Political Quotes

“as we continue our debate today on the Great American Outdoors Act, I thought I would come to the floor one more time to talk about the benefits of this historic conservation package and what it means for the great State and the people of Colorado. Several years back, this Congress worked in a bipartisan fashion to pass legislation by Senator Shaheen and me that required the Commerce Department, for the first time in our country's history, to break out the outdoor economy as a part of our economic numbers, to determine how many jobs this country had in the outdoor industry in recreation, and to determine the overall revenues generated by the recreation economy. What we discovered was what we knew intuitively: that the recreation economy is a huge part of jobs in this country, with over 5 million jobs. In Colorado, you are looking at about a $28 billion part of our economy. If I could, I just want to talk a little bit more about what that means for Colorado and what this bill means as applied to our State, the benefits environmentally of this legislation and the economic impact it will have. I talked on the floor about the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Right around the year 2000, this legislation turned this national monument into a national park. Hundreds of thousands of people come to the valley to visit every year.…”