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Courting Disaster

It would be difficult to argue that Boyer Lake and Bah Lakes - two of Minnesota’s 10,0000 lakes – are, in reality, a pond or puddle, don’t laugh, those opposed the Clean Water Restoration Act make that very argument. They say that by passing this bill we would be regulating pollution in every watering hole, small pond and rain puddle in America.

Oh, you thought the clean water act (CWA) already did that? Once upon a time it did, but that was before several court decisions that rolled the regulations, back leaving over 60 percent of this nation’s rivers, streams Read More » »

Your Task Force Working For You!

The US Senate Members of the Great Lakes Task Force are circulating a letter in support of President Obama’s Great Lakes Initiative. This will hopefully influence their colleagues in the Senate who control the purse strings.

President Obama’s FY2010 Budget includes $475 million for Great Lakes restoration. No US President has ever made such a commitment before and we want to make sure that the US Congress follows through by providing the same amount in their budget. The GL Task Force in the US House is circulating a similar letter among their colleagues.

So far, Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich) and George Voinovich Read More » »

Action Alert: Tell your Members of Congress to Match President Obama’s Great Lakes Restoration Funding

President Obama included a $475 million Great Lakes Restoration initiative in his proposed FY2010 Budget – the largest Great Lakes funding commitment ever made by a President. While this is a great testament to our new Great Lakes President, Congress ultimately dictates federal funding levels. The first step in that process is the Congressional Budget Resolution, which is currently being debated in Congress. The House and Senate plan to pass their budget resolutions by the first week of April.

HOW YOU CAN TAKE ACTION: Please take ten minutes today to call Congress today to urge your Representative and Senators to Read More » »

Nothing Is Impossible

This Wednesday at 2pm House Members from the Great Lakes will have an opportunity to tell the House Budget Committee how important it is to keep President Obama’s $475 million Great Lakes Initiative in the FY2010 budget. So far, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-Mich) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) have told HOW that they will either testify or submit written testimony supporting the Great Lakes initiative. How about the rest of the House delegation? It would be a real show of force if every member of the House from Great Lakes states would provide Read More » »

We’d Like To Thank You, President Obama

Talk about showing us the way; President Barack Obama is the first president to set aside money in his budget specifically for Great Lakes restoration. We can’t thank him enough for this historic $475 million commitment. Now, we must urge our members of Congress to include this budget line in their budget resolution. The Senate Budget Committee is holding a hearing today on the President’s Budget so the process is already underway. It is time to show this country’s political representatives that our region speaks with one voice when it comes to our Great Lakes and restoration cannot be put Read More » »

This Talk Isn’t So Cheap

HOW is asking Reps. Vern Ehlers (R-Mich), Mark Kirk (R-Ill), John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Louise Slaughter (D-NY) to tell the House Budget Committee that we need the $475 million President Obama has set aside for the Great Lakes in his 2010 budget. This is a big priority for those of us working on Great Lakes restoration and we really hope our delegation steps up to testify before their colleagues at the Budget hearing on Wednesday. If you have a minute, please send them an email repeating our request. Thanks!

Tell Congress to Enact President Obama’s Historic Great Lakes Commitment

President Obama recently announced $475 million in his budget for Great Lakes Restoration – an effort that is critical to creating jobs and reviving our economy. The catch is that Congress holds the purse strings through their budget resolution and the annual appropriations process.
That’s where you come in.
Read Coalition statement on President Obama’s Budget
Tell Congress to match the President’s commitment

Cha-Ching

An article by Spencer Hunt of the Columbus Dispatch reminds us not to forget about our great fight with invasive species in the Lakes. The story makes it clear we need to implore our US Congress to pass restrictions on ballast water discharges as soon as possible. We continue to write and speak about the crisis point that we are at - that no return is just around the corner - yet the valuable Ballast Bill of 2007 and 2008 continues to languish. “We have never been able to eliminate any aquatic invader that’s gotten into the (Great Lakes) Read More » »

With a Little Bit of Blooming Luck

It’s too late to get economic stimulus money to help restore the ecosystem in the Great Lakes, and it is too late to send funds for jobs to clean up toxic hot spots. But it isn’t too late to do everything possible to convince the conferees to go with the House version of the bill when it comes to updating sewers and cleaning up drinking water.

The House version of the economic recovery package would provide $6 billion for both wastewater and drinking water infrastructure. The House bill would deliver $2.18 billion to the Great Lakes states and would create Read More » »

First Things First

We’d like to thank you Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) for offering an amendment to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will increase the amount of money our nation spends to update our anachronistic sewer and drinking water infrastructure from $6 billion (current House and Senate bill) to $13 billion.

What does that $7 billion translate into? It means another 1,935 sewers in disrepair will be fixed and another 385 drinking water projects will get underway. It means an additional 154,000 people will be employed in an array of jobs – American jobs – jobs Read More » »