Political Quotes

“I am gratified that the Presiding Officer today is from the State of Nevada--my friend, the junior Senator from Nevada. When I think of home, I think of the desert, and you can't talk about Nevada as a desert only, even though the vast majority of the State of Nevada is a very arid place. Nevada also has beautiful Sierra Nevada--the Ruby Mountains. We are the most mountainous State in the Union except for Alaska. We have 314 separate mountain ranges. We have 32 mountains over 11,000 feet high. We have one mountain that we share with California that is almost 14,000 feet high. It is a beautiful State, but today I am going to focus on some of those arid places--the place where I was born and raised. Having been back here such a long time--37 years--I often think of the blue skies in Nevada. They hover over a beautiful canvas. No one can paint a picture as beautiful as these mountains, which are in the middle of the desert, Joshua trees, or sagebrush. It is that beauty that is drawing thousands of visitors to Nevada and Nevada's wilderness every year. Yesterday, the Reno Gazette-Journal had a tremendous article that reported just how important this quiet recreational industry is to our country. They said: The big time solitude found in the big empty spaces of the western U.S. generates big money for regional economies. That's according to a study that attempts to put a dollar value on ``quiet recreation'' on Bureau of Land Management property.…”