Likely News to You: Ron Johnson Supports Great Lakes Restoration Initiative!

I previously posted about a statement that I had received from Senator Ron Johnson’s office about funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative that conspicuously said nothing about the GLRI past the subject line.

Since then, I called Senator Johnson’s office to encourage him to stick to a vanilla continuing budget, and not to sneak in President Trump’s requested cuts or vanity projects. One thing his staff told me on that call was that Johnson supports the GLRI and opposes the president’s proposed 97% cut to it. I think I made the staffer repeat herself three times, just so I could be sure what I was hearing. It was news to me, and I’m kicking myself now for not taking down the my contact’s name.

In that moment, I felt like an idiot because I must have missed a public statement from my senator on the subject. Well, I’m not finding any other public record of his support online. As of March 16, Senator Johnson didn’t have a public stance on the environmental program.

In any event, it seems the letter I received may have been an unfortunate combination of a user-generated header with a generic “federal funding” body. Something the senator’s staff could certainly do better at. But we need to give credit where it’s due, to Senator Johnson for recognizing the value of keeping Wisconsin’s largest natural asset clean and safe for future generations.