November 23, 2004

 

Joshua B. Bolten, Jr., Director

Office of Management and Budget

725 17th Street NW, Room 260

Washington, DC 20503

 

Dear Director Bolten:

 

I am writing on behalf of the Mississippi River Citizen Commission to encourage you to recommend full funding for the Upper Mississippi River Environmental Management Program (EMP) at $33.4 million for FY 2006 along with adequate funding for commercial navigation.

 

The Upper Mississippi is a national treasure, declared by Congress in 1986 to be a nationally significant navigation system and a nationally significant ecosystem. Both aspects of this vital multi-purpose resource need to be responsibly managed and funded by the federal government.

 

We appreciate President Bush’s record of recommending full funding for the EMP for 2004, recognizing the large number of backlogged EMP projects, and recommending $28 million for 2005, naming it a priority project. Unfortunately, severe Congressional cuts to these recommendations are jeopardizing the program, just when the environmental needs of the river have been thoroughly documented.

 

The Army Corps of Engineers’ Feasibility Study ecosystem recommendations, growing in part from the prototype of the EMP, have received strong support from a great variety of river stakeholders.  We appreciate Congressional leadership in the introduction of bills providing for both extensive navigation and extensive ecosystem improvements.  But we cannot afford to let the EMP languish as major legislation works its way to completion.

 

The EMP has a strong record of project success, of creative use of new technologies, of synergistic coordination with navigation needs, of incorporation of public input, and of timely project completion (once funding is provided). And its research arm, the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program (the only consistent monitoring program of the Upper Miss) has become a model of efficiency and opportunistic cooperation. A partial record of EMP successes is enclosed with this letter.

 

The Mississippi River is the flyway for 40% of North America’s migratory waterfowl, the third most-mentioned destination in the U.S. for foreign travelers, and a key transportation route for grain exports, the only sector of our economy to run a trade surplus. We urge you to fully fund the EMP.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

William Howe, Chair

Enclosed