Some bipartisan push back on an element of the president’s budget that impacts Wisconsin. Governor Scott Walker has joined a bipartisan coalition of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation has urged President Donald Trump not to cut funding for the Great Lakes that he’s proposing to eliminate.
Trump’s budget released this week would eliminate all funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative that targets the region’s biggest environmental threats. Seven Republican and Democratic members of Congress from Wisconsin joined with 40 other lawmakers in signing a letter to Trump in February asking him to fund the program that President Barack Obama established in 2009.
House Speaker Paul Ryan of Janesville did not sign the letter.
The program has pumped more than $2.2 billion dollars into the eight-state region for projects that have removed toxic wastes from industrial harbors and fought invasive species in waterways.