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Environmentalists Say Federal Great Lakes Funding Bill A ‘Mixed Bag’

Restoration Dollars Restored But Sewage Treatment Loans Trimmed

By
Matt Wade (CC-BY-SA)

A federal spending bill that has substantial implications for the Great Lakes has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is now on its way to the U.S. Senate.

Included in the U.S. Department of the Interior’s appropriations measure is a plan to continue last year’s $300 million funding level for a regional restoration program, a move praised by the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.

But coalition spokesman Jordan Lubetkin said the House has mostly approved a Obama administration recommendation to cut a federal loan program that helps communities pay for upgrades in sewage treatment plants.

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“We don’t think that’s a good thing,” said Lubetkin. “We like to see communities across the country, including the Great Lakes — Wisconsin and elsewhere — get the much needed funding to carry out what are usually quite expensive projects.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Janesville said the Interior Spending bill is fiscally responsible and said other portions of the measure try to put an end to what he called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s radical agenda.