Richard Pombo

Mr. POMBO

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman also serves on the Committee on the Judiciary which has broad jurisdiction over constitutional issues. Is it your understanding that there is any place for Federal land use policy in the Constitution?

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, 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 was not some pristine isolated location, that this was in the middle of an area that was zoned for industrial development.

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

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely correct. 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 would ever allow you to even print it in a scientific magazine. But it could be listed as an endangered species based on that biological data without ever being peer reviewed, without another scientist, biologist, in this entire world verifying that you----

Mr. POMBO. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Speaker, why we would not do it is because so many people have so invested in the current system. If we look at those that are protecting the status quo who do not want commonsense changes, it is because they would have to give up power, if you empowered people. They would have to give up money, the tens of millions of dollars a year in Federal grants that these extremists get in order to maintain the current system. They want to protect the system that is in place right now because they have a pretty good thing.

Mr. POMBO. The species has become secondary.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, we talk about reversing the incentives so people have a positive incentive, a positive goal to create endangered species habitat, maintain endangered species habitat on their property, so we are using the carrot instead of the stick. People will respond to that. The other side of this is the regulatory process. This right here represents what a developer goes through if he wants to develop a house on a piece of property. These are the steps that he has to go through just in case he has an endangered species problem. You wonder why houses cost so much money in this country. You wonder why the average working couple, the young couple my age, has such a difficult time purchasing a piece of property to follow the American dream. This is what has to happen before one shovel of dirt is turned, before one permit is issued.

Mr. POMBO. 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 to destroy habitat so that they do not have a problem?

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

Mr. POMBO. 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 cattle ranch, a very well-managed cattle ranch in that area, and the gentleman took us out and explained to us how he was managing it to get the highest return from the property. One of the issues that came up when we were out there was what would happen or how cattle ranchers would respond to the listing of the golden-cheeked warbler; in fact, how they would destroy habitat so that they would not have a problem with the fish and wildlife coming in and tell them they could not run cattle or could not run goats on their property.

Mr. POMBO. 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 and social hardship across the country?

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield on that. He is correct in his assumption of the 4,000-4,200 candidates, species. The vast majority of those are insects that they have on the species list. That is one of the major reasons why it is so critical that the Endangered Species Act be reauthorized and reformed in doing so. Mr. Speaker, if they were to declare the gentleman's tick an endangered species, and it would not have to be endangered across the country, just in specific regions of the country, unique species, localized species, subspecies of the major tick species, they could list that as an endangered species. Not only would you get in trouble for smashing that, on the other side of that, under the current law in the way it is being implemented, they would have to import them from other areas of the country to reintroduce them into the areas where they had become endangered in order to maintain a viable population of them. That is the absurdity of the act in the way that it is currently being implemented.

Mr. POMBO. You are telling us that that is what they were basing their decision on.

Mr. POMBO. So in essence what happened with your constituent in this case was you had someone who lost basically nearly all the value of her property, which she was going to use for retirement, but it could have been my property or anyone's property that lost the value of their property, based upon a decision that came out of fish and wildlife, which was, this is an industrial area, it is zoned for industrial use. It is not an isolated area. It is not a pristine habitat area. It is an industrial use that has industrial developments all around it. It borders on a major roadway, a major thoroughfare. But they were going to control any type of development on her property, not because there were endangered species on the property but because it was suitable habitat. If one wanted to live there, it could. It was suitable habitat.

Mr. POMBO

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

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman happens to come from a part of the country that has probably been impacted as greatly as any other region of the country in the central valley in California, with the multitude of species that are directly in the area that have been listed, as well as the aquatic species that survive within the natural river system in California, which has impacted the delivery of irrigation water to a number of the gentleman's constituents. 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 recovery plans were adopted, what they look like, what best worked, would that work better for your constituency?

Mr. POMBO. If the gentleman will continue to yield, being a farmer himself, could the gentleman describe the fear that his constituents feel when they may or may not have an endangered species on their property?

Mr. POMBO

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

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to conclude by saying that this program that we are trying to adopt is needed. There is a shortage of legal labor in America today. But if my colleague is correct and there is no shortage of labor, then this program will never be used, because they would have to certify that there is a labor shortage, that there is no domestic workers who are able and willing to do the work. They would have to certify that they could not find domestic workers to do the work. They would have to meet all Federal, State, and local labor laws in order to employ people under the guest worker program. We have heard a lot about illegal immigration. This is not illegal immigration. This is a legal and controlled program. We have heard about the H-2A program. The H-2A program does not work, or else there would not be the need to install this type of a program. The gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Goodlatte] is going to bring up an amendment shortly here today to try and change the H-2A program to work, and, quite frankly, his effort fails miserably. It makes it worse than it currently is. It is not an alternative to our amendment. We have heard a lot about the 250,000 figure. That was not my amendment. That was the Goodlatte amendment that the gentleman put on in the Committee on Agriculture. My effort was to try to develop some type of a formula that would ensure that we not have any more come in under the Guest Worker Program than was absolutely necessary. In short, in closing, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say we do have a problem in this country. We have a serious problem with immigration in this country. But what makes people angry, what makes people mad is those people who illegally come into the country or legally come into the country and take advantage of it, who have never provided anything and take advantage of that service. What this program is saying is that we want to take care of our domestic issues and we want to reward those who work.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself one minute to respond to my colleague from California. Mr. Chairman, it is very interesting that the gentleman is so concerned about the unemployment in my districts, after he stole all the water from my farmers. It is very interesting that all of a sudden he is interested in the unemployment in my district, when he tries to shut down my farms through the Endangered Species Act or Clean Water Act. All of a sudden he is interested in the unemployment in my district. I am sure that the gentleman misspoke when he said that we were going to hope that they go home. They are required to go home. And if he wants to know what the American people are really angry about, I think it is partly what has gone on on this floor today. We have got half these guys down here who want to give them welfare, who want to give them anything that they want, but if they want to come in and work, oh, we do not want that. We do not want anybody to come in and work. But if they want welfare, if they want free education, if they want free medical care, all of that, hey, that is all right. That is fine. But if they want to work, oh, no, no, no, this program is crazy. Now, we are talking about good, decent people who want a job and want to come in and work, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston].

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady].