Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s Remarks on the Signing of the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009
Music/Announcer: This is a Podcast from the U.S. Department of the Interior The Omnibus Public Lands Act of 2009 signed today by President Barrack Obama fulfills many of the initiatives that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar worked on as Senator Salazar. The following are his comments regarding what Secretary Salazar calls “a milestone for the U.S. Department of the Interior and America.”
Secretary Salazar:
"Over the last two centuries, America’s best ideas for protecting our vast lands and open spaces have often arrived while our country has faced its greatest trials.
It was in the midst of our nation’s bloodiest conflict – the Civil War – that President Abraham Lincoln set aside the lands that are now Yosemite National Park.
It was at the dawn of the 20th century, with our cities and industries growing and our open lands and watersheds disappearing, that President Teddy Roosevelt expanded our national parks and set aside the world’s largest system of lands dedicated to wildlife conservation, the national wildlife refuge system.
And it was in the darkest days of the Great Depression that President Franklin Roosevelt put three million young Americans to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps. They built the trails, campgrounds, parks, and conservation projects that we enjoy today.
In these moments when our national character is most tested we rightly seek to protect that which fuels our spirit.
For America’s national character - our optimism, our dreams, our shared stories – are rooted in America’s landscapes.
Today, President Obama has signed legislation that will make one of the most significant protections for our treasured landscapes in a generation. He will do so in his first 100 days as President. This legislation will make permanent the new 26 million acre National Landscape Conservation System within the Bureau of Land Management. It will add 2 million acres of new wilderness across the country. It will preserve a thousand new miles of wild and scenic rivers and it will protect some of America’s most special places - from Oregon’s Mount Hood to Virginia’s wild forests to Rocky Mountain National Park.
This bill is a Herculean first step in President Obama’s agenda for our open lands.
It would not have happened without the patient and tireless effort of the people in this room and Americans across the country: hard-working citizens who are saving historic sites in their communities so that we never forget our past; tribal leaders who are forging solutions to complex and long-standing natural resource challenges; mayors and county commissioners who are protecting the backcountry for hunting and fishing and hiking; business leaders who know that good stewardship makes good economic sense; and the many members of the House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike – who worked with Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi - whose leadership and persistence have made today possible.
Thank you very much.”
Music/Announcer: This has been a Podcast from the Department of the Interior Radio News Service; I’m Ron Tull, Washington.