On the recordDecember 20, 2020
I am on the floor tonight to join my colleague Senator Stabenow of Michigan to ask our colleagues to support legislation that has to do with the Great Lakes. It is called the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. We are asking to reauthorize that legislation. This is one of those public-private partnerships that work. It is not only public, like Federal public, and private; it is Federal, State, local, and private individuals coming together to figure out how to keep our Great Lakes the amazing treasure that they are. I represent Lake Erie. It is on the north coast of Ohio. It is the most shallow and also the most fertile of the Great Lakes. It has incredible fishing. There is a gigantic, $7 billion fishing industry in the Great Lakes. A lot of it is recreational fishing--$7 billion. It is being threatened right now, really, by a few different things. One is these Asian carp, so-called ``bighead carp,'' that are coming up into the lake. We are doing all we can to keep them out, but this funding, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, focuses on that issue to keep the carp from ruining Lake Erie as they have ruined other bodies of water for recreational and commercial fishing. Second, we have to deal with our toxic algae blooms. You have probably heard about this. We have these blooms that are increasingly forming in Lake Erie, particularly in the western basin of the Toledo area. What they do is they keep people from being able to use the lake.…
