Endangered Species Improvement Act of 2014

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today just before Congress goes on a 5-week recess for the entire month of August and the first week of September. During that time, we will celebrate Labor Day. There are a lot of reasons to celebrate Labor Day, but it has particular context to this debate today.

One hundred years ago this Labor Day, Martha died.

Now, perhaps not everybody here knows about or has heard about Martha. Martha was the last passenger pigeon. She died in the Cincinnati Zoo. None of us remember passenger pigeons, but they were in numbers so great--billions--that they would darken the sky for hours or days as they passed. Yet, within a very short period of time, they became extinct. I believe she is stuffed and on display at the Smithsonian. I think they have a special exhibit on this that I would recommend to people to remember the way things used to be.

We did then, 50 years later, pass the Endangered Species Act. So this is kind of symmetrical in that, 100 years ago, there was the last passenger pigeon, and 50 years later, we adopted a law to try and preserve species. I think the most eloquent words I have ever heard on endangered species were from Justice Douglas on the Mineral King decision. This doesn't do all of his decision justice, but here is just one sentence:

When a species is gone, it is gone forever. Nature's

genetic chain--billions of years in the making--is broken for

all time. Conserve water. Conserve land. Conserve life.

Then he went on to speculate about what might be lost with any individual species, what potential it might have had. Could it cure cancer? If we lose these species, who knows?

So Congress 50 years ago--in a very different time and in a very bipartisan way--passed the Endangered Species Act.

Today, we have before us yet another missed opportunity. I am not going to look at the Endangered Species Act and say it is perfect. It isn't. I believe a 50-year-old law could use some revision. A lot has been learned. A lot of real science has changed in the interim, in particular, the individual listing of species, and particularly when they occupy the same space. It becomes very problematic, as opposed to taking more of an ecosystem-based approach. There are some who are modifying the whole idea of how we deal with critical habitat, but that is not before us today. It wasn't considered by the so-called ``working group'' of the committee or ``special group'' or whatever it was.

They concluded that the Endangered Species Act is a failure because it hasn't recovered enough species. They did leave out a little fact that 90 percent of the species that are listed are recovering at the rate specified in their Federal recovery plans. This doesn't happen instantaneously. There are years of degradation of environment, years of overharvesting or of overhunting. Those things don't get changed in a short period of time, but 90 percent are on target. They left that out probably because it didn't support their conclusion that the act just isn't working at all.

We have an estimate, actually, that without the Endangered Species Act passed by a more enlightened Congress--bipartisan--50 years ago, there would be 227 species that would have gone extinct since the law's passage. They include gray wolves--although, there are some trying to turn around that recovery effort, including some in this administration--green sea turtles, humpback whales, and, of course, the iconic bald eagle. Without the Endangered Species Act, they, in all probability, would all be extinct, a memory for our generation--gone.

As I said, it is not perfect, and I think there are changes we could make. It is truly a deliberative process in the committee, but that wouldn't be just a small group from one side of the aisle going around the country, holding so-called ``hearings'' or ``listening sessions.'' We could assure greater transparency in ways that weren't considered and won't be proposed here today. We could promote better the use of best science. We could improve cooperation and coordination with the States that are committed to species protection and recovery.

However, none of the legislation before us will do that. It will do nothing to improve species recovery. It will do nothing to improve the science underlying listing decisions. Instead, actually, contravening what the Republicans espouse to wish, these bills will, instead, increase the amount of red tape that is involved, create more reporting requirements, divert agency resources from recovery efforts, and most oddly--and, I think, perhaps, it is the oddest and most objectionable and nonsensical part of this legislation--it will deem that any data submitted by any Native American tribe, any city, county, or State, will be deemed to be the best available science.

Now, there are 16,000 counties in America. Let's say a couple of them come to a different conclusion. Suddenly, the agency is confronted with: we have the best available science from this county, and we have the best available science from this county, and we have the best available science from this county. Hmm. Wow. Haven't we created an unbelievable potential for litigation over any decisions that are made given that mandate? I think we have. Of course, that may be why they go on later in the bill to limit attorneys' fees--because they are anticipating that there will be a huge proliferation of litigation, and they want to mitigate the costs of the problem that they are going to create with this nonsensical ``this is the best available science.'' I think it is going to create a lot of tension, potentially, between States and counties--rural counties and urban counties--because they are all vying to submit the best available science.

Here we are, yet again, taking up time on the floor, and I guess we need to do that before we get to real things, like the suing of the President of the United States despite the fact that courts have definitively decided we can't do that. We have political tools, and it is a controversy, but that is not before us today--that is tomorrow--so we are trying to kill time to build up to that end just before we go off on recess. But I am going to raise another topic, and it is a bit sensitive.

About 12 years ago, I had massive fires burning in my district--the Biscuit Fire--and the committee just happened to be holding a hearing on

wildfires. It devolved into the usual partisan ``you go to your corner, and I will go to mine. We need to do a forest supplemental. We need to do this.'' As sometimes I do, I expostulated a bit in the committee, and I went and used my entire 5 minutes to say how wrong I thought this was and that I thought fires were very bipartisan in their destruction and that we should cut it out.

