaker, they will not allow you to even enhance the current population of endangered species on your property.

Absolutely, and it does have to be a biologist. It can be a college student doing their senior thesis on the disappearance.

Current law does not require them to use good science. If he went out and did a biological study on his black bear in Louisiana, and he wanted to print that in a scientific magazine, it would have to stand up to peer review before they…

So what we are faced with today is that the Endangered Species Act as it is being implemented today is not good for species, is not recovering species, is not helping out with wildlife, and at the same time it is causing severe economic…

As chairman of the task force, I had the opportunity to take the task force to your district to hold a hearing earlier last year. One of the good fortunes that we had while we were in your district is we had the opportunity to visit a…

So if the golden-checked warbler were truly an endangered species and we were truly trying to recover that species, is not the Endangered Species Act working in the exact opposite direction? Is it not giving people the perverse incentive…

Along the same lines with this particular lady, I had the opportunity to hear her testimony before the endangered species task force. One of the things that she brought up at that time, and I thought it was very interesting, was that this…

The intention of the amendment, because it is a pilot program and is a temporary program, if it were to be made a permanent program, the repeal of the H-2A program so that we would have one program, would be the intention of the committee…

I think that the facts may surprise a few people. Out of 650 million acres that the Federal Government currently owns, 35 million acres have been bought in the last 20 years... the Federal Government owns 4 million acres in the State of…

The reason that we are banning them on science is that you are fully aware of the fact that there is very little effort on the part of private property owners in this country to participate with volunteers. We feel that the best way to…