Marcy Kaptur: “I want to thank Congressman Higgins for offering this important amendment, and Congresswoman Schakowsky for her…”

“I want to thank Congressman Higgins for offering this important amendment, and Congresswoman Schakowsky for her leadership on lakes issues, and also Chairman Frelinghuysen for his openness to those of us who happen to live in the Great Lakes region. Obviously, I rise in support of the amendment. Also, I just wanted to say on the record to the Corps, it would be wonderful if somebody over at the Corps had a map and they took all of the watersheds of the Great Lakes and they put them all together and then the staff for the Great Lakes would be located somewhere in those watersheds, because right now, that isn't the case. And it causes us all kinds of bloody problems up in our part of the world where we do adjoin Canada up there. You know, there's another country north of us. It has been so hard to get them to recognize the coastline that you described. And so this is my moment to vent a little bit on the floor and say: Hello, Corps. We're out there. I happen to represent the largest watershed in the Great Lakes, and we really need the Corps' focus on the most important freshwater system that exists on the face of the Earth. Twenty percent of the freshwater on the globe, surface freshwater, is up in our region. And it always seems like it's never together. It's never together. So the gentleman's amendment helps to focus a little bit on this, but the challenge goes beyond just this amendment.…”