A few Members--oddly enough, from very different perspectives--came to me afterwards. That would have been George Miller. It is predictable that George would side with me, but also we had Scott McInnis, we had John Shadegg, and, ultimately, we had Greg Walden involved. We sat down, and we hammered out something that, ultimately, didn't pass through the House, but our framework was adopted by the Senate--HFRA. Then it came back to the House and was adopted. It was an attempt to expedite fuel reduction and prevent the intensity of future fires.

I look at that as a model of how we should deal with fires. We do need to do more fuel reduction work, and we do need to do more preparation and pre-positioning, but we also have to fight the fires that are burning today.

Now there is the rarest of rare things in Washington, D.C., even rarer than the rarest endangered species, which would be a bill which is bipartisan. I guess a lot of people don't know what that means anymore.

It means it is supported by both Democrats and Republicans, bicameral, by both Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the Senate in substantial numbers, and is supported by the President of the United States.

Now, that is a pretty endangered thing. It has been around for quite a number of months. We have yet in the House. And it is a bill that is designed both to mitigate for future fires and to more efficiently fight fires.

The agencies that are tasked with fighting fires are about to run out of money. It happens every year. Who cares if they run out of money? Well, they have got to keep fighting the fires.

All right. Well, what do they do? They gut all their other programs-- including the fuel reduction program, the forest health program, the timber program, the recreation program--things that are going to bring about more intense and more fires in the future and impact anybody who has a national forest or interior lands in their State or their area.

Now, this bill has yet to have a single hearing or any consideration, except for a mention in the Ryan budget which said he didn't support it. That is it. That is the total action by the House of Representatives on this issue. That is very sad. That is what we should be here on the floor today considering.

There are, as of this moment--I just checked it out because it is worse every day. We have, currently, nationally, 25 major fires: seven in Oregon--these are all uncontained or partially uncontained--six in California; four in Washington, including the largest in the State's history; three in Utah; two in Idaho; one in Colorado; and phenomenal lightning storms are predicted over the next 2 days, which means many, many, many more fires. Yet Congress is going to pass, I expect the House will pass, this ESA, so-called ESA bill today and leave town without dealing with the firefighting issue. I think it is very sad.

Now, some say, well, we have already done our job. We passed a bill, a couple of bills, a number of bills that could deal with forest health, future mitigation, fuel reduction. That is true. But even if they became law today, they wouldn't deal with today's problem that the agencies are going to run out of fire. And even if they became law today, it would take many years to get there.

I have got some pretty good estimates. We have somewhere around 75 million acres of land at high risk of wildfire in the West. And if we use the most conservative possible estimate, one that estimates there is a lot of commercial value there that reduces thinning cost, one that assumes that there is a lot of biomass available that is economic, you could get it down to, say, $300, $500 an acre. Well, that would be $20 billion to go out and do that work. We are about to spend the paltry budget for this year, $300 million for fuel reduction on fighting current fires. So we aren't exactly getting there.

It is a real issue, and that is what we should be dealing with here today.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

The gentleman made a point with which I would agree, which is they should consider and give due weight to local submissions and people in the area. But unfortunately, and perhaps the gentleman is unaware, this bill elevates that, and it does say all science submitted by States, tribes, and local governments is, by definition, the best scientific and commercial data. Then, if you refer back to the law, under basis for determinations on endangered species and a number of other things, the Secretary shall rely on the best scientific and commercial data.

Well, now, suddenly everybody who is submitting something has the best commercial and scientific data, and the Secretary is somehow supposed to sort out between 10 different counties, five States, 14 cities, and 18 Indian tribes who all have different disagreeing best available commercial data and science. You are creating a standard which, given the existing law which you didn't change, is going to be impossible to meet.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself 1 minute.

Well, tomorrow I fully expect the Republicans to prevail on the floor of the House to authorize litigation against the President of the United States for nonjusticiable controversy, all per all the previous precedents of the court.

I would note they spent $525 an hour on attorneys to defend the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act, which was ultimately found unconstitutional. And I expect they will spend well over $500 an hour for a nonjusticiable political stunt suing the President.

But beyond that, during this Congress, the requests, subpoenas, et cetera, by the committee to the Department of the Interior for purported conspiracies, which have yielded nothing, cost $2.5 million. The total award to attorneys was $1.7 million. So if we reined in the subpoenas a little bit, you could save more money than by limiting the attorneys and people's access to justice.

With that, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller).

I would inquire of the time remaining on both sides.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Chairman, I would reserve the balance of my time, since I only have 1 minute remaining, until that side has no further speakers.

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

I will close where I ended my opening remarks, 25 major fires burning in the West: seven in Oregon, six in California, four in Washington, two in Utah, two in Idaho, and one in Colorado. And by this time next week, probably twice as many, but next week Congress will be out of session.

The agencies will run out of money. They can't stop fighting the fires. So

what they will do is they will pull back money that would prevent future intense wildfires from prevention programs. They will pull back money from recreation programs. They will pull back money from a host of things that Americans care about and want to have funded just to fight these fires. It is an endless cycle. We need to deal with it.

We could have dealt with it here today instead of spending multiple hours on a bill which is going nowhere, which is poorly drafted to the point where anybody, any city, county, tribe, State who writes on the back of a napkin can submit that to the agency and it must be considered the best available science and commercial data. And under the law, the Secretary has to use that to make a decision.

