On the recordFebruary 25, 2016
I thank the gentleman for yielding time. I rise in support of the SHARE Act and the Sportsmen's Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act. I thank my co-chair on the Sportsmen's Caucus, Mr. Wittman, for his work on this bill. Like so many you have heard here today, we, as a Nation, are blessed with an abundance of opportunities in the outdoors. Like so many, I take advantage of them: hiking, biking, hunting, and fishing. For those who do participate in hunting and fishing, it truly is a passion, it is a way of life, and it is a heritage that we share with our parents. I don't think there is one of us who participated in it who doesn't remember a crisp autumn morning, waking up with our father, cooking breakfast, and going out to the field with the dew on the grass and the Sun coming up. To this day, I don't remember if we necessarily got a pheasant, but I remember my dad, and I remember talking about it. It was on those trips that I think we understood that hunting and fishing, as a way of life, is not in a vacuum. Hunting and fishing in Minnesota, 1.7 million Minnesotans participate in hunting and fishing. That contributes $3 billion to our economy and creates 48,000 direct jobs. If you take that across the Nation, it is $90 billion a year to our economy. That is not in a vacuum either, because we have a really unique system of conservation in this country: user pays and public benefits.…
