Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005
THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES RECOVERY ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - September 29, 2005)
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Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, the manager's amendment makes a number of technical changes to clarify certain provisions and address issues concerning science, the definition of ``jeopardy,'' consolidation of ESA-related programs, and review of protective regulations. It allows actions authorized under an approved section 10 permit to be carried out without duplicative consultation. It prevents water stakeholders from being held accountable for impacts due to State actions. It requires the four Power Marketing Administrations to include ESA costs in their monthly billing statements. It directs the Secretary of the Interior to survey certain Federal lands to assess their value for a report back to Congress. It clarifies conflicting statutes to make ESA the governing statutory authority when receiving a dock-building permit.
That is the short version of what is included in the manager's amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I look forward to the gentleman's opposition to the highway bill and any new purchases of land, to the wildlife refuge system, to the park system, or any other thing that we spend money on, because he sees it as a big giveaway, a big government giveaway system.
Again, what the underlying bill does is if you step in and take habitat from a private property owner and you tell them that you restrict them and you tell them they cannot use part of their property, then we set up a system of incentives and grants.
But, if in the end, the Secretary says your property is necessary for the recovery of an endangered species, therefore you cannot use it, we compensate them for that and we pay them for it. If we build a highway across somebody's property, even though that may increase the value of the rest of the property, we pay them for it. If we take part of their property for a wildlife refuge, even though that may increase the value of the rest of their property, we pay them for it. But, if we take their property for endangered species habitat, we tell them, you are out of luck.
Now I have guys coming down here saying, this is a big, new giveaway system, that we are going to give away things to people. No. This is a big takeaway. You are taking away from them. You have been doing it for 30 years. Now it is time to pay for it. You are taking land away from people. Every little small farmer, rancher across the country, every homeowner across the country who has had their property taken away from them should be compensated for it. You are taking away their land. There is nothing wrong with that.
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. POMBO. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, when the Contract With America was written, this provision was scored by CBO at $3.2 billion; $3.2 billion.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, this provision was not in the Contract With America. Nobody seems to be constrained by the truth here. This is a brand-new way of dealing with compensating property owners whose land is taken. CBO scored this at $10 million. This is a brand-new way of dealing with a very real problem and assuring some kind of protection to my property owners and your property owners.
Mr. Chairman, it was just a couple of weeks ago that the Supreme Court came out with a decision where this Congress stood up and said, you cannot use eminent domain to take away private property, to take someone's house away from them and give it to another individual. And all of you ran down on the floor and said you were all in support of that.
We are going to stop the government from being able to use eminent to take away somebody's house and give it to somebody else. But, under that provision, you have to pay them for their house. Under current law, you do not have to pay when you steal somebody's property for declared habitat at this time. You guys are all fine with that. Is that because we are talking about farmers and ranchers? Is that why you do not want to pay them? But when we are talking about somebody's house, all of a sudden you want to pay them? I mean, you guys have no consistency in this whatsoever.
I believe if you take away somebody's private property, you should have to pay them for it, and that is what we are trying to do in this underlying bill. I know that some of my colleagues are just philosophically opposed to that, and God love you. But the fact of the matter is, if you take away somebody's private property, you ought to have to pay for it.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. POMBO. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, when you do take, meaning you have no value left, then you have just compensation, was the Supreme Court decision.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, that is not what the Constitution says. The Constitution says, nor shall private property be taken for a public use without just compensation. That is what it says. It does not say the government can step in and take 90 percent of your value and then it is okay; it does not say they can take away 30 percent of your value and that is okay.
Is the gentleman going to oppose the highway bill because we compensate people when we take their land away for a highway, even though we do not take 100 percent of the use? Why is it okay in that instance, but it is not okay when it comes to protecting habitat?
You guys talk big about wanting to protect habitat and protect species, but 90 percent of the habitat for endangered species is on private property. The only way you are going to recover species is if you bring in the property owners and have them be part of the solution. You are stopping that from happening right now under current law and in the substitute. You are wrong on this one.
