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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Scientists Bend Lawmakers' Ears About Great Lakes

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Monday, March 20, 2017   

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Congress has been getting an earful over the past few days about President Trump's plan to gut the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Groups representing the Great Lakes states have been descending on Washington to push back against huge cuts planned for environmental programs.

Scientists like Darrell Gerber, natural resource associate with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, joined others from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois to tell Congress there’s a lot at stake in the new federal budget - including clean drinking water for millions of people. Gerber said a great deal of progress has been made in cleaning up some of the lakes' most polluted sites.

"With the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, these have been getting cleaned up,” Gerber said. "There's been a number of them already delisted because of the funding, and a number including the St Louis River, which is in Minnesota and Wisconsin, are on the pathway to being delisted."

The federal budget draft cuts the initiative by about 97 percent. Trump has vowed to cut spending for agencies such as the EPA and use the money to boost the defense budget.

Gerber said he and others are reaching out to members of Congress, hoping they'll vote against the massive cuts.

"It's been a program that has had really strong bipartisan support,” he said. "It certainly was proposed by the Obama administration, but some of its supporters have been Republicans in Congress."

The EPA says the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has been the largest investment in the Great Lakes in two decades.


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Environment

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New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

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Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

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