| Northeast-Midwest Institute Weekly Update |
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Mississippi River Mayors Select Initiative Leadership and Begin to Build Platform
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NEMWI's Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative (MRCTI) held its first meeting in St. Louis September 12-14. During that meeting, temporary leadership was seated to begin solidifying the organization as an independent group and charting a path for sustainable river management. MRCTI Chairs and Executive Board include: Francis Slay, St. Louis, MO (CHAIR); David Kleis, St. Cloud, MN (CO-CHAIR); Dennis Egan, Red Wing, MN; David Hemmer, Prairie du Chien, WI; Roy Buol, Dubuque, IA; Tom Hoechst, Alton, IL; Jo Anne Smiley, Clarksville, MO; Dickie Kennemore, Osceola, AR; AC Wharton, Memphis, TN; Paul Winfield, Vicksburg, MS; and Hyram Copland, Vidalia, LA. NEMWI expects to have a mayor from Kentucky join the executive board in early 2013. In addition to determining leadership, the mayors began establishing priority issues for their river platform, which they will unveil in Washington, DC in March 2013. Issues deemed essential include watershed grant reform, Inland Waterway Trust Fund reform, National Flood Insurance Program reform, and the establishment of a Mississippi River Congressional Caucus.
For more information, contact Colin Wellenkamp, Director, MS River Cities & Towns Initiative at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.
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Important Initiatives Announced during Great Lakes Week
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Great Lakes Week in Cleveland, OH, last week, coincided with several important developments for the region: (1) EPA announced two additional Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) grants totaling $1.7 million to the Cleveland area to install green infrastructure projects and stormwater control practices; (2) USACE released for public comment the Focus Area 2 Aquatic Pathways Assessment Summary Report that assesses the potential for transfer of aquatic nuisance species between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins through several aquatic pathways. Comments will be accepted Sept. 14 - Oct. 14, 2012; (3) Great Lakes Task Force Co-Chairs Sens. Carl Levin and Mark Kirk announced plans to introduce legislation to authorize or reauthorize programs vital to protecting the Great Lakes through a new GLEPA bill in the 112th Congress, which will be modeled after S. 3073, introduced in the 111th Congress. They are currently calling for input and Senator cosponsorship as they ready a final bill for introduction before the end of the year, and (4) Rep. Betty McCollum and NEMW Co-Chair Rep. Steve LaTourette introduced the Strategic Response to Asian Carp Invasion Act (H.R. 6385) to direct USFWS, USACE, NPS, and USGS to "lead a multiagency effort to slow the spread of Asian Carp in the Upper Mississippi and Ohio River basins and tributaries."
For more information, contact Kate Ostrander, Legislative Director of the Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition.
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NEMWI to Co-Host Workshop and Press Event at Great Ships Initiative Testing Facility
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NEMWI's Great Ships Initiative (GSI) and the Great Lakes Protection Fund (GLPF) will jointly host a press event on Thursday, September 20 at the GSI freshwater ballast treatment testing facility in Superior, Wisconsin. The event will serve to announce the research findings of an NEMWI project on Ship-Mediated Harmful Microbes in the Great Lakes, including answers to these questions:
- Are microbes--the smallest of organisms (e.g. bacteria and viruses)--a concern?
- If so, which monitoring methods would best manage those threats ahead of time?
NEMWI will also announce new GSI research into how low ballast discharge standards might need to go to protect the Great Lakes from new introductions of aquatic organisms. The groundbreaking studies, funded in large part by the GLPF, are crucial to protecting the environmental and economic health of the Great Lakes as well as preserving the benefits of commercial shipping on waterways around the world. Minnesota Lt. Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon is scheduled to speak, along with representatives of the maritime industry, about the importance of the research. Press tours of the GSI indoor/outdoor lab facility will be offered. The press event occurs in the context of a two-day international conference hosted by NEMWI and the North Sea Ballast Water Working Group.
For more information, contact Allegra Cangelosi, President of the Northeast-Midwest Institute. |
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Northeast and Midwest sites in EPA Superfund National Priorities List
| The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added 12 new sites to the Superfund National Priorities List, and proposed eight more sites. Five of the 12 newly-added sites and five of the eight proposed sites are in the Northeast and Midwest region, located in Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, and Massachusetts. Contamination sources at these sites include former mining, chrome plating, paint manufacturing, and ammunition manufacturing facilities.
For more information, contact Elin Betanzo, Senior Policy Analyst, at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.
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OMB Releases Latest Projections on Sequestration's FY13 Programmatic Funding Impacts
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Last week, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) within the Executive Office of the President issued a congressionally required report that was to provide details on how the sequester would be implemented across the entire federal budget, if the scheduled $109 billion in automatic FY13 cuts are implemented. The report was required with passage of the H.R. 5872, the Sequestration Transparency Act, this past summer. Available here, the OMB report provides key estimated budget information on a number of programs NEMW tracks, including LIHEAP and Federal-aid highways. Based on current spending, the sequester would require a 9.4% reduction in non-exempt defense discretionary funding, an 8.2% reduction in non-exempt nondefense discretionary funding, a 2.0% reduction to Medicare, a 7.6% reduction to other non-exempt nondefense mandatory programs, and a 10.0% to non-exempt defense mandatory programs. These reductions, scheduled to go into effect on January 2, 2013 and affect the remainder of FY13, project spending cuts across more than 1,200 federal accounts, with defense cut by about $55B, domestic discretionary spending by about $38B, Medicare by about $11B, and other mandatory spending programs by about $5B for FY13.
For more information, contact Kate Ostrander, Legislative Director of the Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition. |
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