Current Advocacy

• Great Lakes Commission Legislative Priorities for FY 2011
• Great Lakes Restoration Initiative
• Asian Carp Prevention

Great Lakes Commission Legislative Priorities for FY 2011

On behalf of its eight member states, the Great Lakes Commission has developed a set of legislative priorities to protect and enhance the quality of our region’s environment and economy. These priorities are presented to Congress at Great Lakes Day 2010, held in Washington DC on February 24, 2010. The Commission’s priorities respond to and will advance the recommendations of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy (www.glrc.us). The Commission endorses the recommendations of the Council of Great Lakes Governors to Congress; the recommendations herein complement the governors’ requests.

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

2009 marked a “watershed” year for the Great Lakes when President Obama proposed – and Congress approved funding for – the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), an unprecedented, multi-year program to restore the Great Lakes. With funding of $475 million for the Initiative’s first year, the Great Lakes region is taking a significant step toward a cleaner environment and a healthier economy. The Administration has proposed $300 million for FY 2011.

The GLRI will help implement the comprehensive restoration strategy developed under the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration, which projected a $20 billion cost for cleaning up the Great Lakes. If fully funded over its five-year timeframe, the GLRI, coupled with other critical programs, will help fulfill the promise of this regional strategy and accelerate on-the-ground action to restore the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Commission calls on Congress to maintain level funding for the GLRI at $475 million in FY2011.

• NEW! Great Lakes Commission letter calling on Administration to safeguard Great Lakes programs in FY 2012 (11/12/2010)
• NEW! Letter from 14 Great Lakes organizations to Congress on funding for the GLRI in FY2011 (10/26/2010)
• Letter from 14 Great Lakes organizations to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees (04/12/2010)
• Letter from 14 Great Lakes organizations to the House and Senate Budget Committees (04/12/2010)
• GLC Testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies (03/19/2010)
• GLC Letter to the House and Senate Budget Committees (03/19/2010)
• Letter to President Obama, signed by 15 regional organizations (01/22/2010)

• Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) Website
• USEPA GLRI Website
• GLRI Action Plan FY2010 - FY 2014

Asian Carp Prevention

The Great Lakes region remains under constant threat that Asian carp will migrate through the Illinois River system and past or around the electric dispersal barrier system in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (CSSC) into Lake Michigan. Recent eDNA evidence of Asian carp has heightened the region's concern. The Commission recogonizes the efforts that have been undertaken to date; however, the threat of an invasion by this voracious feeder demands an even greater response and allocation of resources.

• Great Lakes Commission Resolution on Asian Carp (February 2010)
• Fact sheet: Stopping the Spread of Asian Carp: An Action Agenda for Congress (February 2010)
• Great Lakes Commission letter to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (December 2009)
• Great Lakes Commission Letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (November 2009)
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Chicago District Website
• USACE Dispersal Barrier Efficacy Study - INTERIM I (January 2010)
• Preliminary Feasibility of Ecological Separation of the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes to Prevent the Transfer of Aquatic Invasive Species, Great Lakes Fishery Commission (November 2008)

Past Advocacy Activities