How the heck is that going to work? You are saying you are worried about attorney's fees; you are creating a universe for new litigation with this misguided approach.

So I wish we would return to a bipartisan addressing of the forest fire issue because I know there is bipartisan concern on it. There is a bill pending in the House--54 Republicans, 54 Democrats. We should take that bill up today, tomorrow, or Thursday before we leave town and fund our firefighting efforts.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I do not oppose the amendment.

This is similar to an amendment offered by the chairman in committee which carved out an exemption for private individuals. This would carve out another amendment for the Department of Defense.

Unfortunately, crafting legislation so it doesn't have unintended impacts is often a difficult, deliberative process. In this case, the overly broad language in this section would still require commercial data from timber and oil and gas companies. That is not covered by the exemptions in the bill. And also, it could require data containing business activity locations, operation plans, information regarding species found on their lands, and they would be published on the Internet, which would be an invitation to trespass in the case of private timber companies having to publish that sort of invitation.

So I don't think the exemption goes far enough. I think the entire provision should be stricken. But again, I will not bother to oppose this amendment, but I will oppose the underlying bill.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier, and it was mentioned by a number of Democrats on this side, we don't think the Endangered Species Act is perfect and we could work on a bipartisan basis on modernization-type reforms to bring it into the 21st century, compliant with current science. However, that is not before us today. But I am hopeful that this amendment, because of a very unsettling precedent by the Obama administration, will get bipartisan support.

Now, the Republicans may, in this case, agree with the objectives of an agency of government which has gone rogue in this case, which is Fish and Wildlife. They have been trying for years to remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately, science isn't on their side. Wolves have not recovered throughout much of their range. Oregon and Washington have a few packs; California, Colorado, Utah, and New York have none. However, they have cooked up a little bit of science to justify their determination to delist.

Now, in the case of Oregon, OR-7, his mate, and pups, might be pretty safe. They are down in the corner of the State. California won't be hunting wolves because of their own Endangered Species Act. But his relatives up in the northeast corner of Oregon, should they cross the border into Idaho, they will be immediately assassinated. That is the result of what Fish and Wildlife and Congress combined have done.

They cooked up the science. Unfortunately, science has to be peer- reviewed and published in journals. No journal would publish it. Not even some of the captive industry journals or the livestock association journal. Nobody would publish it. They said this is junk.

So what did they do? Well, they came up with a zombie journal. They revived an internal journal called North American Fauna, which was an internal Fish and Wildlife little newsletter, and it hasn't been printed previously since 1991.

Now, again, I imagine most Republicans are saying: So what, if this helps us get rid of the wolf--which many on that side of the aisle would like to do--so be it, that is good.

Well, just think what is going to happen when Fish and Wildlife and this administration, or another administration, wants to make a decision contrary to what you care about? What if they want to cook up a phony science on the sage-grouse, the lesser prairie chicken, or on some of these other species that have been talked about today? They drag out the North American fauna label and they say: Hey, it has been published, and that is what we based our decision on.

This is a very disturbing trend by an administration--inexplicable that this administration would go down this particular path. And again, even if you may agree with delisting the wolf and greatly reducing the populations, which are nowhere near what they should be for a full recovery, threatening again a future, more comprehensive, listing-- again, a bit shortsighted if you support that, but you may.

But just think if you let this stand. If you let these people these Federal bureaucrats, these hacks, get away with this. They cooked something up. I mean, really? You can't even get the sheep journal to publish this because they really hate the wolves, or the cattleman's journal, they really hate the wolves. No, they wouldn't publish it. They had to come up with a phony internal journal, because it was so bad that they knew they would be subject to ridicule and violating essentially their own morals and ethics by doing that.

I would hope that the Republicans can support this amendment, because even though they may agree with the ends here, they surely should disagree with the process.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, well, I didn't understand that.

Look, a Federal agency revived a journal that had been extinct for 23 years. It is an internal document. They took phony science and published it in that, and then they based a delisting decision on it. If they based a listing decision on it, you guys would be going berserk over there.

What I am precluding is future Federal agencies, no matter where they come down on a listing decision, from using phony science which is only self-published. This is like whack nuts who write books about crazy things and they publish it themselves and say: Look, it was a book. Yeah, it is a book. You paid to publish it.

In this case, they used taxpayer money to publish a phony study to justify a decision they had already made, which you might happen to agree with.

But what happens when they use that same tactic to do that with a decision you disagree with, to actually list something?

This has nothing to do with transparency. It doesn't need to be transparent because they couldn't use it. It is phony science. They would not be allowed to use phony science by self-publishing it. That is simply what the amendment does, and I can't believe you guys are going to oppose it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I am bemused by this.

It is simple. It says:

The term ``best scientific and commercial data available''

includes all such data submitted by a State, tribal, or

county government.

That means all the data. That means if all the counties, States, and tribes don't agree, you have conflicting best available data. That is what we are saying. We want them to take all data into account, but you can't deem that theirs is the best.

In the case of nitrification in the Columbia River, Oregon and Washington disagree. They have competing science, but now, they would have to weigh it equally. I have heard tribes say to save salmon and delist them, you have to take all the dams out of the river. That becomes the best available science, if submitted by a tribe?

