The following report is from RV Industry Association staff, reporting on the activities of Jay Landers, the organization’s vice president of government affairs.
Over the past few months, Jay Landers, RV Industry Association vice president of government affairs, has presented at the Texas, Florida and Oklahoma RV Dealers Association Conventions – something he has been doing annually for more than a decade. During his presentations, he discusses a number of important topics, including: the significance of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, the RV industry’s role in advocating for safe outdoor recreation policies, ongoing legislation designed to increase outdoor recreation access and current challenges faced by the industry.
Jay first discussed the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, a group of 34 mostly DC-based trade associations that represent the spectrum of outdoor recreation activities, including RVs, boating, fishing, ATVs and several others. He emphasized the crucial role that the collective $788 billion dollar outdoor recreation industry plays in the U.S. economy and its influence on policy in Capitol Hill. The RV Industry Association itself met regularly with Interior Secretaries Ryan Zinke and David Bernhardt during the Trump administration, and Jay assured the audience that they are working on that same relationship with new Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and her team.
The RV Industry Association’s Government Affairs team and its partners in the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable have long worked with legislators on issues involving increased access to outdoor recreation activities. In particular, Jay discussed the RV industry’s role in shaping some of the provisions that are present in the Great American Outdoors Act, a recent legislation that will invest close to $10 billion dollars into the deferred maintenance on public lands, including campgrounds, throughout the next five years.
“We recognize the close link between RVs and campgrounds, and our mutual success is inextricably linked,” he said. “The health and wellbeing of the RV industry is, in part, dependent upon the health and growth of the campground industry.”
To read the full report on Landers’ activities, click here.