Whereas, in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt established the first national wildlife refuge on Pelican Island in Florida; Whereas, in 2018, the National Wildlife Refuge System, administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, is the premier system of land and water to conserve wildlife in the world and has grown to approximately 836,000,000 acres, 567 national wildlife refuges, and 38 wetland management districts located in every State and territory of the United States; Whereas national wildlife refuges are important recreational and tourism destinations in communities across the United States, and this protected land offers a variety of recreational opportunities, including 6 wildlife-dependent uses that the National Wildlife Refuge System manages, specifically hunting, fishing, wildlife observation, photography, environmental education, and interpretation; Whereas the National Wildlife Refuge System experiences more than 53,000,000 visits each year, which generate more than $2,400,000,000 in sales and 35,000 jobs in local economies; Whereas visitation to the National Wildlife Refuge System increased by nearly 30 percent from 2006 to 2017; Whereas, in 2018, 377 units of the National Wildlife Refuge System have hunting programs and 312 units of the National Wildlife Refuge System have fishing programs, averaging more than 2,400,000 hunting visits and more than 7,300,000 fishing visits each year; Whereas the National Wildlife Refuge System experienced more than 31,400,000 wildlife observation visits during fiscal year 2017; Whereas national wildlife refuges are important to local businesses and gateway communities; Whereas the National Wildlife Refuge System encompasses every kind of ecosystem in the United States, including temperate, tropical and boreal forests, wetlands, deserts, grasslands, arctic tundras, and remote islands, and spans 12 time zones from the Virgin Islands to Guam