The third annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference opened today with inspiring speakers, such as Peter Wege, chair of the Wege Foundation and Pat Quinn Illinois Lt. Governor, urging the 300 participants gathered in Chicago to make Great Lakes restotration an agenda item for every presidential candidate.
“We can’t waste anymore time…together we have created the most positive agenda ever in the history of the Great Lakes. I challenge everyone to lead the way toward permanent and positive action,” Wege said.
Of the eight states that surround the Great Lakes, five are battleground states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“In 2008 these five states are going to matter and they are going to matter big time,”said Eric Adelstein, a media consultant.
The entire region has control over 141 of the nation’s 270 electoral votes – that is more than half. Even more important, the Great Lakes represent 95 percent of the nation’s fresh surface water. Now add in findings from the recent Brookings report, that says restoration is the ingition key for the economic engine of the Rust Belt. These three items alone make restoring the Great Lakes a national, presidential campaign priority.
“Make sure every presidential candidate who comes through the Great Lakes states takes a position on this,” said Quinn, who is also vice chair of the Great Lakes Commission. “Together lets make the will of the people the law of the land,” he added.
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