Congress extends Great Lakes cleanup funding through 2031
H.R. 284 — GLRI Act of 2025 · Filed by David Joyce (R-OH) · 44 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 9, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill reauthorizes federal funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative by extending appropriations through fiscal year 2031. It adds $500 million per year for five years (2027–2031) to an existing environmental restoration program that addresses pollution, invasive species, and habitat degradation in the Great Lakes.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative function is to extend federal appropriations for an existing environmental program. It is a straightforward reauthorization with no policy changes, regulatory modifications, or private-sector carve-outs.
What the text implies
- Funding level ($500M/year) may be insufficient to address all identified restoration priorities; actual ecological outcomes depend on implementation and coordination with state/local partners.
- Authorization does not guarantee appropriation; Congress must still pass annual spending bills to release the funds.
- Program effectiveness depends on existing GLRI governance structure and interagency coordination (EPA, NOAA, USGS, state agencies); bill does not modify those mechanisms.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill extends federal funding for environmental restoration of a shared public resource (the Great Lakes) that supports drinking water, fisheries, recreation, and ecosystem health for millions of citizens across multiple states. No private carve-outs, liability shields, or narrow beneficiaries are present; the mechanism is straightforward public investment in environmental protection.
Who stands to gain
- environmental contractors and consulting firms (implementing restoration projects)
- research institutions (conducting monitoring and assessment)
- state and local environmental agencies (receiving federal grants)
Named in the bill
Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), Federal Water Pollution Control Act (Clean Water Act), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Great Lakes states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Minnesota)
Where it stands
44 cosponsors: 26 Democrats, 18 Republicans.
- Jan 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 9, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
4 lobbying clients named this bill on 6 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $1,710,154 in lobbying spend. A filing names 32 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 72% of bills with at least one filing.
David Joyce, the sponsor, reported $1,015,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Nature Conservancy — $900,000 on 1 filing
- The Conservation Fund — $400,000 on 2 filings
- National Parks Conservation Association — $290,154 on 2 filings
- Trout Unlimited — $120,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (484 characters) on Nov 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,927 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-02.
“Congress extends Great Lakes cleanup funding through 2031” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr284 Report an error
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