Mayor Daley to D.C.: “Go swim in the Potomac.” Sun-Times:
Mayor Daley has a message for federal bureaucrats who want the Chicago River to someday be safe enough for swimming: “Go swim in the Potomac.”
As far as Daley is concerned, it’s another one of those infamous “unfunded mandates” that tie a mayor’s hands.
The Chicago River is getting “cleaner and cleaner” because of steps taken by the city, no thanks to the federal government, which has “not been a great participant in cleaning rivers in America,” the mayor said.
Now, the Obama administration is setting an even higher standard — at great cost — without backing it up with bucks.
“Again, it’s an unfunded mandate. The federal government should look out their window at the Potomac and figure out what the Potomac is all about. . . . Go swim in the Potomac,” Daley said.
“Let’s figure out what the federal government is gonna do for us. . . . They just can’t make an announcement and walk away and say, ‘Well, we did it from Washington D.C. and that’s it,’ without even talking to local officials or talking to the governor and everyone else.”
Daley said it’s hypocritical for the federal government to hand down an edict when it has failed to fund the Deep Tunnel project desperately needed to prevent raw sewage from being dumped in the Chicago River after heavy rains.
The rest here.