mr. chairman , the endangered species act is broken and needs to be fixed . 
those are not my words , those are the words of a city counselor from santa barbara , california . 
in a hearing we had on endangered species last year , she described california as being the greenest state , santa barbara as being the greenest of the cities in california , and she as being the greenest of the green . 
she said that the endangered species act is blocking people from making additions onto their homes , it is keeping the beach closed , it is stopping development in their town , and they are tired of it . 
they either want it eliminated or fixed . 
elimination of the act is too extreme . 
the gentleman from california ( mr. pombo ) xz4003220 , our chairman , has taken a very good stance in reforming it . 
in new mexico , we have the silvery minnow . 
in order to keep the flow in the rio grand river at the level that the biologists said we had to have , we had to release storage of water that had been building up for 50 years in four different reservoirs . 
and storage for water like that in new mexico is not easy to get . 
when we empty those , we can not maintain the flow . 
so one of the most important provisions in this bill is that sound science must be used for any decision . 
we also are affecting the outcome for our private property owners , and so i thank the gentleman for his hard work on this and i support the bill . 
