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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Economists to President: Protecting Public Lands is Good Business

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Tuesday, December 6, 2011   

MILL VALLEY, Calif. - Investing in California's federally-protected public lands is good for business. That's what more than 100 economists and academics from across the nation, including 11 from California, are hoping to impress upon President Obama. They've sent a letter urging him to consider the importance of wilderness areas, national parks and monuments to the economic future of the West.

Bob Roberts, president and CEO of the California Ski Industry Association, says protecting these lands is vital in a state where tourism is the third largest industry, behind agriculture and technology.

"We create jobs, and I'm talking not just about the Sierra, but the Sierra's emblematic of the larger tourism dimension to our state's economy. So, it's not just the ski areas – it's the whitewater rafters, it's all of the various activities that go on, from one end of the state to the other."

Twenty-five of California's 29 ski resorts operate under lease agreements with the federal government. California's rivers, lakes and mountains have helped transform the western economy from a dependence on resource-extractive industries, adds Roberts.

"Timber, mining - these kinds of activities have declined substantially and they're really not the future, in terms of the economic vitality of all of the communities."

Colorado College economics professor Dr. Walt Hecox signed the letter. He says his biggest worry is the discussion in Congress that federal lands could be sold to pay off the nation's debt.

"It'd be like having a discussion about selling off the Washington Monument because it doesn't make money. And if we don't, in the West, begin to be active in raising these concerns that it's the very foundation of a vibrant economy, then I fear that we will lose in Congress."

The letter, which includes the signatures of three Nobel laureates, says federal protected public lands also attract innovative companies and workers, and are an essential component of the region's competitive advantage. Read it at headwaterseconomics.org.




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