September 13, 2013 — Of all the more than 3,000 landmarks named for President Ronald Reagan — from scores of schools and highways to an aircraft carrier and a mountain — nothing comes close to this: designating 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean as the biggest, wettest and most ambitious Reagan memorial yet imagined.
House Republicans have taken committee action approving floor debate on just such an expanse of The Deep — the Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone, a sovereignty-protected resources and development area bigger than that of the 50 states’ land mass. It encompasses all ocean areas up to 200 nautical miles out from the nation’s 13,000 miles of coastline. The zone already exists under a directive President Reagan signed in 1983.
Read the full editorial from The New York Times