Back
Jan 15, 2015
ASA encourages soy growers to reach out to their senators and encourage their support for a letter to President Obama urging support for the Navigation Ecosystem Sustainability Program (NESP) in the President's Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Request. Staff from the offices of Sens. Blunt of Missouri and Klobuchar of Minnesota are leading this letter, and it's imperative that states in the Mississippi River region encourage full support from their senators.
In addition to Senators Blunt and Klobuchar, Senators Grassley, (IA), Kirk (IL), and McCaskill (MO) have already signed-on. The NESP funding would support lock modernization, navigation efficiency measures, and ecosystem restoration on the Mississippi River systems. The letter urges funding to allow for an immediate construction start in FY16. This is a key component of the commitment to the waterways transportation network that soybean farmers depend on to move our products to market.
Sen. Blunt and Klobuchar will likely close out the letter by the end of next week, so please contact both of your senate offices this week and ask them to sign on to the letter (or thank those that have already signed on).
To sign onto the letter, Senate offices should contact Staff contact Hilary Pinegar in Sen. Blunt's office at: Hilary_Pinegar@blunt.senate.gov or Brian Werner in Sen. Klobuchar's office at: Brian_Werner@klobuchar.senate.gov
