TRACY, Calif. - Republican U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo likes animals, just as long as obscure species aren't dictating what happens to the land.

Bidding for his 12th term in Congress, the cowboy-booted Pombo, a Californian who raises cattle on the family ranch, wants to rewrite the 1973 Endangered Species Act to dramatically expand the rights of property owners. And as chairman of the House Resources Committee, he is closing in on that longtime goal.

That has made him a prime target for environmentalists in this election year. Coupled with ethical questions, including his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the conservative Pombo finds the going a bit tougher in a district that has added a few more liberals since the 2000 census.

"The easiest thing in the world is for an incumbent congressman to get re-elected if you don't do anything," the 45-year-old Pombo said in the kitchen of his ranch on sloping Central California farmland. "But I figure I'm here for a reason - that's to get things done."

Pombo remains popular in the agricultural sections of his district, which straddles the San Joaquin Valley and the San Francisco Bay area, including his hometown of Tracy, where signs for his uncle's real estate firm dot rural roads.

"He comes from a good family, a long, longtime Tracy family," said Linda Alegre, who works at a menswear store in the fast-growing exurb's faded downtown. "The Democrats want to get rid of him because he's gotten too strong."

In 2004, Pombo won with 61 percent of the vote in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats. But in the upscale towns recently added to his district, Pombo's country style is an odd fit even after he trimmed his mustache and abandoned the cowboy hat he used to wear in his official congressional photo.

"He looks like a hick to me," said Claudia Hess, a gallery director in Pleasanton and a Republican who hasn't decided how to vote in November.

Though political analysts consider an upset by one of the little-known Democratic contenders - engineer Jerry McNerney or Steve Filson, a Navy veteran and airline pilot - a long shot, the national party is spending time and money here, including plans to purchase billboard space to advertise an anti-Pombo Web site, www.dirtydickpombo.com.

Complicating matters is a Republican primary challenger - former Rep. Pete McCloskey, a moderate and an original author of the Endangered Species Act. McCloskey moved into the district after failing to recruit another Republican to run.

"He's been there too long, and power has corrupted him," McCloskey said of Pombo.

Environmentalists angered by his stance on endangered species, his proposals to sell public lands and support for oil drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, promise to spend plenty to unseat Pombo,

"Getting rid of him would be the best thing politically that could happen to us in the November election," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

Taking aim at the act

Pombo's quest to rewrite the species act, a position that has pitted him against moderates in his own party, had its genesis in an earlier fight.

In the early 1980s, he was upset when the presence of the endangered San Joaquin kit fox contributed to the decision to stop development of a proposed town outside Tracy. After spending just two years on the Tracy City Council from 1990-92, Pombo won a congressional seat vowing to revise the legislation.

He pushed a bill through the House last year after years of trying and despite an outcry from environmentalists. The measure would require the government to compensate property owners if species protections thwart development plans and would block designation of "critical habitat" where development is limited.

A Senate committee is considering writing its own version. It remains unclear whether any final legislation will reach the White House and President Bush.

"Coming from my perspective, the bottom line is what landowners want is certainty," said Pombo, who argued that opponents "were able to use an endangered species that no one had ever seen or heard of in order to stop that project from going forward."

'I don't break the rules'

In his effort to win re-election, Pombo has faced several ethical questions.

He interceded on behalf of one of Abramoff's tribal clients, the Mashpee Wampanoag, that sought federal recognition and donated thousands of dollars to him after he met with Interior Department officials. Pombo, who has donated to charity the $7,000 he got directly from Abramoff, said tribes shouldn't have to wait years for federal recognition and his advocacy was unrelated to Abramoff, whom he says he barely knew, or to donations he received.

Pombo also has been criticized for billing taxpayers $5,000 to rent a recreational vehicle to tour national parks and for the unusual arrangement under which his top committee aide lives in California and bills for frequent travel to Washington.

He defended the practices, and said, "I don't break the rules."

Growing up in a large Portuguese ranching family, Pombo says his immigrant grandfather taught him to prize land ownership above almost anything. His pride of ownership is evident as he points out cows, sheep and the barn he just built on the ranch he shares with his wife and three children. His parents and brothers live next door.

"These guys that claim to be moderate, they're not moderate. They just can't make up their mind what they believe in," Pombo said. "There's got to be something that you're willing to lose your election over."