33 U.S.C. § 1273 — Lake Pontchartrain Basin

(a) The Administrator must establish the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Restoration Program within the Environmental Protection Agency.\n\n(b) The program’s purpose is to restore the Basin’s ecological health by developing and funding restoration projects and related scientific and public-education projects.\n\n(c) In carrying out the program, the Administrator must (1) provide administrative and technical assistance to a management conference convened for the Basin under section 1330; (2) assist and support the management conference’s activities, including carrying out its recommendations; (3) support environmental monitoring of the Basin and research that provides needed technical and scientific information; (4) develop a comprehensive research plan addressing the program’s technical needs; (5) coordinate the grant, research, and planning programs authorized under this section; (6) collect and make available to the public publications and other forms of information that the management conference determines are appropriate and that relate to the Basin’s environmental quality; and (7) ensure that the comprehensive conservation and management plan approved for the Basin under section 1330 is reviewed and revised under section 1330 at least once every 5 years, beginning on December 23, 2022.\n\n(d) The Administrator may make grants covering no more than 75 percent of the costs (1) of restoration projects and studies identified in the comprehensive conservation and management plan approved for the Basin under section 1330, and (2) of public-education projects recommended by the management conference.\n\n(e) (1) “Basin” means the Lake Pontchartrain Basin, a 10,000-square-mile watershed covering 16 parishes in Louisiana and 4 counties in Mississippi. (2) “Program” means the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Restoration Program established under subsection (a).\n\n(f) (1) Congress may appropriate $20 million for each fiscal year from 2001 through 2012 and the amount appropriated for fiscal year 2009 for each fiscal year from 2013 through 2017. These amounts remain available until spent. (2) No more than 15 percent of the amount appropriated under paragraph (1) in a fiscal year may be spent on grants for public-education projects under subsection (d)(2). (3) No more than 5 percent of the amounts appropriated to carry out this section may be used for administrative expenses.