Start With What’s Right Outside Our Door
Before we talk about global climate policy, let’s talk about Lake Erie.
Lake Erie is the heart of Ohio’s 14th Congressional District. It is our greatest natural asset — a source of drinking water for 11 million people, a foundation for fishing, tourism, and recreation, and a defining feature of life in Lake and Ashtabula counties. Generations of families have built their lives around it.
And it is under threat.
Algal blooms fueled by agricultural runoff and industrial pollution have become a recurring crisis. In 2014, the city of Toledo could not use its tap water for three days because of toxic algae in Lake Erie. Shoreline erosion is accelerating. Water quality is declining in ways that affect not just swimmers and fishermen, but every single person who drinks from the Lake Erie watershed.
This isn’t an abstract environmental issue. This is our water, our economy, and our home.
The Bigger Picture
What’s happening on Lake Erie isn’t isolated. It connects to bigger issues — pollution, weak oversight, and a system that too often lets powerful interests off the hook.
For decades, large corporations have polluted communities for profit and then used their influence to avoid real consequences. And at the federal level, environmental protections have been rolled back over time in ways that people here can see and feel.
This isn’t theoretical. It shows up in the water, the air, and the land across Ohio’s 14th District.
And climate change isn’t something in the future anymore. It’s already affecting farming, infrastructure, and extreme weather. Warmer water is making algal blooms worse. Bigger storms are speeding up erosion along the shoreline. Farmers in places like Ashtabula and County are already dealing with less predictable seasons.
Maria thinks we have to deal with that reality honestly — neither exaggerating nor pretending it’s not happening.
Maria’s Approach: Pragmatic, Local, and Jobs-Forward
Maria is not interested in ideological purity on energy and the environment. She is interested in results. That means a pragmatic, all-of-the-above approach that takes climate seriously, invests in clean energy, holds polluters accountable, and does not leave working people behind in the transition.
What Maria Will Fight For
1. Protect Lake Erie — Full Stop
Maria will be a fierce and unrelenting advocate for Lake Erie in Congress. That means fighting for strong clean water standards, increased federal investment in algal bloom research and prevention, accountability for agricultural and industrial polluters, and restoration of shoreline and wetland ecosystems. Lake Erie is not a partisan issue. It is our most precious regional resource, and Maria will treat it that way.
2. Restore and Strengthen Environmental Protections
The systematic rollback of EPA regulations, clean water rules, and air quality standards under the current administration is putting communities at risk. Maria will fight to restore these protections and strengthen enforcement so that corporations cannot treat our air, water, and land as a free dumping ground.
3. Hold Polluters Accountable
Current environmental laws are only as good as their enforcement. Maria supports robust funding for the EPA, aggressive prosecution of corporate polluters, and strengthening the legal tools available to communities harmed by environmental violations. If you poison a community’s water, you should pay to clean it up — not write it off as a cost of doing business.
4. Invest in Clean Energy — and the Jobs That Come With It
Ohio has enormous potential to be a leader in clean energy manufacturing and deployment. Solar, wind, and next-generation nuclear represent not just an environmental opportunity but an economic one — good-paying, American-made jobs that cannot be outsourced. Maria supports significant federal investment in clean energy infrastructure, manufacturing tax incentives, and workforce training programs that prepare Ohio workers for the energy economy of the future.
5. A Pragmatic All-of-the-Above Energy Strategy
Maria understands that energy transitions take time and that working families cannot absorb the cost of a chaotic or poorly managed shift. She supports a responsible all-of-the-above energy strategy that aggressively expands clean energy while managing the transition away from fossil fuels in a way that protects workers, keeps energy affordable, and maintains grid reliability. Energy independence — not dependence on foreign oil or foreign-manufactured solar panels — is the goal.
6. Support Ohio Farmers on Conservation
Farmers in Ashtabula and Geauga counties are dealing with a lot right now. Maria supports conservation programs that are voluntary and practical — things farmers can actually use. Cover crops, buffer strips, better ways to manage nutrients. The goal is simple: keep runoff out of Lake Erie without making it harder to run a farm. Those two things should go together.
7. Fight for Environmental Justice
Low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately bear the burden of industrial pollution, toxic waste sites, and environmental neglect. Maria supports an environmental justice framework that ensures all communities — regardless of zip code or income — have access to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment.
8. Oppose the Gutting of Environmental Infrastructure
Cutting the EPA, defunding environmental research, and eliminating the scientists and enforcement officers who protect our environment is not fiscal responsibility — it is a gift to corporate polluters at the expense of ordinary Americans. Maria will oppose every effort to defund, dismantle, or politicize the federal agencies that keep our environment safe.
What Maria Will Oppose
- Rolling back clean water and clean air protections — especially when communities are the ones left dealing with the consequences
- Weakening the EPA or stripping away enforcement power so rules exist in name only
- Corporate polluters getting a pass because of influence in Washington
- Energy decisions that drive up costs for working families without any real transition plan in place
- Letting Lake Erie slip down the priority list — because for this district, it’s not optional, it’s essential
The Economic Case
Some politicians treat the environment and the economy as opposites. Maria believes a healthy environment and a strong economy go hand in hand.
A healthy Lake Erie is worth billions of dollars to this region in tourism, fishing, recreation, and property values. Clean air and water reduce healthcare costs. Investing in clean energy creates jobs that stay here. And the long-term economic cost of ignoring climate change — in infrastructure damage, agricultural disruption, and public health crises — dwarfs the cost of acting now.
Protecting the environment is not a luxury. It is an investment in the long-term prosperity of Ohio’s 14th District and every family that calls it home.
A Note from Maria
“I grew up knowing Lake Erie. A lot of us did. We fished it, swam in it, watched the sun set over it. It is part of who we are here. And when I see what’s happening to it — the algae, the pollution, the neglect — I take it personally. This lake does not belong to corporations or a political party. It belongs to us. And I am going to protect it like it does.”