What are you guys thinking? We want them to listen to everybody. Everybody can submit something, but we don't then deem it to be the best available data. That is nuts.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I just wonder if the gentleman can name one piece of litigation which was sponsored by Federal tax dollars, and I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, the gentleman can't name one lawsuit, one organization using Federal tax dollars. I guess that is probably because he is familiar with OMB Circular A-87 that says neither a State, local government, or an Indian tribal government can use money provided by the Federal Government for legal expenses for prosecution of claims against the Federal Government.

Well, okay, that leaves a big hole. What about nonprofits? They get Federal money. That would be OMB Circular A-122, ``Cost Principles for Nonprofit Organizations,'' which says, ``Costs of legal, accounting, and consultant services, and related costs, incurred in connection with defense against Federal Government claims or appeals, antitrust suits, or the prosecution of claims or appeals against the Federal Government, are unallowable.''

So we are now going to have the agency chase a Chimera--that is, something that has never happened and can't happen under law. They have got to go out and spend a bunch of money trying to unearth it.

If the gentleman could just name one instance, then that might change the argument, but he can't.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, the gentleman misstated what his amendment does. It doesn't say that individuals filing litigation under the Endangered Species Act must disclose whether or not they receive any Federal funds and are using any Federal funds in this case. It doesn't say that.

It says that Fish and Wildlife Service must determine. How is the Fish and Wildlife Service going to determine whether or not someone used Federal funds?

As he said, money is fungible. He is saying they may be violating the circular that prohibits nonprofit organizations from doing this. They may be violating the circular.

These are, of course, criminal offenses, that prohibit State, local, and Indian tribal governments from using Federal money for such litigation. He is saying that may be go going on, so then Fish and Wildlife should just discover it themselves.

How is that going to work? It sends Fish and Wildlife on a mission that it is not equipped to handle. They can't say: pretty please, tell us.

If someone is violating the law, they are probably not going to volunteer it to Fish and Wildlife.

If you wanted to do this, you would have to write an amendment that amends the Rules of Civil Procedure or whatever--I am not a lawyer-- that would require that these litigants disclose at the time of filing their litigation. Saying Fish and Wildlife should find out after it has been filed is absolutely absurd.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 4315.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to bring before the House legislation that would help update and improve the Endangered Species Act, a law that was passed initially 40 years ago, but has not been reauthorized since 1988.

H.R. 4315 melds together four commonsense and focused bills introduced earlier this year by myself and my colleagues, Mrs. Lummis of Wyoming, Mr. Neugebauer of Texas, and Mr. Huizenga of Michigan. While respecting the original intent of the ESA to conserve species, this bill would help make the law more effective for both species and people.

Because of the more than 500 ESA-related lawsuits that have been filed against the government during this administration alone, it has become clear that costly litigation is not only driving ESA priorities but that litigation has become an impediment to species recovery.

I should also note that, regardless of what some groups are saying, this is not a comprehensive bill. It is four sections that aim to increase transparency; to enlist greater consultation by States, localities, and tribes; and to reduce taxpayer-financed attorneys' fees to help invest more funding in actual species recovery.

For example, section 2 of the bill requires data used by Federal agencies that decide which species should be added to the threatened or endangered list to be publicly available and accessible through the Internet. What a remarkable idea--transparency. The last significant update to the ESA was when the Internet was in its infancy stages. Posting data supporting key ESA decisions online will greatly enhance transparency and data quality. The American people should be able to access such data before Federal listing or delisting decisions are final.

It is troubling that hundreds of sweeping listing decisions by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service cite unpublished studies, professional opinions, and other sources that are inaccessible to the public, yet this data would be used to regulate the very people who don't have access to this information. This secrecy goes against the grain of good science and transparency. Data transparency is not only good for the American public, in that it makes our government more accountable, but it is also good for species because it allows for an open conversation about improving species science.

As biologist Rob Roy Ramey testified at a Natural Resources Committee hearing:

When the data are not publicly accessible, legitimate

scientific inquiry and debate is effectively eliminated, and

no independent third party can produce the results. This

action puts the basis of some ESA decisions outside the realm

of science, and species recovery is no better off.

Withholding data does not further the goal of species

recovery.

I couldn't agree more with that statement, especially when over 700 species could potentially be listed over

the next few years throughout the country. These potential listings are due to this administration's megalawsuit settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians, groups, I might add, Mr. Chairman, that have filed hundreds of lawsuits against the government at taxpayer expense.

One of these species could include the northern long-eared bat, and I have a map here to show. This listing could impact 39 States. As you can see, Mr. Chairman, it is nearly all of the Eastern States. Information on data when it comes to this species listing can only help and not hurt. The bill before us today fosters the release of this information.

Section 3 of the bill would enhance State, local, and tribal involvement in ESA decisions by requiring that, before any listing decision is made, the Federal Government must disclose its data to States affected by such actions. In addition, section 3 ensures that data from local, State, and tribal entities--those are the entities that are closest to the ground, Mr. Chairman--be factored into ESA listing decisions.

Section 4 would require the administration to track and make available online the costs, in time and in resources, to the taxpayers as a result of ESA-related litigation.

