Richard Pombo Quotations

Obviously, we're approaching this differently than we have in the past, ... trying to deal with a broken system.

If the federal government comes and takes someone's land, we all pay for it, ... If we take land to make a wildlife refuge, we pay for it. No one's down here screaming that's (the government's) entitlement.

The purpose of this bill is to protect my private property owners, ... and to make them willing participants in protecting species and their habitat.

What we were able to do was reach a compromise where states would have much greater control over their coastlines than what they do under current law and current regulation, ... It protects those states who do want to protect their coastline and don't want to have more coastal development.

has failed to produce the goal all Americans share the recovery of endangered species.

I think the bill ultimately will have ANWR in it.

Picking up four or five votes by pulling (arctic drilling) doesn't make up for the 25 or 30 votes you're going to lose,

My philosophy has always been that if you work toward some type of compromise, you've actually got a chance to get the bill signed into law, ... On a lot of issues, we've spent years debating them. Unless we can reach consensus ... we'll spend another 20 years debating them.

The act has been a failure at recovering species, ... We have to respond to that and step in and reauthorize the bill, put the focus on recovery and protect private property owners.

We knew the Endangered Species Act had problems, ... We knew there were things that needed to get fixed, that weren't working in current law.

You cannot continue to oppose any new (energy) resource development in this country.

What we are doing now is not working,

What can we possibly have to roll back? ... It's not working.

assures me the state of Alaska will stay with the 50-50 that is in the underlying bill.

Do these sound like the statistics of a successful law? Of course not,

Floridians cannot support your efforts if the Peterson-Abercrombie amendment remains a part of your bill.

Everything we do when it comes to taking land for a public good or a public use, we pay them for it. But when it comes to the Endangered Species Act right now they get it for nothing, so they don't want to have to pay for it,

There's something wrong with that, and I don't know how anyone can defend taking someone's private property for a public use, for the public good, and not paying them for it just because you've gotten away with it for 32 years.

the states should have ultimate authority over resource production, including the power to prevent it, in the deep waters off their coasts.

Private property owners have to be part of the solution,

You're not excusing them from following the law, you're just trying to make the law work so that they can take care of the levee systems or the dams or whatever it is,

Thirty years of critical habitat have done very little if anything to help species, ... The current system does not work.

This is an aggressive deficit-cutting measure that raises revenue for Uncle Sam so Uncle Sam doesn't take it from the taxpayers themselves. We will generate these new revenues by increasing domestic energy supplies at a time when American consumers need them most.

A lot of guys were really upset. Looking at what we face as a country right now, with escalating energy prices, the shortage of natural gas, a lot of guys believe that this is our last best chance to increase American production of energy.

This month Mother Nature proved just how vulnerable America is to supply disruptions, ... We must do more to increase and to diversify domestic supplies.

This legislation will lead to increased and more diverse U.S. energy supplies to prevent disruptions and to bring future price relief,

I'm told this is also an issue that has been tested in court and a settlement has been reached and it's not necessary to address the issue in the underlying bill,

In our bill we protect the small property owners, ... It was a compromise, a reasonable way to protect endangered species, to protect the habitat which they need to recover.

I am willing to do whatever we can to put the focus on recovery and do what we can to recover these species as long as my property owners are protected,

For the guys from states that do not want (drilling), this is the best deal they're ever going to get, ... I'm not seeing any better alternatives.

The Endangered Species Act is in desperate need of an update, ... It has hurt species recovery by leading to the trend we all know as 'shoot, shovel and shut up.' And it has hurt family farmers and ranchers by taking their property away.

You will see a shift in the priorities in the Farm Bill.

You've got to pay when you take away somebody's private property. That is what we have to do. The only way this is going to work is if we bring in property owners to be part of the solution and to be part of recovering those species.

Rural American families who depend on firewood to heat their homes will be hit just as hard as those who use oil and natural gas.