I 
117TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 7131 
To promote economic growth and recovery throughout the Great Lakes region, 
to restore and to protect America’s principal source of fresh water, 
which holds twenty percent of the world’s freshwater, making it the 
largest system in the world, to foster innovation and to advance world- 
class workforce, education, training, and adjustment institutions for bet-
ter jobs in the Great Lakes region, to strengthen and to expand the 
core U.S. manufacturing and industrial base, and the required energy 
systems to sustain and to power production, and to work with the 
Federal Government and provinces of Canada on our mutual Great 
Lakes challenges including the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway, and 
for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 17, 2022 
Ms. KAPTUR (for herself, Mrs. DINGELL, Mr. RUSH, Mr. TONKO, Ms. MOORE 
of Wisconsin, Mr. KILDEE, Mr. SCHNEIDER, Mr. MORELLE, and Ms. 
STEVENS) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Com-
mittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and in addition to the Com-
mittee on Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently determined 
by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall 
within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To promote economic growth and recovery throughout the 
Great Lakes region, to restore and to protect America’s 
principal source of fresh water, which holds twenty per-
cent of the world’s freshwater, making it the largest 
system in the world, to foster innovation and to advance 
world-class workforce, education, training, and adjust-
ment institutions for better jobs in the Great Lakes 
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region, to strengthen and to expand the core U.S. manu-
facturing and industrial base, and the required energy 
systems to sustain and to power production, and to work 
with the Federal Government and provinces of Canada 
on our mutual Great Lakes challenges including the 
Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway, and for other pur-
poses. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Great Lakes Authority 
Act of 2022’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The 8 States that comprise the United 
States portion of the Great Lakes watershed contain 
the core of America’s commercial and industrial 
base. 
(2) The Department of Homeland Security de-
fines these industries as ‘‘America’s Critical Manu-
facturing Sector’’. 
(3) The total economy for the United States 
Great Lakes region generated $3.1 trillion in gross 
domestic product while employing 25.8 million peo-
ple and supporting $1.3 trillion in wages. 
(4) Maritime commerce supports more than 
147,500 jobs in the 8 Great Lakes States and gen-
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erates annual binational economic benefits of $35 
billion in economic activity ($26 billion in the United 
States), $10.5 billion in personal income and local 
consumption expenditures in the United States), and 
$4.6 billion in Federal, State, and local tax revenue 
in the United States. 
(5) The Great Lakes region’s 5 Great Lakes— 
Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—are 
the source of 21 percent of the world’s surface fresh 
water and 84 percent of North America’s fresh 
water, making it the largest freshwater system in 
the world. 
(6) Since the early 1980s, the inequalities be-
tween the few and the many, the coasts and the in-
terior, and the developed and underdeveloped regions 
of the United States have widened. 
(7) The United States has closed 91,000 fac-
tories and lost 5 million manufacturing jobs since 
NAFTA was enacted in 1993 and since China joined 
the World Trade Organization in 2000. The 8-State 
Great Lakes region lost 1.5 million of those jobs— 
that is, 30 percent. 
(8) The losses of factories and jobs, in turn, 
have greatly weakened the fiscal capacity of the 
Great Lakes region’s State and local governments. A 
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measure of this fiscal crisis is found in the high mu-
nicipal indebtedness of the region’s cities, as well as 
debt burdens due to Federal Government mandates. 
(9) When workers’ jobs are outsourced or elimi-
nated by increased foreign competition, entire com-
munities feel the impact. Communities throughout 
the Great Lakes, including communities of color, 
have struggled to rebuild the economic conditions 
that once supported thriving working and middle 
class lives for their residents. 
(10) The loss of factories and jobs has hollowed 
out entire communities, leading to the spread of 
blight, pollution and vacant and abandoned prop-
erties that destabilize rural, suburban and urban 
communities across the Great Lakes region. 
(11) The Great Lakes States have not kept 
pace with innovation. Specifically, in 1990, 51,000 
United States patents were issued and in 2020 the 
United States Patent and Trademark Office granted 
188,000—an increase of 265 percent, but not a sin-
gle State in the Great Lakes region reached the na-
tional average by 2020. 
(12) The Great Lakes region faces numerous 
ecological threats, including invasive species, toxic 
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algae, erosion, development, waste plastics, and toxic 
pollutants, among other sources. 
(13) Heavy power demands across the region 
require a dependable baseload energy supply with a 
highly skilled workforce. Today, the region has 17 
nuclear reactors at 15 sites in operation. Nuclear 
power provides 15 percent of the electricity for Ohio 
and Wisconsin, 23 percent for Minnesota, 29 percent 
for Michigan, 33 percent for New York, 41 percent 
for Pennsylvania, and 53 percent for Illinois; how-
ever, competitive pressures from massive, new nat-
ural gas supplies have created financial pressures 
that can make nuclear power less competitive and 
more expensive. 
(14) Building back better in the Great Lakes 
region is a challenge that requires an empowered 
and well-financed Great Lakes Authority. 
