Barack Obama made headlines today with a proposal to dump $5 billion worth of oil and gas company profits into Great Lakes conservation and restoration efforts over the next decade.
While the will has been there, securing federal money has been an ongoing challenge for both conservationists and elected officials who have been pushing to advance Great Lakes restoration efforts. They created the Great Lakes Regional Collaborative (GLRC) in 2004, drawing scientists, business leaders and policy makers together in support of a $20 billion, five-year plan for restoring the world's single largest source of fresh water.
"The problem is that we haven't gotten the kind of investment that we need to get the plan off the ground," said Joel Brammeier, vice president of policy with the Alliance for the Great Lakes. A lack of federal money has been key, he said, because it would help to attract other local and private sources of money.
Not surprisingly, Illinois GOP leaders aren't impressed with the proposal. In a statement today, they joined party leaders from across the region to argue that Obama's initiative merely "throws taxpayer money at the problem."
Obama's proposes to further the GLRC plan by naming a federal coordinator for the project through the Environmental Protection Agency. That person would take responsibility for coordinating existing federal, state and local programs to deal with sewer overflows, invasive species, and toxic hotspots.
Many of those objectives were established in a piece of legislation that Obama co-sponsored, along with Sen. Dick Durbin, last year, known as the Great Lakes Collaboration Implementation Act [S. 791]. That bill has been stuck in committee since last March.
But the Brookings Institution (BI) has repeatedly recommended that lawmakers give it a good hard look as a way to advance conservation and bolster the Midwestern economy. Brookings released a study last year that demonstrated how a Great Lakes cleanup would give the regional economy a $50 billion jolt through increased tourism, commercial and recreational fishing, and property values. A supplemental report found that the economic boon would be greatest for Chicago, which could see an infusion of $7.4 to $13 billion through increased property values alone.
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