Richard Pombo, real estate millionaire and congressman from California’s Central Valley, has made it his business for 12 years to gut the Endangered Species Act. And according to Grist Magazine, this repellent specimen of the genus Republican is getting close:

In a big coup for property-rights activists, the legislation would also require the feds to pay landowners for lost profits if the presence of an endangered species limits their development options. Because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lacks funding to make such payments, this could effectively eliminate regulatory restrictions on commercial developers, according to critics.

“It gives developers the right to say to the government, ‘You have two options: either grant me a permit to destroy sensitive habitat, or pay me market value not to,’” said Patrick Parenteau, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Vermont Law School.