LOCAL

Senate task force calls for $300M in Great Lakes funding

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Senator Rob Portman is leading a bipartisan effort seeking $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in the federal 2019 fiscal year budget.

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senators Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, co-chairs of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, on Monday led a bipartisan letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney calling for $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) to be included in the Fiscal Year 2019 budget request. 

Great Lakes Task Force Vice Chairs Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, and Todd Young, R-Indiana, and Task Force members Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Joe Donnelly, D-Indiana, Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania, Al Franken, D-Minnesota, Gary Peters, D-Michigan, Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, and Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, also signed the letter. 

“Now is not the time to scale back our nation’s commitment to restore the Great Lakes environment and economy,” wrote the lawmakers. “Because of the partnership we have with federal agencies, our region is making progress and seeing results. The GLRI is a locally driven restoration effort and its success depends on the collaboration between all levels of government and with industrial, commercial, and nongovernmental partners. We again ask that you include $300 million for the GLRI in next year’s budget request.”

The letter called the Great Lakes "a national treasure" and noted that it provides drinking water for 40 million people while contributing $10 billion in tourism each year.

The letter said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wrote In the most recent Great Lakes Restoration Initiative report to Congress and the President that the GLRI “is protecting public health in the Great Lakes more than any other coordinated interagency effort in U.S. history, and helping to ensure that our children and their children live in safer, healthier communities.”

The letter cited a number of threats to the Great Lakes including "aging sewers, invasive species, harmful algal blooms, and toxic pollutants" and said that "ultimately, cutting spending on the Great Lakes won’t save money, it will cost the nation more."