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Remarks by the President at Conservation Conference <br /> Department of Interior <br /> Washington, D.C. <br /> 3/2/12 5:32 P.M. EST <br /> THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you so much. <br /> Everybody, have a seat. Have a seat. (Applause.) Well, it is good to have all of you in <br /> here. Welcome to Washington. <br /> I want to thank Ken Salazar for the introduction. Did everybody know that it's his <br /> birthday today? (Laughter.) All right -- has he milked that enough? (Laughter.) I just <br /> want to make sure everybody wished him a happy birthday. Turning 40 is tough. <br /> (Laughter.) <br /> We've also got our outstanding Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, in the house. <br /> (Applause.) Our wonderful EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, is with us. (Applause.) And <br /> I want to thank all of you for being a part of this conference. <br /> Now, I have to say that this is a pretty diverse group here today. We've got hunters and <br /> fishermen; we've got farmers and ranchers; we've got conservationists; we've got small <br /> business owners; we've got local government leaders; we've got tribal leaders. And <br /> some of you may have just wandered in -- I don't know. (Laughter.) But you're all here <br /> for the same reason. Each of you has a deep appreciation for the incredible natural <br /> resources, the incredible bounty that we've been blessed with as a nation. And you're <br /> working hard every day to make sure those resources are around for my daughters and <br /> your children and hopefully their children to enjoy. <br /> Doing that takes creativity. The great Aldo Leopold once said that conservation is "a <br /> positive exercise of skill and insight, not merely a negative exercise of abstinence and <br /> caution." It's not just about doing nothing; it's about doing something affirmative to make <br /> sure that we are passing on this incredible blessing that we have. And you also know <br /> that effective conservation is about more than just protecting our environment -- it's <br /> about strengthening our economy. When we put in place new common-sense rules to <br /> reduce air pollution, like we did in December, it was to prevent our kids from breathing <br /> in dangerous chemicals. That's something we should all be able to agree on. But it will <br /> also create new jobs, building and installing all sorts of pollution control technology. And <br /> since it will prevent thousands of heart attacks and cases of childhood asthma, it will <br /> also take some strain off our health care system. <br /> When we make a commitment to restore a million acres of grasslands and wetlands and <br /> wildlife habitat -- like the Department of Agriculture and Interior did today -- we're not <br /> just preserving our land and water for the next generation. We're also making more land <br /> available for hunting and fishing. And we're bolstering an outdoor economy that <br />