Of course Republican Congressman Darrel Issa of California is a busy man, but in past years and again this week he found time to propose legislation that would name 3.4 million square miles of ocean and 90,000 miles of U.S. coastline after Ronald Reagan.
In 1983 President Reagan expanded the US ocean boundary by presidential proclamation and established what is called the Exclusive Economic Zone. The EEZ according to the USGS is an exclusive economic zone, the outer limit of which is a line drawn in such a manner that each point on it is 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.
Issa reintroduced his bill Wednesday to rename the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which generally extends from three miles to 200 miles offshore, as the Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone.
Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has introduced the bill multiple times in past sessions of Congress.
Under the proposal, references to the EEZ in U.S. laws, regulations, maps and other documents would carry Reagan’s name.
Issa’s proposed Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone (3.4 million square miles of ocean!) escalates the scale of naming honors for the former president. There is already a Reagan international airport and the Reagan federal building which is one of Washington DC’s largest buildings. And one day the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Reagan may set sail over the Reagan Ocean.( please note: an earlier version of this said the USS Reagan was a submarine this was an error )
that the best icon they can summon to get their blood-up is a guy from a quarter of a century ago who was given to mixing-up movie plots with real events and very likely suffered from early Alzheimer’s throughout his second term of office.
That he also is responsible for introducing the fairytale of “Trickle-down Economics” and dangerously loony foreign policy gambits like “Star Wars” just makes him more embraceable for the en-bunkered right.
His administration was totally blind-sided by the fall of the Soviet Union, but ever the showman/opportunist, the Teflon president and his handlers quickly pulled the horseshoe out of his butt and branded his Berlin speech as the cause of the whole thing.
On second thought, he is the perfect fantasy action hero for a bunch of geriatric white guys who are committed to marching resolutely backwards through the past century of social and scientific history.
I think I’ll just name my toilet water after Reagan. That would be more fitting.
The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project: the drive to get something named after Reagan in every county of America. This has been a “thing” (as Rachel Maddow would say) for quite a few years now.
I’m sorry to say the comsymps of New England are way behind on this noble and patriotic effort to honor “the 20th Century’s greatest president” (take that, FDR, you pansy!) by littering the landscape with his name. And there’s nothing at all in Vermont. Nominations are hereby open.
I’d suggest maybe Vermont Yankee’s on-site waste storage facility. The “Ronald Reagan ‘Forever Toxic’ Waste Dump” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?