Jessica Turner, president of Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR), released the following statement regarding keeping public lands public and out of budget reconciliation:
“Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, the nation’s leading coalition of outdoor recreation businesses and organizations, commends the bipartisan leadership in both the House and Senate and its over 50 national members that helped keep out a proposal to selloff millions of acres of public lands from the budget reconciliation process.
“From the beginning, ORR has stood firmly on shared, bipartisan principles: protecting access to public lands and waters for outdoor recreation, investing in infrastructure and securing long-term funding for sustainable growth. While we stand ready to work on housing issues that need to be addressed with Congress and the administration, budget reconciliation was the wrong vehicle for deciding the fate of America’s public lands and the $1.2 trillion recreation economy.
“Selling off public lands in this way was not just out of touch with public sentiment — it could have impacted businesses, jobs, public health and the many rural communities that depend on access to outdoor recreation for economic development and quality of life.
“ORR and our members spanning the entire outdoor recreation industry are uniquely positioned to forge innovative, bipartisan solutions to issues impacting our public lands — from housing for our workforce, to funding needed infrastructure, to supporting gateway communities — and keeping public lands and waters accessible and outdoor recreation thriving for generations to come will remain the backbone of this work.”
