Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Madam Chair, clean water is a human right. For decades in this country, we have allowed our water infrastructure to fall into disrepair, putting public health and the health of our environments into jeopardy.

Fortunately, the State and Tribal Assistance Grant, or STAG, program is empowering communities to tackle their toughest challenges and make game-changing drinking and clean water investments.

These include projects that protect beaches, including coastlines along the Great Lakes in my district, to make it safe to swim and recreate; projects to prevent runoff that pollutes our waters and can cause harmful algal blooms that damage public health and marine life; and projects to remove lead pipes, improving health outcomes, especially in children.

The STAG program also works to address past inequities by providing Indian and Tribal communities with the support they need to address drinking water and wastewater issues that disproportionately impact reservations.

The STAG program is a step in the right direction.

It helps State and Tribal Governments across the country upgrade aging infrastructure, build resiliency in the face of climate change, and meet the needs of historically underserved communities.

For these reasons, it is critical to ensure this program is adequately funded. My amendment would increase funding for the STAG program by $745 million.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the amendment to protect our nature's most precious natural resource and ensure communities access to clean water across our great country.

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Mr. KENNEDY. Madam Chair, the health and economic prosperity of my district, which has coastlines along Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and the Niagara River, is deeply intertwined with the health of the Great Lakes.

The lakes serve residents in Buffalo and Niagara Falls in myriad ways, from supplying fresh water to being a source of leisure.

In 2021, the Great Lakes region generated $3.1 trillion in economic activity and employed nearly 26 million people, representing $1.3 trillion in wages.

But our local and regional economy is threatened by a microscopic enemy harmful algal blooms, or HABs.

HABs can quickly grow out of control, producing toxic chemicals that cause illness or death in humans and pets who come in contact.

These large, blue-green algae blooms wash onto our beaches, and can form huge, putrid piles of muck--driving away beach goers, disrupting recreational activities, and detering investment in our coastlines.

To ensure public health, protect marine life, and ensure the vibrancy of local economies and water-related industries, more needs to be done to study and understand harmful algal blooms.

My amendment would provide an additional $5 million to the U.S. Geological Survey to research and monitor HABs in freshwater bodies.

Continued federal investment in researching HABs must be a top priority, especially as we get closer to understanding how they form and how we can reduce their harmful ecological and economic impacts.

I urge my colleagues to pass my amendment to protect tourism economies, animals, and public health.

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