Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, H.R. 182, to reauthorize the Cape Cod National Seashore Advisory Commission. Madam Speaker, I thank the chair from the Committee on Natural Resources for yielding, and I thank both of my colleagues from California for supporting this bill. The Cape Cod National Seashore was created by President Kennedy in 1961. His vision was to preserve the unique landscape of the outer cape for recreation and enjoyment for all Americans forever. Today, more than 4 million people, both Americans and those from around the world, travel to Cape Cod every year to experience the natural beauty and recreation that the Cape Cod National Seashore provides. However, when the Cape Cod National Seashore was proposed, it presented challenges to residents of Cape Cod unique to locating a national park on a peninsula with a limited area and with very small communities within that area. In many of the communities in the outer cape, the national seashore was designed to occupy as much as 80 percent of the available land, effectively foreclosing other economic development options after the park was established. While the promise of President Kennedy's vision for the outer cape was realized, with the national seashore drawing millions of people from around the world to the cape, the importance of the advisory commission to the national seashore and its host communities is still important today, as important as it was almost 60 years ago.…”