Rep. Jackie Speier announced a bill on Thursday that seeks to use federal funding to improve the San Francisco Bay’s environmental health.
H.R. 1132 — also called the San Francisco Bay Restoration Act — would authorize $50 million per year for five years to pay for environmental restoration activities within the Bay and the creation of a San Francisco Bay Program Office inside the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“San Francisco Bay is a national treasure and the lifeblood of our region, producing over $370 billion in goods and services annually and supporting more than 4 million jobs,” Speier said in a news release.
“Tragically, the federal government has been complicit in its deterioration. The $250 million authorized in my bill would go a long way towards restoring wetlands and estuaries, helping endangered species recover, and study water quality improvement and adaptation to climate change.”
The activities funded by the bill can encompass a range of restoration efforts, and seek to revive endangered species in the Bay, such as salt marsh harvest mice and the Ridgway’s rail. The Bay’s marshes are also nursery areas for salmon.
The bill would also direct the EPA to annually compile a list of funding priorities for projects or studies that could lead to improvements in the Bay’s environmental quality. The studies or projects must include efforts for “(1) water quality improvement; (2) wetland, riverine, and estuary restoration and protection; (3) nearshore and endangered species recovery; and (4) adaptation to climate change,” according to the bill.
Within the past 150 years, 90 percent of the San Francisco Bay’s wetlands have been destroyed due to human activity, according to San Francisco Baykeeper, a Bay Area environmental nonprofit.
The bill has 10 co-sponsors, all from California, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Speier’s office noted that between 2008 and 2016, the EPA invested $45 million into the San Francisco Bay, compared to $260 million for Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest and $490 million for Chesapeake Bay on the East Coast.
“A mere $6 was spent on the Bay for each resident of the Bay Area, while almost $30 were spent for each resident living near Chesapeake Bay and almost $60 for residents near Puget Sound. This bill would also finally give the Bay the recognition it deserves,” Speier said.
Of course, she has to throw a little jab at Trump in the fourth paragraph.
Liberals are hate-filled bigots, whaddya expect?
Fix the damn pot holes and stop wasting money.
Never miss a chance to blame the Feds and zero accountability for our Governor.
And saving harvest mice is more important than helping the homeless?
This woman is hopeless.
All this money and they gave the citizens 600.00 COVID money to eat and pay bills.What is going on America?
Cheap at twice the price. Yea votes will succeed.
Good let’s let her pay for it.
The Congresswoman is correct that within the past 150 years the bay has been destroyed. At one time the bay was much larger than it is today, 45% of the bay is landfill.
The Barbary Coast was all filled in to build the Financial District. The Palace of Fine Arts and part of the Marina District, and the Embarcadero is all land fill. So is Treasure Island, Foster City, and the San Francisco and Oakland airports. A small section of Alameda, Redwood City, and other Bay Area cities are built on landfill. Studies indicate that some of the land fill is sinking, and show that the airport and Treasure Island will be under water by the end of the century.
I’m not a fan of Jackie Speier, but preserving the bay and keeping it free of pollution seems like a good idea to me.
Letting the Bay reclaim it’s landfill area sounds like a good idea to me. Let SF completely be submerged. Best thing for it and us. That money would be better spent on so many other things and the idea that our “leaders” can’t see that is astounding. California needs a legislative enema.
My, how expert they become when it’s not their money they’re spending.
I have always wanted to know, when her district was burning where was she for a number of days?
When she did show herself, the company doing the cleanup was fired and another like company was used. What was up with that? Not enough donations? Sorry to question our rulers as that is no longer allowed.
We all want clean air, clean water, and less garbage on our streets. I get really ticked-off when I see large amounts of trash next to some of our roads and higways. Private monies and environmental groups like the Sierra Club have been complacent in many ways spending foolishly on promoting biomass instead of cleaning up certain lands around America. Although I believe Speier’s heart is in the right place, I’m scared to death when I see how the money will be spent. Most of us know its all about the contracts and who will cash in.
Time for Congressional Term Limits. Way overdue.
Sounds wonderful but fails to tell you who gets rich in the process. I hate being a cynic but I don’t trust any of them anymore. They are there to enrich themselves and their friends.
Interesting to see the political business cycles over time. In the late 1940s and early 50s there were plans being studied (see Reber Plan in Wikipedia) and models build by Army Corp of Engineers to fill in large parts of the bay for housing, business and an easier commute. The bay was an annoyance.
Your are altering the quote. The quote isn’t “if $6 was spent by each Bay Area resident…”.
The statement was “A mere $6 was spent on the Bay for each resident of the Bay Area…”.
Even if you just look at the raw numbers without doing a per capita assessment, Puget Sound gets about 5 times more funding for environmental restoration and Chesapeake Bay gets a little over 10 times more funding.
Conservatives used to like nature, and getting out and being physically active, and doing outdoor sportsmanship stuff. So I don’t understand why people in this thread are complaining about restoring the Bay.
Natalie , The problem is not that conservatives don’t support nature ,it’s that they don’t support the corruption and lies coming from Speies and her elk . How much of that 250 million would actually go to environmental restoration? I would guess it would be less than half . The rest would be spent on other pet projects to buy votes and the rest would just disappear . It always happens and they are never held responsible for their lies .