New Great Lakes task force calling for industry participation.

The Great Lakes Regional Collaboration (GLRC), a cabinet-level task force to coordinate environmental policy in the Great Lakes region, is looking for manufacturing industry participation in its new Issue Area Strategy Teams, which will discuss pertinent policy topics. These include reductions in persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substances, sustainable development, sediment strategies and non-point water runoff sources.

Currently, the majority of members on the strategy teams are representatives from various environmental groups. Only six industry representatives have volunteered to participate. GLRC is a new program that President Bush initiated by Executive Order in May 2004. Its structure brings together federal, state and local officials, tribal governments and organizational representatives to collaborate on the assessment of current environmental policies, standards and requirements and to recommend the need for potential changes. The strategy teams were created to carry out this mandate and could recommend stricter standards for water and air quality and/or new regulations on certain chemicals.

Meetings and policy-making discussions are already underway. In the next six months, the strategy teams will develop their policy suggestions for a draft of the Great Lakes Restoration and Protection Strategy to be reviewed at a summit in summer 2005 and finalized later in the year.

Registration can be done at http:// yosemite.epa.gov/opa/ seminarreg.nsf/Request?OpenForm. Information on the GLRC can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/ collaboration/index.html.