mr. speaker , i thank my friend for yielding me this time , and i thank him for his very important work on this vital piece of legislation .  i rise to support the rule and the underlying legislation and to begin by praising the gentleman from california ( mr. pombo )  , the very distinguished chairman , for all of the effort that he has put in to assembling a bipartisan compromise on this .  i will say i am somewhat disturbed with what i just heard from the gentleman from california ( mr. cardoza )  that 90 percent of this legislation was , in fact , crafted by democratic staff .  but i will say that if it embraces the core republican goals that the gentleman from california ( mr. pombo )  is pursuing , i still will be supportive of it .  but i think that that is demonstration of the fact that we are working in a bipartisan way and the gentleman from california ( mr. pombo )  has demonstrated his willingness to do just that .  when i think about the long struggle which the gentleman from california ( mr. pombo )  has been involved in for a decade to try to bring about reform of the endangered species act , i think back to one of the challenges that we have in southern california , and the gentleman from california ( mr. calvert )  , who has worked long and hard on this , represents part of riverside county , and i recounted up in the committee on rules yesterday the fact that dealing with the stephens ' kangaroo rat , an endangered species , we had conflicting directives that came from government .  the fire department in riverside county said you should clear the brush away from your homes to ensure that you do not face the threat of fire .  the county of riverside said to comply with the endangered species act we would be jeopardizing the stephens ' kangaroo rat 's life .  and , by the way , the stephens ' kangaroo rat had been found in great numbers later in texas , but we would jeopardize that if you did clear the brush away from your home .  what happened ?  to their benefit , many people who followed the directive of the fire department , their homes were saved ; and , of course , those who did not tragically lost their homes because of fire .  we right now in southern california are dealing with tremendous fire problems in that area ; and , frankly , i do believe that the kind of reform that is going to be assembled in a bipartisan way on the endangered species act will go a long way toward preserving property and to make sure that we diminish the kind of threat that does exist out there .  recovery efforts , coupled with compensation for private property , that is a big part of what this effort is about .  i congratulate , again , the gentleman from california ( mr. pombo )  ; and i know the gentleman from california ( mr. cardoza )  has been working very hard on this , obviously , because he has had a lot of impact , as he just outlined .  mr. speaker , i think that we can come with , i hope , a very , very strong vote from both democrats and republicans for both the rule and the underlying legislation .  i thank again my friend for his efforts on this .  