mr. chairman , i would just like to correct a couple of things .  first of all , this is mandatory spending we are talking about .  secondly , we do not allow the taxpayer protection in this bill that is allowed in highway cases .  that is important to distinguish between the two .  mr. chairman , we are all in agreement .  there is broad and justifiable consensus that the act is overdue for reform , but reforming the law should not be a euphemism for gutting the law , and that is exactly what the bill would do .  the list of areas of disagreement are very strong , but i would also point out that we in the substitute bill embrace many of the provisions in the base bill because they need to be addressed in a responsible way and , in many cases , we take the exact language .  but section 13 is totally unacceptable .  that is the big controversy ; opening up an open-ended entitlement , putting the taxpayers at great risk .  i urge opposition to the base bill .  mr. chairman , i rise in opposition to the bill .  i have no quarrel with the stated purpose of the bill -- to reform the endangered species act .  chairman pombo is correct , there is broad and justifiable consensus that the act is overdue for reform .  but `` reforming '' the law should not be a euphemism for `` gutting '' the law , and that 's what this bill would do .  i urge my colleagues to look beyond the descriptions of the bill and to examine the bill itself .  the most advertised feature of the bill is that it gets rid of the current `` critical habitat '' provisions of the law and replaces the habitat requirements with flexible , comprehensive , science-based `` recovery plans. '' sounds pretty good .  and it would be pretty good if that were a full description of what the bill did .  but what the sponsors have obscured is that , under the bill , the recovery plans are utterly unenforceable .  no one ever has to abide by them .  not only that , the plans will be written through a process that guarantees delay , but does not guarantee that the best science will be used .  so is there a way to get rid of the current `` critical habitat '' burdens and to use recovery plans without weakening the law ?  of course there is .  and our bipartisan substitute shows how .  we eliminate all the provisions of current law that require critical habitat designations just as in h.r. 3824 , but we make recovery plans enforceable and we ensure that they have strong scientific basis .  that 's how you get real reform while still protecting real species .  it 's not impossible to balance the need for reform with the need to protect species .  but instead , we have a bill before us that is balanced in its rhetoric , but not in its effect .  the bill weakens just about every feature of law designed to protect species -- for example , the review of federal actions to make sure they do not unduly harm species .  now i am not trying to suggest that h.r. 3824 is all bad news .  in fact , many of its provisions -- the incentives for landowners to protect species , the public information requirements , the requirements to better involve the states -- are largely improvements to the law .  that 's why our substitute includes all those provisions , often in language identical to that in h.r. 3824 .  so we commend the resources committee for so many of the bill 's provisions and we embrace them .  but there is one provision of h.r. 3824 that our substitute does not include at all .  and that 's section 13 , which creates an open-ended entitlement that will open the federal treasury to provide mandatory payments to developers .  this is a bad idea on philosophical and legal grounds , but this is an especially bad time to expose taxpayers to such a burden .  we do n't have to endanger taxpayers in order to reform the endangered species act .  we do n't have to make it easier for species to become extinct to reform the endangered species act .  all we need to do to reform the act is to make sure that common sense is n't trumped by ideology .  i urge my colleagues of defeat h.r. 3824 , which just waves the banner of reform to distract attention from its actual content .  vote instead for real reform .  vote for the bipartisan substitute .  