Protecting Our Great Lakes

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, freshwater is life. I rise to highlight the importance of the first piece of legislation introduced this year, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative by our bipartisan Great Lakes champions, the GLRI Act of 2025.

This Act was introduced earlier this month alongside my congressional Great Lakes co-chairs David Joyce, Debbie Dingell, and Bill Huizenga. This bill is among our highest priorities for the Great Lakes region.

The district we represent traces much of the entire Great Lakes region, but mine alone, the southern rim of Lake Erie, is the largest watershed in the entire Great Lakes. It is the largest body of freshwater on Earth.

We all know how important protecting our Great Lakes is for the generations to come. The GLRI provides instrumental funding to meet an enormous unmet need for our region and the millions of people who depend on the Great Lakes for their drinking water, livelihoods, and leisure.

Our legislation would provide an annual authorization level of $500 million beginning in FY27. By the way, that is half as much as the West receives for the Bureau of Reclamation. They get well over $1 billion.

In 2020, the GLRI contributed $3.1 trillion to our economy. Mr. Speaker, there is nothing more important that our colleagues say than, let's protect the Great Lakes and turn it over to future generations in better condition than we found it.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source