We have to pay when you take away somebody's private property. That is what we have to do. That is what is in the underlying bill. I am sorry if you have a philosophical problem with paying for what you are taking.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, the part that I have trouble with is that we did not authorize any new money to fund this. You just said, take it out of the Interior Appropriations bill. Well, I want to tell you, we have not funded the Endangered Species Act properly under this administration, and if there is not any money, it is going to have to come out of somebody else's hide. It is going to be the Fish and Wildlife Service, it is going to be the Park Service; somebody is going to have to fund this, and it is going to cost a lot more than $10 million a year. That is laughable.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman how much time remains?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) has 3 1/2 minutes remaining; the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) has 2 minutes remaining.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to say, this is another area where you guys are just not consistent. One of you comes down and beats us up because we are spending too much money about this massive increase in spending under this bill. Somebody else comes down and says, you do not fully fund endangered species under this bill. Either we spend too much or we do not spend enough. You cannot have it both ways. Either we spend too much or we do not spend enough, but you cannot keep coming down here and trying to make both arguments.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Chairman, who has the right to close?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) has the right to close.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.
Mr. Chairman, I say to my friend from West Virginia, I appreciate all the work that he and his staff put into this bill. This was an important thing for us to go through, and I think that we produced a good bill at the end of that.
I know that there are issues in the underlying bill that we disagree on, and we probably always will. I will tell the gentleman, as we continue to work forward, I will continue to work with the gentleman as this bill moves through the process, continue to work with the gentleman and try to work out whatever differences that still exist under the bill.
The gentleman from West Virginia operated under good faith with me, I believe I did the same thing with the gentleman throughout this entire process, and I pledge to the gentleman that we will continue to work together to produce the best possible bipartisan bill we can to deliver to the President's desk.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Well, George, we have come a long ways. We have come a long ways, because, as you know, I have been working on this since I got here, and when I first started, all I heard was there is nothing wrong with the act that a little bit more money would not solve. Here we are today, everybody saying that there is problems with the law and we have to fix it. So we have come a long ways, and I am being attacked for spending more money under the act on the reauthorization.
First of all, I wanted to respond to your comments on jeopardy. We stay with current law. That is what is in the bill, is current law. We stay with current law. We had a different definition in the bill originally, and that caused the administration to say that it would result in new litigation, so we said we will stay with current law; and that eviscerates the act, staying with current law that they have so dutifully defended.
I have heard here today that the underlying bill guts, eviscerates, euthanizes, is unreasonable, and then I get a handout that talks about how much the substitute is like the base bill. When it comes to critical habitat, both bills use identical language. When it comes to providing certainty for landowners, both bills contain identical language. When it comes to providing incentives for landowners, both bills contain identical language, and on and on and on, about how much alike the bills are; and yet they gut, eviscerate, euthanize, and they are unreasonable.
The gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) I think is right about this: The real difference between the two bills is how private property rights is protected.
The gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) and I spent months debating the meaning of a word, and we finally came pretty close to getting a bill put together. The substitute represents, I think, a step back in the negotiations in that everything that you wanted that you did not get, you put in the substitute; change the words a little bit so that they really do not mean anything. There is no protection for private property owners. I remember 10 years ago, I introduced a bill on endangered species, and one of the major provisions in that bill was to utilize public lands, and I got ripped over it because 90 percent of the species have their habitat on private land. You cannot just put the focus on public lands. You cannot. But if it is going to work, if we are truly going to put the focus on recovery, if we are truly going to try to bring these species back from the brink and do the responsible thing, private property owners have to be part of the solution.
We hear a lot of horror stories about things that have happened in my district and Mr. Cardoza's district and Mr. Costa's district and Mr. Baca's district, in your district, Mr. Miller.
If you do not do something to protect the property owners, those stories are never going to stop. The act has been a failure in recovering species. Now we can all agree.
When it comes to protecting private property owners, regardless of what all the hot rhetoric is, what the underlying law says is that if you meet State and local zoning laws, if you go through the process of getting that approval, then you have something. If you are a farmer farming your land and they tell you that you cannot farm your land anymore, you can get compensated for agriculture land.
If you are a developer who has gone through the process, gotten your land zoned and they tell you you cannot use it, then that is what you get compensated for. But once land has that restriction on it, whoever buys it cannot come back again and say they want something else, because they know it is restricted.
So this argument is totally out of line and off base. We protect private property owners. That is what leads to recovery. The substitute just does not.
Vote against the substitute, support the base bill, and let us move on with some decent legislation.
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