2005 Great Lakes Issues Briefing
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
10:15am – 12:30pm
Room 2318 Rayburn House Office Building
Topic Suggested by the Great Lakes Commission: The Great Lakes Regional Collaboration process, including the objectives and function of the Strategy Teams, outcomes, and opportunities for the larger Great Lakes Community to support the process.
May 18, 2004, marked the beginning of an exciting new opportunity to further protect and restore the Great Lakes. It was on that date that President Bush signed Executive Order 13340 creating a Great Lakes Interagency Task Force and promoting establishment of a "regional collaboration of national significance" for the Great Lakes.
The Great Lakes Regional Collaboration (the Collaboration) has 3 purposes: 1) to develop a Great Lakes Restoration and Protection Strategy that builds on existing collaborative efforts already in place; 2) to serve as a forum to address near term regional issues; and 3) to serve as a forum to coordinate and enhance implementation of the Strategy once it is completed.
I believe that this Collaboration offers an unprecedented opportunity to move forward collectively and strategically to protect and restore the Great Lakes.
The collaboration process that was kicked off at the Conveners' Meeting in Chicago last December brought together key players from all levels of government, including federal, state, local, Tribal and Congressional representatives, to collaboratively work together and with the Great Lakes community toward a common goal of protecting and restoring the Great Lakes ecosystem in order to address new and continuing challenges and ensure a healthy ecosystem for future generations.
In signing the Great Lakes Declaration, these representatives formally pledged their support for a collaborative process to further restore and protect the Great Lakes ecosystem, and that process is well underway.
The Federal Government created a Great Lakes Interagency Task Force, in part to coordinate the development of consistent Federal policies, strategies, projects and priorities for addressing the restoration and protection of the Great Lakes. In other words, the Federal government is working to get its own house in order as part of the Collaboration effort. The Task Force will be delivering a report to the President by the end of May summarizing its progress to date and providing any recommendations that would further federal government efforts to protect and restore the Great Lakes.
To help move the Collaboration forward, an Executive Committee, consisting of spokespersons for each of the five Collaboration members (feds., states, cities, tribes, Congress), was established to coordinate development of the Great Lakes Strategy and encourage stakeholder participation.
Eight Issue Area Strategy Teams were established to examine specific issues and provide recommendations to the Collaboration on those issues. Those recommendations will be the building blocks of the Great Lakes Strategy, which is planned for release in December 2005. [The 8 Strategy Teams are: 1) Nonpoint sources; 2) Coastal health, 3) PBTs, 4) Areas of Concern/sediments; 5) Indicators & Information; 6) Sustainable Development; 7) Habitat/Species; and 8) Invasive Species].
Although the Collaboration is only two months old, I am pleased to say that much progress is being made.
The Great Lakes Interagency Task Force meets monthly, and is improving interagency coordination in areas such as policy development, priority setting, information exchange, scientific research, and development and implementation of the Great Lakes portion of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
The Executive Committee meets monthly as well, as is working closely with the Strategy Teams on issues related to developing the Strategy. In addition, the Executive Committee will play the key role of pulling together the recommendations from the eight Strategy Teams into a comprehensive strategy document, a draft of which is on schedule to be released in early July.
All of the Strategy Teams are in place and have been meeting frequently via conference call over the past 2 months. In a sign of the high level of interest in this effort, I can tell you that there are, on average, approximately 150 members on each team. Those members represent a true cross-section of the Great Lakes community, including the environmental community, the private sector, academia, and representatives from federal, state, local and tribal governments.
EPA's Acting Administrator, Steve Johnson, just returned from a meeting with the Strategy Teams and the Executive Committee last week in Ohio, and I can tell you that Steve came away impressed with the dedication and level of engagement demonstrated by the Strategy Teams.
This level of engagement from the full complement of Great Lakes interests needs to be sustained over the course of the next 10 months in order for the Collaboration to be successful in its efforts to produce a comprehensive, coordinated Great Lakes Strategy.
I envision this Strategy as a blueprint for the entire Great Lakes region, and it should factor into policy and funding decisions made over time at the national, regional, state and local levels. I want to see federal agencies, county commissioners, governors, tribal leaders, environmental groups, members of Congress, foundations, and regional planning boards use this Strategy as the basis for their decision-making regarding the Great Lakes. For those groups to embrace this Strategy with confidence, it needs to have broad participation. And that is why I am so heartened by the reports I hear regarding the level of involvement and engagement in the Strategy Teams by members of the Great Lakes community.
I would like to emphasize that opportunities for involvement do not end with the delivery of the draft strategy in July.
The Collaboration also will be inviting broad input through a 45-day public comment period that will commence after the draft Strategy is delivered. At the close of the public comment period, the Executive Committee and the Strategy Teams will engage in a process to address comments and produce the final strategy by the end of the year. My expectation is that the Strategy Teams will maintain their broad base of members through the end of the year in order to help ensure that the voice of the Great Lakes community is heard throughout the duration of the collaborative process.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration. We have an ambitious task ahead of us, but by harnessing the power of collaboration, and by making good use of the strong commitment we all share to a cleaner, healthier Great Lakes, I am confident we can accomplish our goal of developing a comprehensive strategy to restore and protect the Great Lakes that will serve us all well into the future.
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