People are gathering in Buffalo this week for the annual Great Lakes restoration conference.
At the top of their list is making sure Congress fully funds the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in the 2018 budget.
President Trump’s proposed budget included massive cuts to the GLRI.
Todd Ambs is the campaign director for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.
“We’ve certainly gotten zero support from this administration, wanting to zero out funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and cut back a whole host of other programs and policies that are clearly beneficial to the Great Lakes," he says.
But Ambs says Great Lakes programs continue to have broad, bipartisan support in Congress.
He says his group is asking Congress for $300 million to fully fund the restoration efforts. That money is used for things like cleaning up toxic hot spots, controlling invasive species and restoring wildlife habitat.
