Issue Position: Environment and Open Space

Issue Position

Rosa DeLauro believes that we have a responsibility to protect our natural resources and ensure that we have a clean, healthy environment. We need to preserve open space, farmland and historic sites as a means of protecting state and local environments as well as to protect the state and local economies.

DeLauro supports increased land acquisition funding; providing grants to states and localities to acquire land and plan for open space; expanded funding for other resource protection efforts; funding for "smart growth" partnerships; and expand funding for ocean and coastal protection.

* Fund Smart Growth Partnerships

o preserve open spaces and clean up brownfields.

o provides additional federal grants to build, extend and modernize light rail, subway and other mass transit systems.

o promote sustainable, balanced commercial use of our vast system of public lands.

* Promote Livable Communities

o encourage urban redevelopment, promoting mass transit, or creating incentives for communities to protect farmlands, clean up abandoned industrial sites and safeguard waterways.

* Land Preservation

o preservation for open spaces and protection for natural treasures.

o support full funding for our National Parks and protect our forests

o stop commercial exploitation of environmentally sensitive land, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR)

* Safeguarding Our Waterways

o we must rebuild declining fisheries and require that all fisheries be managed in a sustainable manner to prevent over-fishing.

o clean-up the Long Island Sound and provide a steady stream of funding to safeguard it for future generations.

o protect our watersheds by reducing non-point sources of pollution.

Local Initiatives

* Stewart McKinney Wildlife Refuge - DeLauro secured federal funds for the acquisition of the Great Meadows Salt Marsh. This is the final and critical land purchase necessary for completing the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge.

* Long Island Sound Restoration - DeLauro sponsored important legislation (DeLauro-Lowey Water Pollution Control and Estuary Restoration Act) that extends and increases the authorization for the State Revolving Fund (SRF), the federal source of low-interest loans to municipalities to improve their wastewater treatment infrastructure. It also strengthens the National Estuary Program

* DeLauro cosponsored the House passed Long Island Sound Restoration Act, that would increase the amount of funding for the implementation of conservation plans for the nation's 28 estuaries.

* Raymark - DeLauro fought for the declaration of a Superfund site; the cleaning of the site; and attracting businesses back to the site (Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Shaw's). Groundbreaking occurred September 25, 2000.

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