Great Lakes Regional Organizations Highlight

Shared Priorities

Ahead of Great Lakes Day, many Great Lakes organizations released a shared priorities statement highlighting the critical Great Lakes issues they plan to advocate for in the upcoming year. “Restoring and protecting the Great Lakes is an enduring, bipartisan priority for the nation and for Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River basin communities,” the statement reads. “Our organizations support the following priorities to ensure the Great Lakes are a source of drinking water, an environmental treasure, and an economic engine now and into the future.”

The priorities include funding the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative at the authorized level of $475 for FY26, and passing legislation to reauthorize the program at $500 million through 2031. They also call for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs) to be funded at their fully authorized levels, and for crucial economic priorities such as funding the Soo Locks and other shipping infrastructure projects, and increased workforce development.

The priorities are endorsed by the Great Lakes Commission, Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority, Great Lakes Metro Chambers Coalition, American Great Lakes Ports Association, Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Legislative Caucus, Great Lakes Business Network, and Lake Carriers’ Association.

Read more here.

NOAA Layoffs Impact GLERL, Task Force Members Send Letter to Hann

Over 800 NOAA employees were fired from their jobs on Thursday and another 500 accepted the deferred resignation offer, cutting the agency’s workforce by roughly 10%. This continuation of the Trump administration’s assault on the federal bureaucracy now jeopardizes the future of an agency that millions of Americans rely on and that provides one of the best returns-on-investment in government. Consequences could be especially high for the Great Lakes region: NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL), based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, saw its workforce cut by at least 20%. A total of 15 people were laid off, including GLERL’s entire eight-person communications team.

While the firings affect probationary employees – those with less than a year on the job and with fewer civil service protections than longer-tenured employees – this does not mean that those fired were necessarily new to the field in which they worked, or even to NOAA. One employee had worked as a contractor for NOAA for over a decade before joining the agency less than a year ago. Another had worked at NOAA for many years before receiving a recent promotion that put them on probationary status. Like the firings at other agencies over the past month, NOAA probationary employees were let go en masse and apparently arbitrarily, without regard for their experience, their performance, or the kind of work they do.

It is too early to have a full understanding of how these layoffs will impact GLERL and NOAA at large, but the early returns are worrying. Real-time communications that put crucial information into the hands of decision makers are likely to be impacted. Communications with water intake managers across the Great Lakes, for example, may be forced to cease. Another project, to transform buoy data into more accessible and consumable formats, will go unfinished. Modeling that GLERL does for the National Weather Service is at risk. Research on invasive species and forecasts for ice cover and harmful algal blooms are threatened.

Public-facing communications have also been stopped, preventing GLERL from keeping citizens informed. “Due to a reduction in staff, NOAA GLERL’s communications services will be on an indefinite hiatus,” they said in their last post to Twitter/X.

Voices from the Great Lakes region and beyond have spoken out. “Firing hundreds of experts and scientists at NOAA will endanger American lives going forward,” Congresswoman Debbie Dingell said in a statement. “Once again, this administration has prioritized their political agenda over the well-being of Americans and the health of our oceans and Great Lakes.” Former NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad chimed in: “Go ahead... fire those employees and cut the agency’s budget, but have the guts to stand up and take the hit for the deaths and destruction that result, while saving our wealthiest Americans a whole 6 cents per day,” he said. “Everyone wants efficiency,” Today Show weatherman Al Roker wrote on Twitter/X, but none of us “should want a NOAA/NWS that cannot fulfill it’s [sic] mission that makes us safer and protects us from what nature throws at us.”

Congresswoman Dingell and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur wrote a letter to Vice Admiral Nancy Hann, Under Secretary for Operations at NOAA to express their concern. “The laboratory's research plays an essential role in understanding and mitigating the effects of severe weather, pollution, invasive species, and other threats to the ecosystem,” they wrote. “The loss of experienced scientists, researchers, and support staff at GLERL threatens to undermine the effectiveness of ongoing studies and disrupt critical work that supports regional environmental management and policy decisions.” The letter also asks for answers on how many firings there have been, what positions those people worked, and what work would be delayed or stopped as a result, inquiring particularly about ice cover forecasts, harmful algal bloom forecasts, and invasive species management.

Quigley, Huizenga Introduce Great Lakes Fishery Research Reauthorization

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) and GLTF Co-Chair Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) introduced a bipartisan reauthorization of the USGS' Great Lakes Fishery program. The bill reauthorizes the program through 2030, keeping the current authorized level of $15 million. This funding supports the USGS’ Great Lakes Science Center, which conducts research to inform fishery management across the Great Lakes Basin. This research is foundational to the Great Lakes’ $5 billion fishery, and helps the region keep pace with the saltwater coasts with the use of cutting-edge technology, including five research vessels.

"It's on us to preserve our natural resources for future generations. I'm proud to continue my support of the Great Lakes Science Center and their integral work to do just that," Rep. Quigley said in a press release. “This bill will strengthen our vital fisheries with the research and technology needed to continue benefiting the ecology of the Great Lakes and the small business economy of Southwest Michigan,” Rep. Huizenga added.

Additional original co-sponsors include Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Rep. David Joyce (R-OH), Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), and Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-NY).

Read more here.

GLIFWC Testifies Before Congress on

Sea Lamprey, GLRI

As part of yearly hearings focused on hearing from Tribal members, Jason Schlender, Executive Administrator, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), testified before the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday. GLIFWC has 11 member tribes across Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and helps implement federal court orders and fulfill treaty obligations, especially as it pertains to off-reservation treaty rights. In his testimony, Schlender advocated for GLIFWC to be funded at the same level as in previous years under the rights protection implementation line item in the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget.

Schlender touched on sea lamprey control programs, which are under threat due to the federal hiring freeze. “We have long been a part of intergovernmental efforts to restore lake trout populations in Lake Superior and recently announced that restoration efforts have been successful,” he said. “We are extremely concerned that these hard-fought gains may be quickly erased, damaging not only tribes’ access to this important resource, but damaging the commercial and tourism economies of the rural Lake Superior region if the sea lamprey treatments are eliminated.”

Schlender also discussed the GLRI, and the work GLIFWC does under it. The GLRI, and in particular, the funding under the Distinct Tribal Program, assists tribes in conducting water quality testing, testing fish for mercury and issuing consumption advisories, and cultivating manoomin, or wild rice. “This vital work would be eliminated or much diminished if GLRI is not available,” he said.

He ended by addressing the responsibilities of Congress in the face of potential budget cuts. “These programs have been underfunded for years and so it's not fair to ask tribes to shoulder any more of this burden” by imposing budget cuts, he said.

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