Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3824, Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3824, THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES RECOVERY ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - September 29, 2005)
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Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding me time, and I also thank him for his excellent presentation on the rule.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. Once again the folks running this place have made a mockery of the legislative process. This bill was put on a rocket docket so that no one knows what is in it. Look at how we have proceeded here.
First of all, last week, just a short 10 days ago, we first saw the bill. Some of the members of the committee did not even see it until Tuesday. Unveiled on Monday, and did not see it until Tuesday, Democrats and Republicans not knowing what is in the bill. On Wednesday, we had hearings, 2 short days later. We only had four witnesses and several hours of hearings; and the crucial witness in this case, the administration witness, would not even take a position on the bill.
Here is the agency that for 30 years has administered the bill, with the scientists, with the expertise, and the administration witness walks in and says, We do not know. We do not have an idea. Just go ahead.
We could have taken the time, I say to the gentleman from California (Chairman Pombo), to travel the country, to reach out and find out what was working with this law and what was not working and crafted a bipartisan bill. But that is not what we have here today.
After we had that hearing with four witnesses, the very next day, rather than waiting a day or two and seeing how the hearing went and what the reaction was, we marked up the bill and reported it out of committee. So at the end of the week we thought we had one bill. Well, last night in the Committee on Rules, there were major changes to the bill again in the manager's amendment.
So what the gentleman from California just said about the Democrats writing the bill, sure, we contributed some of the language, but the manager's amendment makes significant changes in this bill; and the things that we are really fighting over, we may have contributed 90 percent, but the things we are fighting over in the 10 percent are huge things at stake: this huge giveaway to big developers, major changes in the environmental laws. Those were written by others in the bill.
So this bill is an abomination. It has made mockery of the legislative process. I urge my colleagues to defeat the rule and start once again, start once again with a process that respects this institution.
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Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California tries to make the substitute and the bill that is on the floor sound the same; but there are major differences, and we should recognize that. First of all, let us talk about some of those differences.
The bill before us is a huge giveaway to big developers. It creates a program where the burden is on the government to disprove. It basically does not put a dollar amount in the bill, because they are afraid of the dollar amount because it is an entitlement program for landowners that want to gut the Endangered Species Act. But the estimates are 10, 20, 30, 40 billion. Who knows how much this is going to cost.
Our bill, the substitute, does not do that. It is modest. It says we should work with private landowners. It sets up a program so that the government goes out and works with those landowners to accomplish the goals of the Endangered Species Act.
The majority bill, and this is another major difference, changes the Endangered Species Act in a radical, radical way, especially with the adoption of the manager's amendment. The substitute reforms the Endangered Species Act, while protecting the core provisions of that magnificent environmental law that has been on the books for 30 years.
At the end of this, we have not respected this institution by the way we brought the bill before the floor, the way we have worked in committee to put it on a rocket docket and speed it through, speed it through this process. We need to slow down. We need to take a look at this and work in a bipartisan way.
I urge my colleagues to defeat the rule.
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