Finally, section 5 would seek to reduce taxpayer-financed attorneys' fees to help ensure Federal resources are focused more on species protection and recovery than on lucrative legal fees for serial litigants. Such fees now, Mr. Chairman, are awarded as high as $600 an hour. This provision in section 5 puts in place the same reasonable hourly caps on attorneys' fees used in another Federal law--the Equal Access to Justice Act--which deals with veterans, Social Security disability, and other such claims.

Mr. Chairman, H.R. 4315 starts with modest, sensible updates to the ESA by promoting transparency, greater State, local, and tribal involvement, and by bringing ESA litigation fees in line with another Federal law.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer), who is the author of one of the provisions within this bill.

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga), an author of another provision of this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis), another person who is the author of another section of this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), a member of the working group.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Benishek), another member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar), another member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), another member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce), a former member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford), in whose district we had a field hearing on the impact of the Endangered Species Act.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins) who is also experiencing the effects of this act.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Stewart), a former member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao), a very active Member on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I advise the gentleman from Oregon that I am prepared to close, so if he wants to use his time, then I will close.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me make a couple of points on issues that have been raised. First of all, H.R. 4315 is not a comprehensive reform to the Endangered Species Act. It is very targeted.

I might mention that several Members on the other side talked about species going extinct. I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, that during testimony in the House Natural Resources Committee, nobody testified that they are in favor of species going extinct.

Several Members said this bill weakens the Endangered Species Act. Mr. Chairman, how does transparency weaken a bill? I do not see how that works.

Finally, there seems to be a lot of discussion about allowing local entities and tribes to use their data in the listing of species. Several Members on the other side said the act deems that should happen. It does not at all. In fact, let me read it. It says:

The best scientific and commercial data available includes

all such data submitted by State, tribal, or county

government.

Now, we will have more debate on this because there are two amendments that address this section, but I just wanted to mention that this is a targeted look at the Endangered Species Act. It is not a comprehensive reform, but it certainly will, I think, get more people involved, especially because of this megasettlement, the impact that this will have on the rest of the country.

Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of H.R. 4315.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I offer this manager's amendment which would clarify two important items relating to section 2 and public disclosure of the Federal Government's ESA data.

First, the amendment would provide an important but technical clarification that the intent of the bill is for any Federal public disclosure of ESA data on the Internet under the bill to be completely consistent with data privacy laws of States, including those that protect personal identifiable information from disclosure.

A significant amount of the ``best available scientific and commercial data'' currently used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service for ESA listing decisions is derived from States which have diverse laws protecting the privacy of their citizens and sensitive species data.

While some make completely baseless suggestions that more data disclosure on the Internet could lead to poaching of species, this amendment would allow States an added layer of confidence that the information they choose to share with the Federal Government does not compromise their own data privacy laws.

Second, the amendment clarifies that the bill would not require disclosure of classified Department of Defense information related to lands, personnel, installations, or waters within their jurisdiction.

The Endangered Species Act has a significant impact on U.S. military activities. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service Web site, more than 300 ESA-listed species are located on the more than 25 million acres spread across hundreds of Department of Defense installations across the Nation. While greater data transparency related to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or National Marine Fisheries Service listing decisions is important, branches of the American military should not have to disclose information that would in any way compromise national security.

So my amendment would make clear that the Fish and Wildlife Service's or the National Marine Fisheries Service's disclosure of best available scientific and commercial data on the Internet can be accomplished while safeguarding classified or sensitive Defense Department information.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I thank the gentleman from Oregon for his support of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).

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

Mr. Chairman, when I listen to my good friend from Oregon's arguments, in many respects, maybe indirectly, he is making precisely the argument that we are making with this bill. That is, whatever data is being used to list or delist should be made available to the public so they can ascertain if that data is correct.

Now, the gentleman talked about data that was made up. Okay, that is his interpretation. If it is made up, shouldn't we know that? Shouldn't we know that that is what the data is being used to make these decisions rather than just accepting it?

Mr. Chairman, that is precisely what this bill is all about, to have transparency on this scientific data. That is really all we are asking about.

The argument got shifted to other things, like we are destroying the Endangered Species Act and so forth. Nothing could be further from the truth.

His amendment, however, does something that I think violates the principle we are trying to do. He wants to exclude certain stuff from us being transparent with it, or for the people having transparency to that data.

So, Mr. Chairman, I urge also rejection of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).

Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to close, so I reserve the balance of my time.

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

First of all, Mr. Chairman, I am not embarrassed by this piece of legislation. Let me walk through this and explain why this language says what it says because I think our friends on the other side of the aisle are leaving out a very important word when they are debating this issue.

The language in question is the term ``best scientific and commerce data available includes all such data submitted,'' and so forth.

They are arguing as if the word ``such'' was taken out, where it would read ``scientific and commercial data available includes all data.'' We didn't say ``all data.'' We said ``all such data.''

What does that mean? How does that relate? All such data that relates to scientific and commercial data coming from the local communities-- what is wrong with that argument?

By the way, the agency still has discretion to use that data, but it should be part of it because lacking having this language in the bill means that the only data is what my friend from Oregon criticized when we were discussing the wolves.

Mr. Chairman, I think this language is pretty straightforward. It says ``all such data that relates to it, as developed by local communities and tribes.'' That should be part of the transparency.

