Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, this amendment simply requires that the harbor maintenance funding provided in this Appropriations bill comply with the recently enacted WRRDA law and that the 10 percent funding requirement for the Great Lakes to be met.

The Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014, which this body passed by a 412-4 vote, includes an allocation for the Great Lakes navigation system of 10 percent of harbor maintenance funding provided above the fiscal 2012 baseline, but this amendment is more than about that. This is a bill that really dwells on the Great Lakes.

What a great gift from God this Nation was given with the Great Lakes. One-fifth of the world's freshwater--not one-fifth of Pennsylvania's freshwater and certainly not one-fifth of America's freshwater--but one-fifth of the world's freshwater is in our Great Lakes. There is also a commerce element there.

Now, where does that fit in, and why do we talk about that? Here is why: we are talking about jobs. We are talking about jobs at our Great Lakes. We are talking about 128,000 American jobs, over $33.6 billion in annual revenue, and it is 3 percent of our Nation's gross domestic product.

This commonsense amendment just directs the Army Corps of Engineers to use the allocated funds as directed.

We talk about the Great Lakes, and we talk about it an awful lot. I think that, sometimes, we forget how great this gift is and what our responsibility is.

Sure, it is a gift from God, but it is up to men to maintain it. This great body is looking at this opportunity that we have right now to actually direct the funding that makes sure that we can still navigate through our Great Lakes--that we can dredge our harbors, that we can do breakwater maintenance, and that we can do jetties, which are all of those things that are necessary to keep that line open.

The Great Lakes are truly our door to the world. It is our responsibility, and it falls on our shoulders right now to support that.

I appreciate the chairman and the ranking member's willingness to consider this amendment, and I appreciate their support for our Great Lakes. I would also like to thank Representative Candice Miller for her great work on the WRRDA bill on behalf of our Great Lakes.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and keep open our Great Lakes to the world.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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