A remarkable thing happens in Washington, D.C. this time of year. Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle line up to pledge their allegiance to the Great Lakes during Great Lakes Day – a tradition that goes back over 25 years.  

U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) echoed the sentiment of many recently when she said “there's no more bipartisan issue than the Great Lakes,” and Great Lakes Day, on March 5, is a tour de force of this principle.

While last year had a few hiccups related to the current presidential administration’s policy, including an inflammatory speech attacking Canada by U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and a spirited response from Canadian Members of Parliament present – the Great Lakes remain the great uniters of the region, and perhaps the last bastion of true bipartisanship in Congress.

This bipartisanship is one reason why the mantle of Great Lakes champion is coveted by all politicians in the region. The other reason: more than 90% of the people in the region “believe it is important to protect the lakes’ health and water quality, and for governments to invest in Great Lakes protection," according to polling from the International Joint Commission and others.

Great Lakes are more popular than mom and apple pie, which accounts for the conga line of support at the Congressional podium during Great Lakes Day, and the many platitudes that come during campaign season. With a highly contested midterm election this year, the demand for “Great Lakes Champion” status will continue to rise exponentially.

But there’s a problem that largely comes from the incredible success of the Great Lakes community’s collective advocacy. Supporting the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) is, simply put, too easy.

GLRI is the successful and enormously popular federal investment of over $4 billion to clean up the Great Lakes. It has survived repeated attempts by the Trump administration to eliminate the program as well as less serious attempts by the Biden and Obama administrations to cut funding.

It enjoys strong bipartisan support, with Republicans often leading the charge to maintain or increase funding when members of their own party try to make cuts. Yet while it's clearly important for the future of the Great Lakes, GLRI is not nearly enough.

Supporting GLRI is often the “check the box” exercise to claim that coveted Great Lakes Champion political prize.

GLRI was designed to be supplemental to the core protections for our water provided by the Clean Water Act and other key environmental laws. GLRI is voluntary, nonregulatory, and meant to be enacted above and beyond federal agency responsibilities.

GLRI needs solid science to make decisions on restoration priorities and progress. GLRI’s positioning was already a problem before the Trump administration, as members of Congress would gleefully vote for GLRI and tout their Great Lakes record, yet also quietly vote against clean water protections and agency authorities.  

The Trump administration has upped the ante significantly by systematically decimating not only the Clean Water Act, but the agencies and programs that enforce all environmental laws. The White House is undermining the scientific community and science itself by cutting funding, imposing partisan ideological tests, and simply denying the reality of climate change and its impacts.  

This unique and dire situations calls for a different approach to the Great Lakes community's most powerful form of leverage.

Being a “Great Lakes Champion” has to including support for a strong, enforceable Clean Water Act that protects water quality from source to tap. Being a Great Lakes Champion must include fully supporting the agencies, science, programs and people that prevent the Great Lakes from being polluted – including the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Geological Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and many others.

Being a Great Lakes Champion must mean not only supporting budgets and policies, but also being willing to stand up to the actions of the Trump administration to undermine clean water and climate programs and protections.

The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, which includes the key water advocacy organizations in the region, has a policy and budgetary platform that goes far beyond GLRI, yet many members of Congress consider themselves done with the agenda when they vote to fund GLRI. This cannot be allowed to continue during these critical, pivotal times.

So, I’ll be listening carefully when meeting with members of Congress and attending the many star-studded events that comprise Great Lakes Day to see what’s really meant by “Great Lakes Champion” by both politicians and advocates.  

If it doesn’t include vociferously preventing the degradation of water quality and safe drinking water access in the region, then the Great Lakes community needs to use the power and leverage it has accumulated over the years to forcefully push back.

We must only bestow the honor of being a Great Lakes Champion to those who are willing to truly stand up for our region’s most critical – and most popular - asset.

This article first appeared on Planet Detroit and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.