WASHINGTON — An area legislator applauded plans to address the algae issues still plaguing Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes.
U.S. House of Representatives
Rep. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green: On Tuesday, Latta released a statement lauding the restoration of funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a program that was at risk of losing funding under President Donald Trump’s initial proposed budget.
A total of $300 million was allocated to the initiative in a proposal issued by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, with that allocation included in the annual Interior Appropriations bill.
“The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative helps fund important work and has been highly effective at preserving a treasure like Lake Erie, ultimately protecting drinking water and boosting tourism and economic activity in the region,” Latta said in his statement. “Now is not the time to limit resources for such a critical program, and I applaud the work of the House Appropriations Committee to include funding at the same level as previous years. The GLRI has strong bipartisan support to continue efforts to protect and restore Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes.”
On Wednesday, Latta voted to pas the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act, which reauthorizes a fund to prevent human trafficking, protect victims and incarcerate traffickers.
“Sex trafficking is a crime that is prevalent in far too many communities in Ohio and across America,” Latta said in a statement. “To stop this problem, policies are needed to prevent the vulnerable from being exploited, and law enforcement needs the resources to protect victims and bring traffickers to justice.”
On Thursday, provisions authored by Latta were included in the Drinking Water System Improvement Act, legislation aimed at protecting and improving drinking water infrastructure.
Latta’s provisions included increased flexibility for repaying federal loans, removing duplicate reporting and paperwork requirements, helping disadvantaged communities gain access to financing for water projects, giving communities the chance to update their assessments, and streamlining the process to provide communities with revolving loan funds.
“Providing increased flexibility to state and local governments to meet their specific drinking water needs will make it easier to move ahead with much-needed infrastructure projects,” Latta said. “Removing duplicative federal requirements and making it easier to repay federal loans will provide more options for communities — including disadvantaged ones — to ensure safe drinking water.”
U.S. Senate
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio: Brown took issue Thursday with the Senate’s revised health care bill, saying it would gut Medicaid coverage while not providing enough for opioid treatment. Brown also said the new legislation would apply a double age tax on those between the ages of 50 and 64 by allowing insurance companies to charge them up to five times the normal rate and reducing tax credits otherwise available to them.
“Just yesterday, I met with Ohio families whose children were born with diseases or disabilities that require special health care needs for the rest of their lives,” Brown said. “Last week in Cincinnati, I sat across from a man who told me that without the Medicaid expansion, his daughter would have died from an opioid overdose. In Toledo, I talked to hardworking people over 50 who can’t afford an age tax that allows insurers to charge them five times more. How can a bunch of Washington politicians with taxpayer-funded health care look these people in the eye and tell them, ‘We’re going to let insurance companies refuse to cover your child’s care’? How can they say, ‘We’re gutting the best tool we have to combat the opioid crisis’? How can they raise costs on hardworking people just because they turn 50?”
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio: On Thursday, Portman, along with two other senators, recommended that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate Backpage.com. The recommendation came after a two-year investigation by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations into the website’s facilitation of online sex trafficking. The inquiry found that the website knowingly facilitated the trafficking of women and young girls and covered up evidence to increase profits, according to a statement from Portman.
“Today we are calling on the Department of Justice to join the fight for the thousands of innocent victims of sex trafficking,” Portman said. “The Subcommittee’s bipartisan investigation culminated in a hearing and report that showed that Backpage has been more deeply complicit in online sex trafficking than anyone had imagined. I support the Communications Decency Act and the cause of internet freedom, but it’s clear to me that the CDA was never intended to protect those who knowingly facilitate criminal activity — and in this case knowingly facilitate the sex trafficking of vulnerable women and young girls. I look forward to the results of the Department of Justice criminal review.”
On Thursday, Portman introduced legislation to ban any entity doing business with North Korea from using the United States financial system, as well as imposing sanctions on all entities participating in North Korean labor trafficking.
“North Korea must be held accountable for its dangerous and destabilizing actions,” Portman said. “Whether it’s the regime’s illegal nuclear weapons program, its provocative ballistic missile tests, its human rights abuses against its own people, or its outrageous and unacceptable detention of Americans, it is time to impose meaningful costs on the North Korean government. The United States cannot do this alone, and other countries in the region, particularly China, also have an obligation to take real action against this threat to regional stability and our national security.”
