WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) cosponsored legislation to help keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. The Guarding Our Great Lakes Act would prescribe collaboration between the Great Lakes Interagency Task Force (IATF) – a collection of 11 U.S. Cabinet and federal agency heads, led by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – and state and local agencies to plan and implement water quality and flood mitigation projects. The bill would also implement federal invasive species control measures at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam in Joliet, IL – which, due to its location south of the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS), serves as the single entryway for any species moving upstream toward the Great Lakes.

“Asian carp are a serious threat to Lake Erie and the Ohio industries that rely on the lake,” Brown said. “That’s why we need to be aggressive in finding solutions that would protect the Great Lakes from the threat of invasive species. This bill would help ensure that Lake Erie’s ecosystems – and our region’s economic development – are not jeopardized by an influx of Asian carp.”

Brown continues to fight for the protection of Lake Erie from invasive species like Asian Carp. In July 2014, Brown and more than a dozen Great Lakes senators sent a letter to John Goss, Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality Asian Carp, expressing their continued commitment to practical, immediate solutions to the threat of Asian carp and other invasive species to the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basin.

Also in July, following a hearing of the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works (EPW), Brown urged Congress to pass bipartisan legislation which is aimed at preserving the Great Lakes and bolstering economic growth throughout the Great Lakes region. Brown is the cosponsor of the Great Lakes Ecological and Economic Protection Act (GLEEPA), which the EPW Committee considered today. GLEEPA would protect the Great Lakes—and the millions of jobs they support—from a variety of ecological threats and invasive species like Asian carp. It would accomplish this by fully funding the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI).

Earlier this year, Brown helped secure more than $300 million in bipartisan Omnibus Bill funds for the GLRI. In May, Congress passed a critical water infrastructure bill that includes an amendment introduced by Brown that would help prevent the invasion of Asian carp into the Ohio and Upper Mississippi River Basins.

 

###