So I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding and for bringing this issue to the floor. I think it adds very much to what we are trying to do with this underlying legislation, which is adding transparency to our efforts.

I support the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, of course this body should recognize the treaties that we have made with our Native American neighbors. And I say that with the privilege of representing a central Washington district that has two Indian tribes and reservations within my district. So that goes without saying.

However, we have had on this floor I don't know how many motions to recommit. And sometimes I wonder exactly what these motions to recommit are trying to do, other than maybe just make a political point. And I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that is probably so true with this motion to recommit.

Now why do I say that? I say that because this motion to recommit implies that tribal members should be part of the discussion. Well, of course they should. But apparently my friend from Arizona did not read the bill because section 3 in the bill says very specifically that consultation should be made with locals, including tribes.

And to add insult to injury, Mr. Speaker, the last amendment that was offered, offered by my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), would take out the section that says tribal respect ought to be in the underlying bill, and the gentlewoman from Arizona voted for it. Now she comes down to the floor and says we ought to insert into the bill something for tribal authorities that we already had in the bill.

I have no idea, Mr. Speaker, where these motions to recommit are going, but I will say this. This bill deals with transparency in the Federal Government to the citizens of the United States. That ought to be number one on our minds, and that is what this bill does.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the motion to recommit and for the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 4315, the 21st Century Endangered Species Transparency Act.

I also want to thank Chairman Hastings for all of the work that he has done on this issue, and I also want to thank him for inviting me to be a part of the ESA Working Group and for including my bill, H.R. 4317, the State, Tribal, and Local Species Transparency and Recovery Act, in the final version of this bill.

In the 19th District, we have been facing a lot of these issues with the Endangered Species Act. We had the lesser prairie chicken. We had the Dunes Sage Lizard and some of the areas dealing with minnows. But one of the things that this bill does in the part of the bill that I introduced is something that is very simple and straightforward and very commonsense, and that is to say we need to make sure, before we make some of these decisions, that we have the facts.

Now, that is kind of a novel idea. When we have a lawsuit, everybody gets to present the facts. And so what we are saying, and when we begin to go down the road of listing, causing millions of dollars' worth of expense and, in some cases, encumbering millions of acres of private property, we need to deal with the facts.

Now, why are we bringing this bill up? Well, it has been pointed out that this bill is like over 40 years old and over 1,500 species have been listed, and only 2 percent of those have been recovered.

Now, imagine going to a doctor and you say: Doctor, what is your outcome ratio? He says: 2 percent of the time I have good outcomes. Or imagine buying a product where you say this product works 2 percent of the time. So, basically, the ESA, Endangered Species Act, does need reform, and my bill, this bill, begins to do that.

What does it do? It just says that when the Federal Government has collected data and they are making the decision, they have to make all of the findings, all of the data that they used to reach that decision available to the States and local governments and to the stakeholders.

That seems fair to me.

The other thing it says is that the local stakeholders and the local State governments and the local county governments have the right to present their facts.

Now, one of the things that is important about that is that, I know a lot more about Lubbock, Texas, than maybe somebody that lives in the State of Oregon or the State of New Jersey. So that local knowledge of the habitat, the conditions is an important part of the data.

So when you are dealing with the facts, then I think we are going to have better outcomes. And if that is the goal of the Endangered Species Act, then why are we trying to suppress the facts? I don't get it. So that is the reason that this is an important part of that.

I notice that the gentleman mentioned that he thinks that this bill somehow dictates what is the best science. Not true. What it says, though, is that all of the data that they collect they have to present to the other stakeholders. What it also says is that the data that the stakeholders and the county and local and State governments present, they have to consider that data.

Now, if somebody has got a study about what they think the conditions in Lubbock, Texas, are, we think the people on the ground in Lubbock, Texas, or in west Texas probably have better information and ought to be a part of that consideration.

I encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 4315.

Mr. Chairman, as I was listening to the gentleman, I was wondering if he was talking about the amendment that he had actually offered, because actually he is making the case that I stood up to make today.

Let me tell you what this amendment would do. It would exclude scientific information published solely in the internal Interior Department publications from the definition of ``best available science,'' which would allow the Department of Interior to avoid transparency requirements in section 2 of the bill, which requires that the data used by the Federal agencies for the Endangered Species Act listing decisions to be made publicly available and accessible through the Internet.

So what the gentleman was saying is they cooked the books, they cooked the information, and he doesn't want that to be made available. So here we are making important decisions about the potential taking of people's land, spending millions of dollars in mitigation for what may be false science.

This gentleman's amendment defeats the whole purpose of transparency, the intention of this bill.

What we are trying to do is we are going to say: Let's take the facts, let's take the best available science that the Fish and Wildlife and some of these agencies say that they have, let's compare it with what is the best available science from the stakeholders and come up with the truth.

But the gentleman's amendment, which I urge Members to defeat, defeats the whole purpose of that transparency. The American people deserve that. Their tax money is being used

against them in the fact that the tax money is going out and being used to determine what is the best available science. Now if we have got the best available science--in fact, as the gentleman referred to it as ``cooking the science,'' then the American people ought to have an opportunity to dispute that and it not be hidden from them in some agency memo.

