Mike Levin: “first, I thank Senator Leahy for offering this amendment. It is a very important amendment to those of us in the Great…”

“first, I thank Senator Leahy for offering this amendment. It is a very important amendment to those of us in the Great Lakes for the reasons he has described. His initiative was aimed at making certain that Lake Champlain would be eligible to compete for certain funds. That eligibility is dependent upon Lake Champlain facing a common problem. There is no reason why Lake Champlain should not be able to compete for funds where they face a common problem with the Great Lakes, such as zebra mussels or contaminated sediments. So that was never the problem. The problem was the redesignation of Lake Champlain as a Great Lake, and that is what created the difficulty. Basically, what this Leahy amendment does is to reconfirm the historical definition of the Great Lakes. That historical definition of the five Great Lakes is learned by every child in the Great Lakes region. It is HOMES. It is the easy way for our children to learn what the Great Lakes are. HOMES--Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Superior. Together they spell HOMES. That is a very significant part of our identity in the Great Lakes.”