Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 187, the Modernizing Access to Our Public Waters Act, or MAPWaters Act, sponsored by Congressman Moore of Utah. This bill seeks to improve recreational access for our country's boaters and anglers by requiring agencies to digitize the maps of Federal waterways and information related to the regulations and restrictions on accessing those waterways. The bill then calls upon Federal land management agencies to publish this information online and work with the private sector to make it easily available to the public. This bill is necessary because access to information related to regulations and restrictions on Federal waterways can often be hard to come by. The Natural Resources Committee heard testimony about a specific example of an unfortunate situation at Yellowstone National Park. A group of backpackers were hiking to a remote lake in the park where the group planned to fish. Upon arriving at the lake, they discovered that half the lake was off-limits to fishing because of nesting swans. The half of the lake that was closed to fishing was the part of the lake where they were permitted to fish. This is unacceptable. Passing this bill would prevent incidents like this by ensuring this information is easily available to the public. The House passed a nearly identical version of this bill by voice vote in December.…”