sir walter recaaleigh, one of america's early explorers, and he said this -- i like this a lot -- for whosoever commands the sea, he said, commands the trade. and hoonwhosoever commands the riches of the world and consequently the world itself. i'm sure raleigh couldn't have fathomed the impact of planes or railroads much less e-commerce, but the fact remains, even centuries after he spoke those memorable words there remains a vital and powerful link between america's ocean, rivers, lakes and coasts and merkel economy. america's economy. consider this. more than half americans live in coastal watershed counties. that's true even though this area marks up only 17% of our u.s. land area. and those counties support about 66 million jobs. so it's along the coastal areas. and so now more than ever we need to ensure that the blue kmip economy is strong and growing. this morning i'll touch on three ways we can do that. so first, we simply need to show off america's waters. so i grew up in portland, oregon, and as a boy i remember going with my father and my uncle down to the columbia river,