News release: “U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today released the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Economic Report for Fiscal Year 2015. The report highlights that Interior investments in recreation, conservation, water and renewable energy led to $106 billion in economic output, and supported 862,000 jobs. Interior’s activities related to fossil fuel extraction and mining also contributed $179 billion to the national economy, down from $241 billion from the prior year due to market forces and commodity price reductions. The report found that national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments and other public lands managed by Interior hosted an estimated 443 million recreational visits in 2015—up from 423 million in 2014—and that these visits alone supported $45 billion in economic output and about 396,000 jobs nationwide.”