mr. chairman , i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks .  mr. chairman , the endangered species act is a well-intentioned law that has failed in its implementation .  originally billed as a way to recover and rehabilitate endangered species , it has failed at that goal .  as it has been pointed out , less than 1 percent of species listed have recovered in the entire history of the act .  almost 3 times that many still listed are believed to already be extinct .  many species that were listed in error , yet because of flaws in the act , they are still listed .  this bill today will greatly improve the recovery process so that species may be restored and removed from the list .  mr. chairman , one of those species is the alabama sturgeon .  it was listed years ago even though it was never proven to be genetically distinct from any other sturgeon .  it 's simply a regular sturgeon living in alabama .  the economic cost of its listing has been estimated at $ 1.5 billion .  mr. chairman , i and the rest of the alabama delegation worked directly with the gentleman from california to ensure that the bill is helpful to landowners in alabama and southeast .  the endangered species act today creates an adversarial relationship between landowners and the government .  landowners have little incentive to conserve species on their property .  however , this bill will create cooperative conservation agreements between landowners and the government .  it will also provide long overdue compensation to landowners whose property has been `` taken '' by the endangered species act .  i encourage all of my colleagues to support this bill .  