Lobby Day Sign On Letters

House Interior Appropriations
House Agriculture Appropriations
NOAA Appropriations

Are you concerned about the Trump Administration’s proposed 90 percent cut in funding for Chesapeake Bay restoration? How about the Administration’s assault on science and environmental protection across the board? Well, if you are, here is a chance to do something about it. The threat to all of the progress that has been made for clean water in our region has never been greater than it is now.

Attached are the Coalition’s annual Congressional Appropriation Request Letters - which are mostly requesting level funding for conservation programs that have been successful in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. 

The Interior Appropriations letter is requesting that Congress retain the $73 million funding level for the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program as well as the funding level for the Chesapeake Stewardship Grants (aka NFWF grant programs), the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey programs in the Bay watershed as well as some key land acquisitions under the Land and Water Conservation Fund..

The Agriculture Appropriations letter asks for full funding for Farm Bill conservation programs, and calls out the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program as two key conservation programs for our region. 

The Commerce, Justice, Science letter focuses on restoring funding for specific programs run by NOAA in the Chesapeake Bay region. The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office has seen its funding eroded rapidly over the years and we are seeking to restore the traditional funding and work they do on oyster restoration in the Bay, the B-WET environmental education program throughout the Bay watershed and fisheries science and management in the Bay. 

We have attached the House version of the three appropriation letters - identical versions of these three letters will also be sent to the Senate appropriations subcommittees.

These letters will also form the basis of our “legislative asks” for Lobby Day on March 21, and we urge all Coalition members to sign ALL of these letters, even if you don’t work on all of the specific issues involved. This is where the Coalition can really make a difference in Washington and we are at our best when we speak loudly with one voice - the more groups that sign these letters means the louder our voice is.

Please email Peter Marx, peter@choosecleanwater.org, to sign your organization on to this letter (we just need the name of your organization) by COB on Monday, March 12. Also, feel free to email or call me with any specific questions. Thank you.