William Tauzin: “I want you to think with me, if we were able to change the law, if we could get something past this Congress and signed…”

“I want you to think with me, if we were able to change the law, if we could get something past this Congress and signed by the President to bring some commonsense environmentalism to endangered species laws, and we had a situation where landowners would be encouraged to invite endangered species on their property and encouraged to enhance the conservation capabilities of their properties so these species could grow and actually enhance the population significantly, if had that kind of law in place, instead of the one that tells the landowner, ``You had better not find an endangered species on your property or we will shut you down; you had better not invite one on, because we will shut you down; you had better not even try to improve your property for species because we will shut you down,'' if we have that kind of law, which we do today, and we had the chance to build a better law that encouraged landowners to do the right thing, why would we not do that?”