October 20, 2006

WASHINGTON – Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) today celebrated the enactment of the Long Island Sound Stewardship Act (LISSA), which they first introduced in 2004.  LISSA will help protect the Long Island Sound (LIS) by providing financial incentives for landowners to preserve environmental quality and improve public access within the LIS area, which is home to 8,000,000 people.  Dodd and Lieberman successfully moved the bill to final Senate passage on September 30 after Congressman Rob Simmons had moved it to passage in the House of Representatives three days earlier.  President Bush signed the bill into law earlier today.   

Dodd and Lieberman first introduced the LISSA on April 27, 2004.  The bill passed the Senate in October of that year but failed to pass the House.  The Senators re-introduced LISSA on January 25, 2005.  On April 6, 2006, the entire Connecticut House delegation and much of the New York House delegation introduced the companion bill that passed the House on September 27.

“Long Island Sound is a precious natural resource.  It also is a vital component of our state’s economy,” said Dodd.  “This measure thankfully will help ensure that it is protected and preserved for current and future generations.  That’s good news for the environment, good news for the workers who rely on it for their living, and good news for our nation.”

“This victory for Connecticut and the entire Long Island Sound region would not have happened without years of hard work and bipartisan cooperation,” said Lieberman, a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.  “I want to congratulate the many partners who worked with us to provide Connecticut’s citizens a new way TO protect this ecologically and economically vital estuary.”

Dodd and Lieberman have been working to protect and restore Long Island Sound for more than a decade.  In coordination with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Senators established the Long Island Sound Study, which concluded in 2002 that coordinated action was necessary to save the Sound from degradation. They crafted LISSA based on the study’s recommendations and feedback from public hearings.

The bipartisan bill that became law today establishes a broad-based “Long Island Sound Stewardship Advisory Committee,” comprised of all LIS stakeholders, including federal, state, local, and tribal governments, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, landowners, farmers, fishermen, and other businesses. The Advisory Committee is charged with recommending land parcels within the LIS region for designation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as “Stewardship Sites” eligible for special preservation funds.  LISSA authorizes $25 million per year for fiscal years 2007 through 2011 to the EPA Administrator to carry out the Act.

 

 

– 30 –