GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - (KRT) - Rallying Congress to spend billions of dollars on a Great Lakes cleanup patterned after restoration programs under way in the Florida Everglades and the East Coast's Chesapeake Bay won't be easy, Rep. Vernon Ehlers told a group of conservationists Friday.
The Michigan Republican said it is a daunting challenge to get lawmakers from outside the region to appreciate the magnificence of the world's largest freshwater system, let alone care about the sewage spills, toxic sediments and invasive species that plague it.
Ehlers pointed to one Congressional committee debate several years back about funding for zebra mussel research as an example of how irrelevant Great Lakes issues are for many members of Congress.
"I am adamantly opposed to this," Ehlers recalled one West Coast lawmaker grumbling. "I see no reason in the world why we should spend taxpayer money studying the muscles of zebras!"
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/12604899.htm