Every year, Outdoor Industry Association members gather in Washington D.C. to visit with their Representatives and Senators and lobby for issues that are important to the Outdoor Industry. OIA has held events similar to this for over a decade, but each year the tactics become more sophisticated and their results become more pronounced. Last year, OIA members tackled a broad range of issues, including free trade, Land and Water Conservation Funding, and group health insurance.
Alex Boian, OIAs director of Government Affairs described the event: “Last year was one of the most successful Capitol Summits that OIA has ever put on. One of the primary objectives last year was to build support for the Stateside Land and Water Conservation Fund. Leading up to our visit, the President had zeroed out funding and the House Appropriations Committee had zeroed it out as well. Senator Alexander, from Tenn. and Senator Salazar form Colo. had introduced a bill right around the time of the Capitol Summit that would take a portion of the revenues generated from drilling for oil on the continental shelf and give them to the Stateside LWCF. We arrived in D.C. and went to work building a broad base of support for this bill. At the end of the year the Salazar-Alexander bill was merged into a larger bill and was passed.”
In addition to LWCF funding, OIA was able to eliminate or reduce tariffs for nearly every outdoor footwear company that manufactures its products overseas. “One of the other projects we worked on was establishing our presence as an industry in the area of trade, because we had never really done this before and the industry had never participated in this level of trade lobbying. So, during the Capitol Summit we went to Congress and explained that there are excessively high tariff rates on certain outdoor products. What this resulted in was ten bills that eliminated the tariffs and two bills that cut the tariffs by more than 50%.”
The Capitol Summit is probably OIAs clearest and most tangible member benefit. Much of the research produced throughout the year by OIA and OIF is used by members to support arguments for close to home recreation. In particular, OIAs economic impact study can be used to leverage the business side of recreation in nearly any state.
This year, OIA will be focusing on many of the same issues, including international trade, National Parks Service funding, and recreation funding policy. “We are going to build on the support we generated for LWCF last year, because right now there is not a lot of cash allotted to the program and the appropriations process is still needed to fund the program at meaningful levels,” said Boian.
“The momentum we had last year, it was really created by the Capitol Summit. I can go out to Congress myself and talk to them, and thats fine, I mean I think we do an effective job. We communicate daily with legislators on these issues. However, when OIAs members come out when we have the CEO and the president and the owner and the vice president of major corporations when they sit down with their home states Senator, it has a huge impact. These lawmakers really take notice.”
While the new Congress this year has certainly opened up several opportunities for the Outdoor Industry in terms of recreation and resource conservation, it has also created some challenges over trade issues. “We are really going to be going to D.C. this year and re-introducing ourselves to this new Congress, to the 110th Congress. Were going to talk about the $730 billion contribution our industry makes to the U.S. economy. Were going to have 22 state specific studies so we will know exactly what the recreation economy does for Utah, what it does for Colorado, what it does for California, what it does for North Carolina. So when we meet with these members of Congress we can say, heres who we are, heres what we do, here are the statistics concerning what we do for your state, and here is what you can do to ensure our continued growth and success.”
Editors note: OIAs Capitol Summit takes place from April 17-19 this year. If you are interested in attending email OIA: capitolsummit@outdoorindustry.org
