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Northeast-Midwest Institute
Weekly Update
 
December 10, 2013
In This Issue
Great Lakes Regional Leaders Participate in Great Lakes Panel for Washington, D.C. Policy Summit
NEMWI-Curated Mississippi River Photo Exhibit Reaches Final City
Great Lakes Regional Leaders Participate in Great Lakes Panel for Washington, D.C. Policy Summit 
 

The Northeast-MidwestInstitute's Great Lakes Washington Program moderated a panel for Great Lakes Policy Leaders at the Dupont Policy Summit on Friday, December 6, 2013. The Policy Summit promotes interdisciplinary dialogue about pressing issues related to science, technology and the environment. The Great Lakes panel, entitled "Eating Cake: Restoring our Economy and our Environment," focused on ways that Great Lakes governors, mayors, industry, and non-profits like

the NEMWI support combined environmental and economic restoration of the Great Lakes region.

Jon Allan, Director of the Office of the Great Lakes for Michigan, highlighted the economic capacity of the Great Lakes as well as the relationships, formal and informal, on which the complicated Great Lakes governance depends. Mayor George Heartwell of Grand Rapids, Michigan, touched on his city's commitment to, and successes at, nurturing a diverse economic base which reinforces local environmental protection goals.  He also described the unique benefits of Great Lakes collaboration via the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. Kathryn Buckner, President of the Council of Great Lakes Industries, discussed industry's historic involvement in the development of sustainable development policy in the Great Lakes region and the interest that industry continues to have in business practices that are both economically and environmentally sustainable. She stressed the importance of industry being at the table in environmental policy discussions and the challenges that global companies have in prioritizing regional sustainability initiatives.  NEMWI President, Allegra Cangelosi, described the historic and continuing importance of bipartisan and bicameral regional collaboration in Congress, through the larger Northeast-Midwest Congressional and Senate Coalitions and especially their Great Lakes Task Forces.  These organizations help steer federal policy structures to support effective integration of economic and environmental objectives in the region. She also asserted the need for organizations like the NEMWI to generate an objective, mutually-credible and policy-relevant knowledge base on which the Task Forces and Coalitions can build solid policy proposals toward integrated environmental and economic objectives. The panel was supported by the NEMWI and the Wege Foundation.

For more information, please contact Danielle Chesky, Northeast-Midwest Institute.

NEMWI-Curated Mississippi River Photo Exhibit  
Reaches Final City 
 

The NEMWI-curated Mississippi River Photo Exhibit reaches its final showing this week in New Orleans. The exhibit--organized by NEMWI's Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative in partnership with member-city arts organizations--showcases the beauty and challenges of the River through 47 photographs. The exhibit served as a backdrop for a March 2013 Capitol Hill meeting of mayors from Mississippi River states, who came together to laud the formation of a bicameral Mississippi River Caucus and unveil their platform to help the waterway for 2013. Underwritten in part by Ingram Barge Company, the exhibit, displayed atop a map of the River, featured the work of artists from cities spanning the entire length of the waterway. The exhibit traveled down the River throughout the summer and fall of 2013. Before reaching New Orleans, the show stopped in Ft. Madison, IA; St. Louis, MO; Alton, IL; Osceola, AR; Memphis, TN; and Vicksburg, MS. See photos of the exhibit on the on the Mississippi River Photo Exhibit Facebook page.  

 

For more information, please contact Colleen Cain, Senior Policy Analyst, Northeast-Midwest Institute.



   

The Northeast-Midwest Institute: Taking the Rust out of the Rust Belt!

   

 

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