Political Quotes

“I am here tonight on the floor to talk about a historic opportunity for our country and for our national parks--a true treasure of this country. When Teddy Roosevelt started the national parks, he wanted to preserve some of the most beautiful, pristine lands in America for public use. It was a good decision. Now we have 84 million acres of parkland all around the country. Some of them are historical parks, battlefields, or Presidents' homes. Some of them are like Yosemite or Yellowstone. The Tetons are known as spectacular, beautiful vistas. Others, like Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, are really suburban parks. It sits between Cleveland and Akron, OH. It is the 13th most visited park in the United States of America. It is a fantastic park--for fishing, for hiking, for bicycling, for going on a scenic railroad. People love the parks. There is a good reason for that--because they are spectacular. In fact, visitation at the parks is up. During the 10 years just before the park centennial, which was in 2016, we had about a $58 million increase in visitors to our national parks. As the coronavirus begins to fade--thank goodness--more and more people are wanting to be outside, do things with their family, do something that is not expensive but is fun and healthy. Our national parks are the perfect place. As our parks begin to reopen, we are going to get more and more visitors to those parks.…”