Richard Pombo

Mr. POMBO

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, 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.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute be printed in the Record and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment. It is printed in the Record as No. 2.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to correct line references in my amendment as follows: The reference to page 3 after line 12 should be page 3 after line 15, and the reference to page 4 after line 8 should be page 4 after line 12.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis].

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I think that the point is they are opposed to any change in the Endangered Species Act regardless of how good a cause it is.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would continue to yield, this is a friendly amendment. The committee is in agreement with the work that the gentleman from California [Mr. Campbell] has done and we intend on accepting the amendment.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would yield, I do intend on accepting the amendment.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, it was mentioned, dredging, dams. Could they dredge, if the gentleman's language was adopted as part of this bill, could they go in and dredge under that language?

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just wanted to add, in response to a statement by the gentleman from California [Mr. Farr] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller], even if this legislation were to pass and be signed into law, I have a list from an environmental impact statement for the Sacramento River system control plan which listed the following Federal laws which must be complied with before the levee repairs could begin: National Historic Preservation Act, Archaeological and Historical Preservation Act, Archaeological Resources Protection Act, Preservation of Historic Properties, Abandoned Shipwreck Act reviews, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Coastal Zone Management Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Estuary Protection Act, the Federal Water Project Recreation Act, and it goes on and on and on. It has over 20 Federal laws and State laws that we had to abide by before we could repair the levee. All we are asking for is to allow us to maintain our levees. That is all we are asking for, to protect human life and private property. This is not that difficult.

Mr. POMBO. Yes, that is my intent.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Herger], the author of the bill.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Smith], chairman of the Committee on Agriculture.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to point out to the Members that we are beginning debate on what is a very important bill. It is very important to my district, it is very important to the Central Valley of California, but it is also very important to the Nation as a whole. We are undertaking an effort to put some common sense into the maintenance, management of our flood control system. It is not a broad- based bill; it does not go after all of the problems that we would like to fix with the Endangered Species Act, but it does go after one specific problem that we have had, and that problem is that the routine maintenance of our levee system has not been allowed to continue, has not been allowed to happen on a timely basis because of the implementation of this act the way that it is being implemented in California today. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska [Mr. Young], chairman of the full committee.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman that, yes, that is my understanding.

Mr. POMBO. Yes, that is my intent.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Boehlert] is accurate on a few things, and I appreciate that he has come to the floor with his amendment. And if it did what he said it did, I would wholeheartedly support it. I would be the first person down here saying that it was a great piece of legislation and that we all should support it. But it does not do what he says it will do. It absolutely does not accomplish the goals that we set out. He says it does. His statement says it does. The things that he passed out says that it accomplishes what we want, but it does not. We do have a choice today, my colleagues. We have a very definite choice. What the amendment of the gentleman from New York would allow is that this break in the levee, it would allow us to fix that. It would not waive mitigation. It would not waive the Endangered Species Act. It would defer the Endangered Species Act until it was repaired. Well, what is the difference between that and current law? Nothing. The policy that was sent out by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on February 19 said exactly what the gentleman wants to do. He says the administration will sign it. Well, of course they will sign it, they issued it. Of course they will. It does not take care of the problem that we have, and that is to prevent this from happening. I would like to show my colleagues, if I may, something that is very real. This is a picture of a levee bank. This is the picture of a levee bank right now. We can see the condition that it is in. They were prevented from maintaining that bank, clearing the brush out so that it could handle the 500-year flood, so that they could handle the amount of water that went through there. They wanted to do it. They were told they could not until they went through a lengthy bureaucratic red tape mess. But take a look at that picture a little closer. As they got a little closer in the boat, we begin to see just how bad this is. And we go a little bit closer and we can see the hole, the hole through the levee. We did not see it in the first picture because it is covered with brush, but we can see it if we get up 2 feet away. I know my colleagues cannot see this, but there is a man standing inside that hole. That is the other side of the river where they had a boil coming up with water pouring out. That is the reality of what we are trying to do. The amendment of the gentleman does absolutely nothing about this. The gentleman's amendment does nothing on preventive maintenance. It does not allow us to maintain that levee system. What it does do is it says if the President declares it a disaster area in 1997, from this year's flood, then we can fix it. We can go back and fix that break. It does nothing to take care of an ongoing maintenance problem so that we do not have to come back and do this again year after year after year. It falls short of the goal. It accomplishes nothing. Yes, we do have a choice. We can go home and tell our constituents that we actually did something about this problem or we can do what Congress has done for the past 40 years: Put up something that looks good, feels good and does absolutely nothing, because that is what the gentleman is giving us, nothing. The gentleman keeps talking about what is in our particular bill. It consists of maintenance, rehabilitation, repair or replacement of a Federal or non-Federal flood facility if there is a threat to human life or serious property damage. We can maintain our levees if there is a threat to human life. We can rehabilitate our levees if there is a threat to human life. We can repair if there is a threat to human life and a substantial risk of the loss of private property. That is what we are asking for. All of this stuff about gutting the act and everything else is just talk. We are asking for the chance to maintain our levees. What the gentleman is telling us is he is telling us that the airplane crew can provide maintenance on that aircraft as soon as it crashes and the people are dead, but until that point we are sorry. Vote no on the Boehlert amendment and yes on the base bill.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dooley]. (Mr. DOOLEY of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Campbell].

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Thornberry].

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Idaho [Mrs. Chenoweth].

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Gibbons]. (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)