(15) The Great Lakes Authority can support 
sustained growth and innovation through public and 
private sector initiatives and collaboration with re-
gional stakeholders. 
SEC. 3. GREAT LAKES AUTHORITY. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Subtitle VI of title 40, United 
States Code, is amended by adding at the end the fol-
lowing: 
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‘‘CHAPTER 185—GREAT LAKES AUTHORITY 
‘‘SUBCHAPTER I—GENERAL PROVISIONS 
‘‘Sec. 
‘‘18501. Purpose. 
‘‘18502. Definitions. 
‘‘SUBCHAPTER II—ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION 
‘‘18510. Establishment; members. 
‘‘18511. Meetings; decisions. 
‘‘18512. Functions. 
‘‘18513. Administrative powers and expenses. 
‘‘18514. Information. 
‘‘18515. Regional development plan. 
‘‘SUBCHAPTER III—FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE 
‘‘18520. Authority to provide financial assistance. 
‘‘18521. Revolving loan fund. 
‘‘SUBCHAPTER IV—NATIONAL ENERGY RECYCLING AND CONSERVATION 
LABORATORY 
‘‘18530. National Energy Recycling and Conservation Laboratory. 
‘‘SUBCHAPTER V—AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS 
‘‘18540. Authorization of appropriations. 
‘‘SUBCHAPTER I—GENERAL PROVISIONS 
‘‘§ 18501. Purpose 
‘‘The purpose of this chapter shall be to establish the 
Great Lakes Authority to— 
‘‘(1) promote economic development and job 
creation and to create world-class workforce edu-
cation, training, and adjustment institutions to spur 
economic growth, especially in communities that 
have been disproportionately affected by the out-
sourcing of jobs; 
‘‘(2) restore and to protect the principal source 
of surface fresh water in North America; 
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‘‘(3) foster innovation to strengthen and expand 
the core United States manufacturing and industrial 
base and promote cleaner and more sustainable 
power production; 
‘‘(4) establish and administer funding mecha-
nisms to finance clean energy, green infrastructure, 
water infrastructure, wastewater infrastructure, and 
broadband infrastructure projects in the Great 
Lakes region; 
‘‘(5) create a regional development plan; 
‘‘(6) promote affordable access to energy and 
broadband services in the Great Lakes region; and 
‘‘(7) provide technical assistance to entities re-
ceiving financial assistance from the Great Lakes 
Authority. 
‘‘§ 18502. Definitions 
‘‘In this chapter: 
‘‘(1) APPRENTICESHIP
PROGRAM.—The term 
‘apprenticeship program’ means an apprenticeship 
program registered under the Act of August 16, 
1937 (commonly known as the ‘National Apprentice-
ship Act’; 50 Stat. 664, chapter 663; 29 U.S.C. 50 
et seq.). 
‘‘(2) BOND.—The term ‘bond’ means any bond 
issued in accordance with this chapter if— 
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‘‘(A) the proceeds from the sale of the 
bond are to be used for expenditures incurred 
after the date of issuance with respect to any 
eligible project, subject to such rules as the 
Great Lakes Authority may provide; 
‘‘(B) the bond is issued in registered form; 
‘‘(C) the bond has such terms and carries 
interest in such an amount as determined by 
the Authority; and 
‘‘(D) payments of interest and principal 
with respect to the bond is the obligation of the 
Authority and is backed by the full faith and 
credit of the United States. 
‘‘(3) 
BROADBAND
INFRASTRUCTURE 
PROJECT.— 
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘broadband 
infrastructure project’ means any project for 
the planning, design, construction, mainte-
nance, or enhancement of any cables, fiber op-
tics, wiring, wireless facility (including any pole, 
tower, base station, or other structure, whether 
or not such structure has an existing antenna 
facility, that is used or to be used for the provi-
sion of wireless service), or other permanent in-
frastructure integral to the provision of ad-
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vanced telecommunications capability (as such 
term is defined in section 706(d) of the Tele-
communications Act of 1996 (47 U.S.C. 
1302(d)) and as specified by the Federal Com-
munications Commission as part of the annual 
inquiry conducted under section 706(b) of such 
Act (47 U.S.C. 1302(b))). 
‘‘(B) ANNUAL INQUIRY.—For purposes of 
subparagraph (A), the term ‘annual inquiry’ 
means the most recent inquiry that concluded 
before the date on which an eligible entity sub-
mits an application for assistance under this 
chapter for a broadband infrastructure project. 
‘‘(4) 
CLEAN
ENERGY
INFRASTRUCTURE 
PROJECT.—The term ‘clean energy infrastructure 
project’ means a project that demonstrates 1 or 
more of the following technologies: 
‘‘(A) Solar. 
‘‘(B) Wind. 
‘‘(C) Geothermal. 
‘‘(D) Direct air capture. 
‘‘(E) Diverse clean hydrogen sources. 
‘‘(F) Clean, low-carbon fuels. 
‘‘(G) Hydropower. 
‘‘(H) Wave energy technologies. 
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