HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — St. Joseph Republican Congressman Fred Upton says he’s confident that Michigan lawmakers will work in a bipartisan way to defend a $300-million request for the Great Lakes Regional initiative. President Donald Trump’s budget allows only $30 million.
Upton said the money helps not just Michigan, but all states adjacent to the Great Lakes.
Trump’s $75-million allocation for constructing a new Soo lock will come from a separate fund, Upton said, adding that getting a new lock is crucial to the U.S. economy.
“It’s very important,” Upton said. “If, somehow, that Poe Lock — if that lock went down, there are some estimates that it would double the nation’s unemployment rate, because it would stop all the iron ore from coming up from Lake Superior down to the steel mills here in the Midwest.
The current cost estimate for the new lock is just shy of $1 billion.
