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. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his tremendous work on this legislation.

I applaud my colleagues here today for offering this amendment in the nature of a substitute. It goes a long way in making meaningful reforms to the Endangered Species Act without hollowing the fundamental goals of America's flagship wildlife conservation efforts. While there have been successes in species recovery since enactment of the 32-year-old Endangered Species Act, most would agree that it is in need of real reform to make it more effective in species recovery, less demanding on some landowners, and less prone to lawsuits and bureaucracy.

However, pushing the problematic and prohibitively expensive H.R. 3824, the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act through the legislative process has left a sour taste in many of our mouths because it removes the enforceable protections for species recovery and creates the entitlement program for private landowners.

At a time when our country is still coping with the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most recently with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, one has to wonder why a rewrite of the Endangered Species Act that includes an entitlement program is even a consideration. This substitute will improve the recovery of more species, put back into place needed enforcement of species recovery plans, and it will do all of this and much more without creating an entitlement program.

This bipartisan substitute is a more pragmatic solution, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it.

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