[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 163 (Tuesday, December 18, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S8114]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN BASIN RESTORATION ACT

  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise today to thank my Senate 
colleagues.
  Yesterday, we passed a reauthorization of the Lake Pontchartrain 
Basin Restoration Act. That is very significant for my State of 
Louisiana, particularly southeast Louisiana. Today I expect that 
package will be similarly approved by the U.S. House and passed into 
law to fully reauthorize this important restoration program.
  In a minute I will get into why it is important and positive and 
noteworthy. Let me mention in passing its significance to me. It 
happened to be the first bill I ever passed in Congress. I came to the 
U.S. House in a special election in 1999, and very soon after that we 
passed into law in my freshman term this legislation in 2001. More 
important, it has been a very positive, productive program cleaning up 
a big part of Louisiana and parts of Mississippi.
  The Lake Pontchartrain Basin is about 16 parishes in Louisiana, four 
counties in Mississippi and southeast Louisiana. Lake Pontchartrain and 
the areas surrounding Lake Pontchartrain are the most populated part of 
our State--at least 1.5 million residents.
  When I was a kid, unfortunately Lake Pontchartrain had come into a 
sad state and was visibly dirty. Nobody would have thought of swimming 
there at the time. Soon after that, however, a positive grassroots 
effort started to clean up the lake. It wasn't some big government 
program, it wasn't some edict from the EPA or anyone else. It was a 
grassroots citizens effort. It was embodied by a great organization 
that was founded and still exists: the Lake Pontchartrain Basin 
Foundation. That nonprofit, private foundation, that group of active 
citizens and stakeholders got together around the need to clean up the 
lake and make it a suitable lake once again and clean up all the 
surrounding parishes in that watershed.
  That effort had great success from when I was in high school for the 
next several decades. Then, as I was coming to the Congress, we wanted 
to take the next step and amplify those efforts. So with an enormous 
amount of input from that citizens group and other local stakeholders, 
we came up with a model, a completely voluntary, proactive cleanup 
effort housed in the EPA focused exclusively on the Lake Pontchartrain 
Basin. That is when we acted, 1999 and 2000, and passed that 
legislation in 2001.
  It has had an enormously positive impact. It created a real 
partnership--again, built from the ground up, from local stakeholders, 
from that local group of civic activists--and it generated restoration 
efforts, similar statuses, and other important restoration efforts 
around the country, and over the last many years it has had real 
impact.
  As Carlton Dufrechou, then head of the Pontchartrain Basin 
Restoration Executive Committee, said:

       It's been the catalyst for over 100 projects that have 
     reduced pollution from sewage plants, dairy operations, and 
     helped preserve Louisiana's fragile coast. And the results 
     are quantifiable. Lake Pontchartrain is again fishable and 
     swimmable.

  That is really the ultimate test. That is the ultimate measure, when 
citizens can go out and swim in the lake as they can now; when they can 
go out and actively fish in the lake in a way they never did to that 
extent a decade and two decades ago. That is the ultimate validation. 
That is the ultimate measure.
  We did reauthorize the program in 2006. Now, in 2012, we are 
reauthorizing it, basing it on the same continuing model, a from-the-
ground-up enterprise, a proactive voluntary effort; not some Washington 
bureaucrat throwing a huge cumbersome rule book at local stakeholders 
but building from the ground up through voluntary proactive restoration 
efforts, getting those stakeholders together, the people who know the 
lay of the land the best, and acting based on their priorities and 
their recommendations.
  That was the model from the beginning. That was the model before this 
legislation, with the grassroots effort that preceded it and that 
continues. That is the model we will continue to use. I hope, in some 
small way, that can be the model we use more and more actively in 
environmental cleanup around the country. Certainly, that is the 
positive perspective I will bring as the new ranking Republican on the 
Environment and Public Works Committee.
  So I again thank my colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--for 
passing this reauthorization. It is important and productive and 
positive and will continue to be on the ground in southeast Louisiana.
  I very much look forward to that reauthorization passing the U.S. 
House and being signed into law so that those activists and 
stakeholders and citizens on the ground in southeast Louisiana can help 
lead that important continuing work.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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