Rosa DeLauro believes that we have a responsibility to protect our natural resources and ensure that we have a clean, healthy environment. We need to preserve open space, farmland and historic sites as a means of protecting state and local environments as well as to protect the state and local economies.

DeLauro supports increased land acquisition funding; providing grants to states and localities to acquire land and plan for open space; expanded funding for other resource protection efforts; funding for "smart growth" partnerships; and expand funding for ocean and coastal protection.

• Fund Smart Growth Partnerships
  • preserve open spaces and clean up brownfields.
  • provides additional federal grants to build, extend and modernize light rail, subway and other mass transit systems.
  • promote sustainable, balanced commercial use of our vast system of public lands.
    
    
• Promote Livable Communities
  • encourage urban redevelopment, promoting mass transit, or creating incentives for communities to protect farmlands, clean up abandoned industrial sites and safeguard waterways.
    
    
• Land Preservation
  • preservation for open spaces and protection for natural treasures.
  • support full funding for our National Parks and protect our forests
  • stop commercial exploitation of environmentally sensitive land, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
    
    
• Safeguarding Our Waterways
  • we must rebuild declining fisheries and require that all fisheries be managed in a sustainable manner to prevent over-fishing.
  • clean-up the Long Island Sound and provide a steady stream of funding to safeguard it for future generations.
  • protect our watersheds by reducing non-point sources of pollution.
    
    

• Stewart McKinney Wildlife Refuge - DeLauro secured federal funds for the acquisition of the Great Meadows Salt Marsh . This is the final and critical land purchase necessary for completing the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge.
  
  
• Long Island Sound Restoration - DeLauro sponsored important legislation (DeLauro-Lowey Water Pollution Control and Estuary Restoration Act) that extends and increases the authorization for the State Revolving Fund (SRF), the federal source of low-interest loans to municipalities to improve their wastewater treatment infrastructure. It also strengthens the National Estuary Program
  
  
• DeLauro cosponsored the House passed Long Island Sound Restoration Act, that would increase the amount of funding for the implementation of conservation plans for the nation's 28 estuaries.
  
  
• Raymark - DeLauro fought for the declaration of a Superfund site; the cleaning of the site; and attracting businesses back to the site (Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Shaw's). Groundbreaking occurred September 25, 2000.