In May, Keep Tahoe Blue’s policy team traded Lake Tahoe for Capitol Hill to advocate for blue water, healthy forests, keeping aquatic invaders out, and to build new connections across the environment, natural resources, and outdoor recreation policy sectors.

Photo by Julie Ann Pixler

Annually, we travel alongside a group known as “Team Tahoe,” to DC, which includes representatives of our local agencies and the private sector. After a successful Team Tahoe trip in March, we set out to keep the momentum going with a Keep Tahoe Blue trip in May.

The Policy Priorities We Brought to Capitol Hill

Our policy team went to DC with a few goals in mind:

• Continue Tahoe’s presence on Capitol Hill advocating for Team Tahoe’s main policy asks, namely moving forward the Santini-Burton Modernization Act and freeing up funding for aquatic invasive species control and prevention programs in Tahoe.
• Educate federal lawmakers on emerging issues of concern in Tahoe, like the presence of 6PPD in our water.
• Bring Keep Tahoe Blue’s Chief Strategy Officer, Jesse Patterson, to cultivate a new Tahoe voice and perspective to this circle of decision-makers.

Inside Two Days of Federal Advocacy Meetings

With five of our team members in DC, we broke up into two groups to maximize our reach in nearly two days of back-to-back meetings across Congressional offices and the administration.

Each day began with a breakfast briefing with our consultants to load up on caffeine and figure out which of us would cover what issues in each meeting that day before hitting the Hill. Together, we reached relevant Committee staff — like House Natural Resources or Senate Agriculture — to individual offices across our California and Nevada delegation to new-to-us offices in regions like the Great Lakes and the Pacific Northwest.

We strategically ping-ponged back and forth across the Capitol complex between House and Senate office buildings, and across town to administrative and agency offices to ensure every relevant corner of government heard updates from Tahoe. We connected with the White House Council on Environmental Quality to talk about recreation access, with the USDA Forest Service to discuss the agency’s reorganization and what it means for Tahoe, and with the Department of Interior to highlight the need for resources to combat golden mussels and other aquatic invasive species threatening Tahoe.

Building Partnerships Beyond Capitol Hill

Our group also had time for dinner with budding partners in the outdoor recreation space, such as representatives from REI, the Outdoor Alliance, and the American Bus Association. By cultivating new partnerships in this space, we hope to learn from experts across the outdoor industry, share the lessons we’ve learned in recreation management, and find new opportunities to support each other’s goals on environmental protection, funding, and ensuring sustainable and equitable access to the outdoors.