mr. chairman , i serve a very rural district , a lot of landowners .  currently , a landowner with an endangered species on his land often sees the species as a threat to his survival .  that is not good for the species , and it is certainly not good for the landowner .  it is not working .  it is largely adversarial .  h.r. 3824 provides incentives for landowners to preserve endangered species , and this will help the species , and it will help people as well .  in 1978 , 50 miles of the central platte river in nebraska was designated as critical habitat for whooping cranes .  only 3 to 4 percent of the whooping cranes visit the platte river annually .  the great majority of whooping cranes never see the platte river , never visit it at all ; and so many have questioned this designation because this designation has led to a cooperative agreement between nebraska , colorado , and wyoming involving thousands of acres of lands , hundreds of thousands of feet of water to support critical habitat ; and it is still not complete after 8 years of spending millions of dollars .  so we have case after case after case like this where this thing simply is not working well .  hopefully , applying the best available current science required by this legislation will improve this process .  i think it will .  i thank the gentleman from california ( chairman pombo ) for his efforts , as well as the gentleman from california ( mr. cardoza )  , and ask support for h.r. 3824 .  