Initial Spending Bill Includes Great Lakes Restoration Funding

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Congresspeople Marcy Kaptur (D-09) and David Joyce (R-14) announced Tuesday the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee has added full funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). The initiative received funding through September when Congress passed a $1 trillion temporary spending plan in May.

The GLRI was launched in 2010 and was designed to spearhead the cleanup and protection of all of the Great Lakes, including Lake Erie. The GLRI has been aiming to prevent invasive species from dominating the lakes, reducing nutrient runoff, prevents harmful algae blooms (like the one that spread near Toledo a few years ago) and restores habitats within and around the lakes to protect native species.

The GLRI gives out grants to help achieve the above-stated goals. The GLRI has also given grants to groups like the Centers for Disease and Control to study the spread of pathogens through waters. The Environmental Protection Agency also gets a slew of grants through the GLRI to protect the lakes.

In a joint statement sent out on Tuesday, Joyce and Kaptur described the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee adding funding for GLRI as a step toward protecting GLRI. (To stay up to date on local stories, subscribe to the Patch Avon-Avon Lake newsletter. As news breaks and the story develops, you will be the first to receive updates from Patch.)

“As soon as President Trump’s draconian budget was released I knew we would need a bipartisan front to beat back the harmful cuts to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. I commend the bipartisan effort that was put into protecting GLRI funding for the Lakes, and I hope we can keep building on this progress,” said Kaptur in a statement.

Joyce was more moderate in his comments, focusing instead on the impact the program has on Lake Erie and the residents around it.

“This is about where we swim, where we fish, and most importantly where we draw our drinking water. It is imperative that we continue to protect our Great Lakes which continues to be an environmental and economic engine for our region. Multiple administrations have yet to see the wisdom of protecting this national treasure at the levels it deserves and it is incumbent that the Great Lakes legislators continue to do the heavy lifting to protect it. We have staved off elimination, but, this is just the first step in a long battle to the finish line to protect 20 percent of the world’s fresh water,” said Joyce in a statement.

Both Joyce and Kapture announced in March 2017 they would push back against President Donald Trump's proposed budget and the de-funding of the GLRI.

The newly prepared and aforementioned appropriations bill, which features the restored funding for the GLRI, is on p. 77 of the bill. View the bill here.

“It is still beyond me why the President whose political fortune is so tied to the Great Lakes states, would gut funding for such a valuable environmental and economic resource as the Great Lakes," Kaptur said in her statement. "As Co-Chair of the House Great Lakes Task Force, I will keep the pressure up to ensure Congress provides the resources necessary to ensure the health and productivity of the Great Lakes.”

Photo from Rick Uldricks, Patch