2:08 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. Thank you for ing, and Happy New Year. Laura and I thank all of our distinguished guests, starting with members of my Cabinet -- Secretary Kempthorne, Secretary Gutierrez, Administrator Johnson. Admiral, thank you for ing today. We're proud you're here. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. Other members of the administration who have joined us. Members of the conservation munity, we're glad you're here.
Governor, I am proud you're here. Thank you for ing. And Josie is with you. Representatives from -- by the way, Northern Mariana Islands -- Governor. Just in case you don't know him. (Laughter.) We know him -- and we like him. And all the representatives from America Samoa, really appreciate you all ing. Apologize for the weather, but I don't apologize for the policy, because we're fixing to do some fabulous policy.
It's interesting that we're gathered a few steps from the office once occupied by a young Assistant Secretary of the Navy named Theodore Roosevelt. Not long after he left the position, he was back on these grounds as the 26th President of the United States. And exactly a hundred years ago, he embarked on his final weeks as the President -- something I can relate to. (Laughter.)
President Roosevelt left office with many achievements, and the most enduring of all was his mitment to conservation. As he once said: "Of all the questions which can e before the nation,翻譯, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which pares in importance with leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us."