Political Quotes

“I recently joined my colleagues on the Great Lakes Task Force to ask the White House to support funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative next year. The Great Lakes is the world's largest system of fresh surface water. It supports 1.5 million American jobs and $62 billion in wages. In western New York, Lake Erie is the focus of an amazing transformation of Buffalo's waterfront. Keeping the lake clean for recreation and fishing is essential to sustaining that economic growth. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has also been instrumental in the next phase of Buffalo's waterfront renaissance, the Buffalo River. $30 million in funding to clean up the river has leveraged $20 million in private investment. Now the river that the Federal Government declared biologically dead in 1968 will be swimmable and fishable in 5 years. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is creating jobs and improving environmental quality in my community, and it is producing returns for the national economy. I encourage my colleagues to support the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding in the upcoming budget negotiations and to support the passage of the Great Lakes Restoration Act, which would authorize this program through 2020. ____________________”