With that, I encourage Members to defeat the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, basically, what the gentleman's amendment would do is strike the language in the section of this bill that requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider all data submitted by State, tribal, or county governments as best scientific and commercial data available.

Let me dispel one of the myths. It says that all of this data has to be considered best scientific and commercial data. That is not necessarily true. The Fish and Wildlife Service still has discrimination over what data that it considers. What it does say is that it must consider the data that is submitted.

The other thing that you hear my friends on the other side of the aisle say is that I guess all of the best data and all of the smartest people in the country must be in Washington, D.C., but we have Mr. DeFazio, the gentleman from Oregon, stand up and say:

no, sometimes they cook the books. So I wondered if that memo that the gentleman was talking about was the best commercial and available science for the wolf. Obviously, he was saying it was not.

What we are really saying about all of this is it is just about transparency. It is about recognizing that the people in the States and the local governments may actually have better information on the ground about a lot of these issues than somebody sitting in Washington, looking at some model or some report that someone has drawn up.

I will talk about my State of Texas, for example. The Texas Parks and Wildlife service has developed over 8,000 wildlife management plans covering over 30 million acres. I would probably tell you that those people have some of the best available and commercial science on a lot of the issues facing Texas probably a little bit more than maybe somebody sitting in Washington, D.C., or some other State.

So one of the things that I am a little perplexed about is my colleagues keep fighting the transparency. This President said he was going to have one of the most transparent administrations in history, but that has been far from the truth.

I would encourage my colleagues to defeat this amendment. It defeats the whole purpose of the bill and the intention of letting the American people know the facts.

If you go to a trial, you don't get to use only your facts. You have to hear everybody's facts. Since this is a trial that determines whether these species are in fact endangered or not endangered anymore, we should be able to deal with the facts, but we can't deal with one set of facts. We have to deal with all of the facts.

So if you want to hear all of the facts, defeat this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding the time, and I thank him for his defense of the Endangered Species Act. And I thank him for how he administers his position as the ranking member of the Resources Committee.

This is an old argument. We have been around here time and again. Time and again, people who don't like the Endangered Species Act have tried to put their thumb on one side of the scale of justice whenever these arguments come forward. They have tried to empower junk science and give it the status of thoughtful, proven science to get in.

But now they are suggesting that the science would be based upon the party that submits it. If the right parties--if a local entity submits it, then it will be judged as the best science. Whether or not it is science at all won't matter. It will simply be deemed that by the Congress of the United States, and the Department will have to follow that.

That just, obviously, takes you right back to the courtroom, where they now inspire litigation. When the citizens want to sue, then the citizens will have to go back to the courtroom because they have deemed junk science as real science. And then they will try to limit the amount that the citizens can be compensated in terms of their lawyers.

And yet, as the gentleman from Oregon just pointed out, they are going to spend millions of dollars suing the President of the United States, and they are not going to pay for any of it. They are going to charge it to the deficit. They will charge it to the deficit. So how is this justice coming out of the House of Representatives?

The fact of the matter is, the Endangered Species Act has been effective. It has worked. It saves species. It has returned species off of the list. And the American people truly support it in great numbers. They truly support it in great numbers because they recognize that this is about one generation taking care of what we inherited and passing it on to another generation. People are most often pleased with the public spaces that have been preserved to protect it, to protect the various species.

Has every decision been exactly right? Of course not. And that is why people go to court on both sides of the law.

Nobody is suggesting that you limit it equally. This is a question of the science being used and who gets a leg up in that argument in the courts, which leads to more litigation. So the idea is that you are trying to get away from litigation.

But the fact of the matter is, the fact of the matter is that this is an act that has caused us to pause and wait and think about what we are doing, and what the impact of that is, whether that is development, whether that is forced practices, whether that is public infrastructure. Whatever it is, what is the impact beyond that project? And is that adverse and is it detrimental to these species? Is it detrimental to the health of the neighborhoods, to the health of the communities? And very often, the Endangered Species Act has resulted in better projects being designed, very often better projects being designed because of those considerations, more sustainable projects being designed because of those considerations.

But the fact of the matter is, many people just hate the Endangered Species Act. So we come here Congress after Congress with these meat-ax approaches.

I spent one of the longest negotiations on a bipartisan basis trying to arrive at a conclusion on a section of the Endangered Species Act. In the eleventh hour, my Republican partner, the chairman of the committee, walked out the door. I don't know why that happened. It wasn't communicated, but that was that. That morning, we were supposed to have a press conference to announce the agreement, but it never happened. With the hours and hours that were spent, I thought we had reached a good agreement between those areas.

But the idea of frustration builds up, and you can just swing away at the Endangered Species Act. Yes, it is very popular, and it can be very controversial.

I am more concerned about what local agencies do in the name of endangered species sometimes when they ask for mitigation that I find is very unfair, that I have complained about, that I have written the agencies about.

I think very often, it is not so much the Federal protection of endangered species. Very often, it is people who then want to use it at another level of government to extract from developers, from land use, for the purposes of mitigation that I think is hard to justify.

And I would just hope that, once again, this Congress would use its good judgment, it would support the American people, it would support the Endangered Species Act, and it would, in fact, reject this legislation.

This is really bad legislation, and you can't pretend that you care about science and at the same time say you get to deem the best science based upon the party of submission.

