Calling some lawmakers “self-serving jackasses,” South Carolina’s natural resources chief told conservationists Tuesday they must work harder to gain the attention of legislators at the State House.

John Frampton, director of the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, said he believes the environmental movement has lost steam with lawmakers in recent years as the economy and other issues have pushed it aside.

Legislators “hear about health care, they hear about education, but they don’t hear about natural resources – and the reason is we just aren’t speaking up enough,” Frampton told more than 50 conservationists in Columbia for an annual legislative conference.

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