James Oberstar: “This amendment makes technical changes to the underlying bill. It ensures the continued competitive nature of the…”

“This amendment makes technical changes to the underlying bill. It ensures the continued competitive nature of the National Estuary Program. We ensure that the program evaluations will assess whether the implementation of a comprehensive conservation and management plan is achieving its stated goals. The amendment will enhance public education on the connections between air, land, water, and the potential impacts of those factors on the health of the estuary. It will strike the existing statutory priority list of estuaries. It will remove individuals from the list of approved recipients for grants under this program. First, the technical changes will ensure that program evaluations determine whether the implementation of a management plan is reaching its stated goals. It will ensure that not only the plan but the implementation of the plan is achieving improvements in water quality and habitat in the estuary. Second, the amendment ensures that the public education component of any management plan will include and will highlight the connections within the estuary between air, land, and water and the potential impacts of those interactions. Estuaries will be able to highlight to citizens living within the boundaries of the estuary how their actions will affect the health of the estuary and how they can change their habits or how they can change their actions to improve the quality of the estuary.”