I have fought with agencies to get the science that people have worked on, that universities have worked on, introduced into the discussion. I have never suggested that they would have to accept it as the best science. I thought it would broaden the discussion. I thought it would bring another consideration to those debates.

So this is a bill that should be rejected, and the gentleman from Oregon is quite right. I would have been so much happier spending our time here on the floor today dealing with the issue of wildfires, and not just those wildfires that are burning in California today, but by all projections, we are already ahead of the worst wildfire seasons this year already, and we expect it to get much worse with the persistence of this drought. And as the chairman and ranking member know, in those three States, we are way out ahead here on wildfires, and I wish at some point, we would make a decision that we could deal with these in an institutional fashion so that the firefighting assets would know what is available to them. We wouldn't scramble around. We wouldn't put other agencies in jeopardy by stealing money from their accounts. But we would deal with this in an adult fashion. We would set aside money for the purposes and replenishment of that money to fight wildfires because the alternative cannot be not to try to control this wildfire and stop the damage that they do both to the natural environment and to the private environment and the local economies that are so severely impacted by the aftermath of those fires.

But we are not going to do that. We are just going to stand up here and take another meat-ax approach to the Endangered Species Act, which is going to be unsuccessful, in the time we could have been talking about wildfires, in the time we could have prepared for the remainder of this wildfire season, giving notice to State agencies, to local agencies, to our Federal agencies on what they can do to prepare and the assets that they can have in place for those wildfires. We have missed that opportunity today in the name of this continued attack on the Endangered Species Act, which the American people have rejected over and over. And fortunately, this Congress has rejected over and over.

Mr. Chair on December 28, 1973 the Endangered Species Act was signed into law, meaning we are currently commemorating the 40th anniversary of one of our nation's strongest and most successful environmental laws: the Endangered Species Act.

Passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed by President Richard Nixon, the Act was the first comprehensive law to address the global extinction crisis.

The Endangered Species Act took a zero-tolerance approach to achieving its goals: no new extinctions, no exceptions.

As a result, 99 percent of listed species have been saved from extinction and are on the path to recovery.

Some iconic American species, such as the bald eagle, the American alligator, and the Pacific gray whale, have recovered from the brink of extinction and are now thriving in their natural habitats.

Beyond the preservation of individual species, the Endangered Species Act helps to keep the strong interdependent web of life.

Today, conservation efforts under the Endangered Species Act are a model for preserving biodiversity around the world.

Unfortunately, here in the House today we are proceeding with reforms that would undoubtedly weaken provisions of the Act with the belief that doing so will somehow yield greater benefits for the species it was designed to protect.

As a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, I've been committed to protecting our nation's strongest and most successful environmental laws.

Let us reject the bill before us and in doing so commerate the 40th Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The bill before us today has many problems, but one of the most egregious and obvious is in section 3, where the bill declares that any and all data submitted by States, tribes, or local governments shall be considered the ``best scientific data available.''

I am offering here an amendment with my friend from California (Mr. Huffman), which would strike that provision and would force Federal agencies to accept as the best available science actual science.

The language in question says:

The term ``best scientific and commercial data available''

includes all such data submitted by a State, tribal, or

county government.

The Endangered Species Act is one of our Nation's strongest and most successful environmental laws. One reason for that success is that the law has been based on scientific evaluation using peer-reviewed science by trained scientists, not the whims and ideological wishes of legislators.

The Endangered Species Act is not a shouting match or a fight for power and influence among interested parties; it is a look at the need to protect endangered species as determined by the best science. This language that the best scientific and commercial data available includes all such data submitted is as preposterous as it is impractical. Where is the quality control?

Now, what happens if a locality submits something that is not, in fact, true, or not, in fact, established within the scientific community? Or how about if a State or a tribe submits one thing and another State or tribe submits conflicting views? Are they both the best available evidence? What about where a county thinks its data is better than the State's data? These are all situations that not only might occur, but are likely to occur.

A witness at the committee hearing on this bill--in fact, a witness that was invited by the Republicans--testified to this very point, saying that all does not equal best, highlighting the fact that this bill creates more problems than it solves.

Agency decisionmakers must evaluate data from all sources to ensure that they are making determinations based on the best information available, and we should encourage them to do so.

Let's not have another case of congressional malpractice where Members of Congress play scientists and try to present political restrictions on the science.

The peer review process is the best tool available, and that is how we draw out the best science. Maybe scientists occasionally make mistakes, no doubt about it, and new findings can call for a revision of the science. But surely we don't think that Members of Congress are better at determining what is scientifically factual than the biological and environmental scientists.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask the Chair the time remaining on each side.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. Chairman, my colleague from Oregon said it well: All does not equal best.

The other side evidently is embarrassed by the language in the bill. There are many problems with this bill, but this particular section has some language that they should be embarrassed about, and so they are saying what they wish the language said or what they want it to say.

The best scientific data includes all such data. It does not say we will consider all data. It says all equals best. That cannot be true. That should be removed from the bill. That is what this amendment does.

Decisions on whether or not a particular study or data set have scientific merit with respect to an individual species listing should be made in the context of peer-reviewed science, not because one State wants one thing and one county wants another thing.

It should be based on the best scientific data. That is what this amendment would ensure.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.