During the June 2024 presidential debate, candidate — and now president — Donald Trump looked directly into the camera and told the American people, “I want absolutely immaculate, clean water.” It’s hard to see how he will keep that pledge, now that Trump has announced his intention to slash the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 65%.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has since said that number is too low. It’s impossible to contemplate cuts of that magnitude without major reductions in and elimination of people and programs that protect our vital Great Lakes. Simply put, cuts at this level would be a threat to the health and safety of the one in 10 Americans who drink Great Lakes water every day.
The Great Lakes states are centered on water. It’s a fundamental part of the economy and our way of life. It’s hard to overstate how significant fresh water is in the lives of people across the Great Lakes states. The Great Lakes hold 22% of the world’s fresh surface water and tens of millions of Americans rely on them for their drinking water.
The lakes are economic engines that generate billions of dollars annually in the fishing, boating, recreation, and tourism industries. If it were its own country, the Great Lakes region would have a GDP of $6 trillion, making it the third biggest economy in the world. Clean water is at the center of the region’s economic success.
Cutting EPA funds at this scale will directly impact Illinois residents who depend on EPA funding to stop sewer overflows and backups, replace lead service lines, and reduce “forever chemicals” in their water. EPA’s annual budget is approximately $11 billion, a tiny percentage of federal spending. That includes programs like the $2.8 billion Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds and $614 million in smaller water infrastructure grant programs that help states, tribes and local communities keep clean water flowing from taps and pollution out of waterways.
Federal government must play a role
In Illinois, those needs are estimated to be $33.6 billion over the next 20 years. Every other state in the Great Lakes region has similar needs.
Cutting EPA by 65% would result in an approximately $4 billion annual EPA budget. That is not even close to enough to fund water infrastructure programs and maintain staff to do EPA’s other work on clean water and other environmental needs.
Our Great Lakes cross state, tribal and international lines, so the federal government has a huge role to play. The Great Lakes are also a shared resource with Canada and the United States has international treaty obligations to protect them.
EPA’s Region 5 headquarters — a short walk from the shores of the only Great Lake fully within U.S. borders, Lake Michigan — houses the unique Great Lakes National Program Office, which implements the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The program has removed toxic legacy pollution, restored habitat and wetlands, prevented and controlled invasive species, and more. The program enjoys broad bipartisan support: a coalition of Republican and Democratic members of Congress recently introduced reauthorization legislation. For every dollar it invests, three dollars in value is returned to our regional economy.
In his first term, Trump tried to zero out restoration funding in his first two budgets. The 16 senators and 113 members of the U.S. House of Representatives that hail from the eight Great Lakes states heard from their constituents about the damage these actions would wreak, and Trump had to reverse course
This history lesson is important, with more draconian plans for cuts now on the table. There is unfinished business, from lead service lines in desperate need of replacement to extreme storms and flooding damaging our Great Lakes communities to cleaning up toxic contaminants from dozens of rivers, harbors and shorelines. The list goes on.
When there is no watchdog on polluters, no first responder to a toxic spill, and no funding to keep our water clean, we know what happens. Our region is well past the days when pollution was accepted as a cost of doing business — if there’s anywhere in the country that exemplifies a commitment to “immaculate, clean water” it’s the Great Lakes.
What the Great Lakes need is a credible plan for how federal agency staff and funding will continue to support our region in restoring and protecting the clean water we all depend on.
Joel Brammeier is president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
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