“Right now, nothing in the president’s budget has been finalized,” said Collins, a Republican from Clarence who was the first House member to endorse Trump for president. “I am aware of the rumored cuts to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and monitoring the situation closely.”

Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, has championed the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative as a program that helps clean the environment and spur the region’s economic revival.

“I would say to the budget director and to the EPA to come to Buffalo,” said Higgins, who's vice ranking House member on the Ways and Means Committee and member of the House Budget Committee. “Buffalo is a national model for the effectiveness of these kinds of programs.”

Cutting the program by that much money is tantamount to an “obliteration” of it, Higgins said.

“There’s going to be a fight, and we need to be ready to fight,” Higgins said. “There’s opportunity here for Democrats and Republicans to come together to fight the White House on this.”

Restoration in jeopardy

It's not just new efforts now at risk of not getting funded from the Great Lakes program.