Sec. 2. Findings

569 words·~3 min read·/bill/117/hr/7131/ih/section-2

A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.

Congress finds the following: The 8 States that comprise the United States portion of the Great Lakes watershed contain the core of America’s commercial and industrial base. The Department of Homeland Security defines these industries as America’s Critical Manufacturing Sector . The total economy for the United States Great Lakes region generated $3.1 trillion in gross domestic product while employing 25.8 million people and supporting $1.3 trillion in wages. Maritime commerce supports more than 147,500 jobs in the 8 Great Lakes States and generates annual binational economic benefits of $35 billion in economic activity ($26 billion in the United States), $10.5 billion in personal income and local consumption expenditures in the United States), and $4.6 billion in Federal, State, and local tax revenue in the United States.

The Great Lakes region’s 5 Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—are the source of 21 percent of the world’s surface fresh water and 84 percent of North America’s fresh water, making it the largest freshwater system in the world. Since the early 1980s, the inequalities between the few and the many, the coasts and the interior, and the developed and underdeveloped regions of the United States have widened. The United States has closed 91,000 factories and lost 5 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was enacted in 1993 and since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2000.

The 8-State Great Lakes region lost 1.5 million of those jobs—that is, 30 percent. The losses of factories and jobs, in turn, have greatly weakened the fiscal capacity of the Great Lakes region’s State and local governments. A measure of this fiscal crisis is found in the high municipal indebtedness of the region’s cities, as well as debt burdens due to Federal Government mandates. When workers’ jobs are outsourced or eliminated by increased foreign competition, entire communities feel the impact.

Communities throughout the Great Lakes, including communities of color, have struggled to rebuild the economic conditions that once supported thriving working and middle class lives for their residents. The loss of factories and jobs has hollowed out entire communities, leading to the spread of blight, pollution and vacant and abandoned properties that destabilize rural, suburban and urban communities across the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes States have not kept pace with innovation.

Specifically, in 1990, 51,000 United States patents were issued and in 2020 the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted 188,000—an increase of 265 percent, but not a single State in the Great Lakes region reached the national average by 2020. The Great Lakes region faces numerous ecological threats, including invasive species, toxic algae, erosion, development, waste plastics, and toxic pollutants, among other sources. Heavy power demands across the region require a dependable baseload energy supply with a highly skilled workforce.

Today, the region has 17 nuclear reactors at 15 sites in operation. Nuclear power provides 15 percent of the electricity for Ohio and Wisconsin, 23 percent for Minnesota, 29 percent for Michigan, 33 percent for New York, 41 percent for Pennsylvania, and 53 percent for Illinois; however, competitive pressures from massive, new natural gas supplies have created financial pressures that can make nuclear power less competitive and more expensive. Building back better in the Great Lakes region is a challenge that requires an empowered and well-financed Great Lakes Authority.

The Great Lakes Authority can support sustained growth and innovation through public and private sector initiatives and collaboration with regional stakeholders.