Donald Trump's budget makes clear he doesn't care about the Great Lakes

Last week, we wrote that "cutting Great Lakes funding from $300 million to $10 million, as the Trump administration reportedly is considering, is unacceptable." Turns out that $10 million figure was optimistic.

The bad news dropped with the Trump budget released this week: The president is wiping out the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and asking the states to take on the work.

What's worse than "unacceptable"?

House Speaker Paul Ryan needs to step up, as does Sen. Ron Johnson and the entire Wisconsin delegation in Congress, to make sure this program vital to the health of the lakes and to Wisconsin isn't flushed away. They and other Republicans should follow the lead of Gov. Scott Walker, who, to his credit, said he opposed the cut and wants to "protect funding that's prudent."

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is not some feel-good program that's nice to have in the budget. Since its inception in 2010, the program has been used to support more than 3,000 restoration projects "to improve water quality, protect and restore native habitat, clean up environmentally-impaired areas of concern, fight invasive species and prevent beach closings," as a Feb. 17 letter from 50 House members noted in urging full funding for the initiative.

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In a statement asking Walker if he's willing to take on the responsibility and funding, Sen. Tammy Baldwin said the program has been beneficial for Wisconsin: It has "invested $331 million for 416 projects in Wisconsin. It has helped the state combat the growth of invasive species like Asian carp and zebra mussels, which pose a major threat to the ecology and economy of the Great Lakes by devastating the food chain and causing major damage to our ports, pipes and water infrastructure. It has also helped our state clean up polluted sites and restore water quality in Wisconsin.

And there's this: Last September, at a presidential campaign forum hosted by the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, Trump campaign representative Mike Budzik said Trump was going to make the Great Lakes great again, according to the Detroit Free Press. "He knows the successes that have come from the Clean Water Act and other environmental regulations that have been put into place that have been guiding us along," Budzik said of Trump. "There are some things, I think, that could possibly change. But I believe, in the end, he is going to stand up for a clean environment."

Not so much. In addition to eliminating the initiative, Trump's budget slashes funding to the Environmental Protection Agency by about a third and will eliminate about 50 other programs. 

No state can handle this job. It's simply too big. A national treasure of fresh water on which 30 million people rely for their drinking water, health, jobs and recreation requires a national effort to make sure it is restored to full health. 

In a release, Todd Ambs, campaign director for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, said the Trump administration budget is "a total non-starter."

He's right. And Ryan, Walker, Johnson and others need to send the same message.