Dear President Bush:

The undersigned are elected officials, business people, and residents of coastal communities throughout the United States. We congratulate you on your election to the presidency and wish you the very best during your term of office.

There are many pressing issues that are confronting you in these early days of your Administration. The purpose of this letter is to urge you to act as swiftly as possible to reverse a policy instituted by your predecessor which is harming the economy of coastal America. You have clearly demonstrated that you know the importance of sandy beaches when you signed the $15 million Coastal Erosion Planning and Response Act into law in Texas in 1998. Unfortunately, former President Clinton took the opposite position when he declared in 1995 that Federal budget policy would no longer support any funding for the nourishment of America’s beaches. While Congress rejected that policy through both statutory authorization and appropriations language, the effect of this policy is to prevent any new beach nourishment projects from being included in the President’s budget recommendations.

Beaches are coastal parks which act as magnets for millions of tourists. In fact, they are the top tourist attraction in the United States. The people who use the nation’s beaches represent all economic, ethnic, and racial groups. Whether they are visiting the beach for a day or for a month, they spend money which fuels not only local and regional economies, but also provides significant business and personal income tax revenues to the Federal government. The Federal beach nourishment program is a cost-sharing partnership with States and local governments.

We are attaching a fact sheet which provides more information about the economic, environmental, and storm damage reduction contributions derived from America’s sandy beaches. Our request to you is that you direct your staff to take action to include funding for new beach nourishment projects in the budget that you will send to Congress in March. We also ask that you formally announce that the previous Administration’s anti-beach nourishment policy is rescinded.

Thank you for your consideration of these requests. We are both ready and willing to provide you with whatever assistance your staff may need on this and other issues affecting coastal communities.