Washington, D.C. - Congressmen Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Aaron Schock (IL-18) led a group of 21 Members of Congress in calling on the President to include support for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program (NESP) in its 2014 budget. This program supports navigation infrastructure improvements and ecological restoration on the Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS). The UMRS is the only river basin in the United States recognized by an act of Congress as both a nationally significant commercial navigation system and river ecosystem.
"Ensuring that the locks and dams on the UMRS are capable of providing effective traffic flow is critically important to the competitiveness of our agriculture and manufacturing industries, and ultimately the consumer," the Congressmen wrote in a letter to the President. "NESP has a real opportunity to be a model for constructing navigation infrastructure, and we look forward to this potential being realized for the benefit of the region and the nation. We are hopeful that you will recognize the importance of NESP to the economy and ecosystem along the UMRS in your FY14 budget."
A copy of the letter can be seen here.
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