House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Water Resources and the Environment Subcommittee
Reauthorization of the Great Lakes Legacy Act
The success of legislation aimed at cleaning up contaminated sediment in the Great Lakes Basin will receive close scrutiny at a House Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee hearing Wednesday as lawmakers consider its reauthorization.The Great Lakes Legacy Act of 2002 was designed to eliminate contaminant hot spots where PCBs, heavy metals and other pollutants poured from industrial sources into the Great Lakes and surrounding rivers and tributaries. Thus far, it has contributed to the removal of nearly 800,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment and has received high praise from U.S. EPA officials and lawmakers.
“In Michigan, it has been phenomenally successful,” Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.), who authored the legislation, told E&E Daily. “We’ve cleaned up a number of spots.”
Ehlers said he has heard the program was effective in other areas of the Great Lakes as well.
“One person who works in the whole field, including Superfund, said this is the best, most workable pollution cleanup he’s ever worked with,” Ehlers said. “That’s what we want to find out in the hearing. Is that the opinion of one person or is everyone finding it to be a very workable program?”
Ehlers said after the hearing he would work with Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) to put a reauthorization bill together.
“We’ll do whatever we can do to improve the program, and we’ll certainly try to get more funding for it because it’s clear it’s working very well and people like it,” he said. “It does what it’s intended to do. If we had more funding we could do a lot more and do it a lot faster.”
Many lawmakers are critical of the Bush administration’s failure to fully fund the legislation. Although the program would receive a $55,000 boost in the administration’s fiscal 2009 budget, the funding still falls $15 million short of the $50 million authorized by Congress.
However, presidential hopefuls Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) all have signed a pledge to fund and support the restoration of the Great Lakes. The price tag for the entire project is expected to exceed $20 billion.