Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I reluctantly rise to oppose the gentleman from Washington's amendment and support the underlying bill. A lot of compelling arguments have been made tonight to support the Endangered Species Act without interruption. They talk about the bald eagle and the compelling story about seeing those magnificent birds, and those are visual images that we all like.

But there's a side to the Endangered Species Act that is not being told. That's the side where one group just this year filed 1,000 petitions at one time to list new species. They know that their lawyers get reimbursed from the Federal Government every time they bring suit, and so they're happy to bring these actions which are destroying jobs in the West.

For instance, in the Second District of New Mexico, a suggested listing was given this year on the sand dune lizard, a small brown lizard that I've seen in the sand hills since I was going up there. They were plentiful then; they're about the same number now, but they have been listed as endangered.

And people didn't think much of it. And then they began to read the reports that anything that disturbs the surface of the ground would represent a potential threat to the habitat of the lizard and would thereby be prohibited.

Disturb the ground, they ask. What does that mean? Well, that means oil and gas activity. That means that $2.8 billion investment for nuclear enrichment that is taking place in southern Lea County, just taking place now, creating jobs for the first time in the nuclear industry that has been dormant for 30 years, would be shut down because they disturb the ground.

It would stop the high line wires from being put up and the electric utility crews from driving to the homesteads miles and miles away from the nearest town because they would disturb the ground. They could not even check the power lines to make sure electricity is going to these remote areas.

This is the Endangered Species Act that we're seeing.

People would come to me in disbelief and say, Mr. Pearce, it is not true? They couldn't kill our jobs with a lizard, could they? What about us as humans? What do they say?

I said, Take a look at the San Joaquin Valley. Twenty-seven thousand farmers put out of work with a 2-inch Delta smelt that we could have kept alive in holding ponds and bred by the millions and put into the rivers and go ahead and use the rivers for irrigation. But instead, a judge found that we had to shut down the entire agricultural product.

We began to import vegetables from areas that spray contaminants that we are not allowed to use in this Nation, a less safe food supply. We kill 27,000 jobs. We caused jobs to be created somewhere else, less safe food supply, all for a 2-inch minnow that could have been kept alive in some other fashion.

We also have a Lesser prairie-chicken that threatens the oil and gas jobs in our area. They're saying that the bird might not fly under or over those lines, so we can't put up electric lines across. Then, bury the lines, people say. Well, then the lizard wouldn't go across the area that's been disturbed by burying the lines.

It's easy to see why people are saying that the Endangered Species Act is not functioning properly and we've got to stop it. We are spending $3.5 trillion a year in our government and we're bringing in $2.2 trillion. Part of the problem is we've killed enough of our jobs, we've killed enough of our economy that we're in severe debt and deficit crisis.

Now, one of the problems is we've systematically eliminated the timber industry because of a spotted owl. We eliminated those 27,000 farmer jobs in the San Joaquin Valley. We've got the salmon swimming upstream, and now it's threatening that we've got to tear down all the hydroelectric dams. And the list goes on and on.

It is time for us to say that we can preserve the species and create jobs at the same time. That's not an unreasonable request. But to those lawyers making $350 a hour, they don't care if it's reasonable or not. To the Fish and Wildlife Service, they arrogantly told the people in New Mexico, No, we didn't do an economic study to see the cost on the jobs. We're not required to. These are things that are making people say enough is enough.

It's in my district that 900 people showed up to protest at one of the hearings on the listing of the lizard; 900 people coming out, and the Fish and Wildlife Service came to me in nervousness before the meeting and said, Would you speak to those who couldn't get into the meeting? They're agitated. I said, People do get agitated when you start killing their careers, when you start taking the jobs away from them.

There's a side to the Endangered Species Act that is being dealt with here tonight. I support the underlying bill and oppose the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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