Harry Reid: “this amendment is too broad, too general. It violates the canon of law that exists in this country. From a…”

“this amendment is too broad, too general. It violates the canon of law that exists in this country. From a constitutional perspective, it grants the President authority to overturn action by any Federal action that the Secretary of Agriculture determines may harm producers. It allows the President to ignore any law passed by Congress. This is a significant transfer of power to the President. As I discussed yesterday, the Endangered Species Act is in existence; we have acknowledged for many years there should be action taken to change it. There was a bipartisan effort a few years ago by Senators Chafee, Baucus, Kempthorne, and Reid to change this. We entered into an agreement in the Environment and Public Works Committee to introduce legislation that we would not accept any amendments on the floor; we would vote against any of them. It was a tremendous revision of the Endangered Species Act. We had widespread support of a significant number of people in the environmental community and many people in the development community. It had the support of mayors and Governors. However, it was not brought to the floor because people were certain they could do better. Of course, the perfect got in the way of the good and nothing has happened since then. In spite of that, the Endangered Species Act has done a great deal to salvage species and prevent the wiping out of species. Threatened and endangered species are now protected.”