Protect Lake Erie and keep progress going – Toledo Blade

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Lake Erie is a treasure for Ohio, providing 3 million Ohioans with drinking water and hundreds of thousands of Ohioans with good jobs in our billion-dollar fishing industry and the broader tourism industry. About 7 million people visit Lake Erie every year, spending nearly $13 billion in Ohio.

Portman

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I am proud to be co-chair, with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) of the Senates Great Lakes Task Force, a bipartisan group of senators who advocate for policies that protect the Great Lakes.

During my six years in the U.S. Senate, I have authored a number of bills that President Obama signed into law to protect our lake, including a law to prioritize funding to fight the harmful algal blooms that caused half a million people in Toledo to lose their drinking water in August of 2014.

I also authored a law to prevent Asian carp, an invasive species that could ruin the fishing industry, from getting into the lake.

One of the laws I co-authored phases out the use of microbeads small plastic beads used in products like face scrubs. Microbeads are so small that they slip through our water filtration systems, often absorbing toxins and getting eaten by fish, which become sick and unsafe to eat. Stopping these beads from polluting our waters is healthier for people, fish, and the Lake Erie fishing industry.

Last year, I teamed up with Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar to author the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act, a new law that requires the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to partner with other federal agencies and with states like Ohio to restore fish and wildlife populations in the Great Lakes.

Through these measures and others, a lot of progress has been made in protecting our lake.

Last year, I led the Senates efforts to extend a critical program called the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, or GLRI, which has brought millions of dollars in funding to Ohio cities like Toledo to clean up pollution in the lake, stop invasive species like Asian carp, and reduce the likelihood of harmful algal blooms.

Now that the GLRI has been newly extended for five years, we have to fight every year for this program to be adequately funded in Congress annual spending bills.

Sometimes its been a difficult fight. President Obama repeatedly proposed slashing this program by $50 million, a step I fought at every turn. I worked with my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, to fully fund the program, and we succeeded. Ultimately, President Obama signed full funding for this program into law.

Following weeks of speculation, President Trumps administration this week proposed cutting this program even more drastically than President Obama proposed. I understand the goal of bringing down the federal deficit, and I share that goal. But doing that by cutting the GLRI is penny-wise and pound foolish.

Heres why. According to a recent study, the GLRIs work generates a total of more than $80 billion in benefits in health, tourism, fishing, and recreation.

The study also states that it saves local communities like Toledo $50 million in costs, and increases property values across the region by a total of $12 billion.

Theres no question that we need to get our fiscal house in order. But we need to do that in a smart way that keeps in place smart investments that have a big impact like GLRI.

Thats why in February I led a bipartisan group of senators and members of Congress in writing a letter to President Trump, making it clear to him that cutting the GLRI just doesnt make sense. I have personally talked about this issue with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, whose job it is to lead this interagency program, and he told me that he supports GLRI.

GLRI helps Ohio preserve the treasure of Lake Erie. Im going to keep fighting for the funding we need, just as I have in the past. After several years of progress in protecting Lake Erie, we cannot afford to go backward.

Rob Portman is a Republican U.S. senator from Ohio.

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Protect Lake Erie and keep progress going - Toledo Blade