On the recordOctober 8, 2015
I rise on a lighter note, a very positive note because I represent a very beautiful and positive part of the United States: the central coast of California. This is a place where you hear the towns of Santa Cruz, Monterey, Pacific Grove, the beautiful fertile Salinas Valley, and the magnificent Big Sur coastline, which this poster here shows a photograph of. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because the House of Representatives, 50 years ago, passed marvelous legislation called the Highway Beautification Act, and that act came about because the States were ruining the aesthetics of America. It was a bill that First Lady Lady Bird Johnson so much supported. In fact, it became known as Lady Bird's bill. So 50 years ago, this House of Representatives took a bold move to protect and improve our scenic highways. Why are those important? We sell scenery where I live. This is another picture of a scenic highway in the South, in the Southern States. When you drive through these, you don't see any billboards, you don't see the urban clutter, or, as my friend Ansel Adams said: ``You don't see the urban acne that is covering our roads.'' It is Big Business that we are fighting, because the billboard lobby in the United States is very powerful. It was powerful then, but the First Lady was more powerful. I have a personal story in that because my father, who was in the California State Senate, authored the first legislation to create the California Scenic Highway Program.…
