Sample Letter to Congress
Support Pennsylvania Sea Grant
Share your support of Pennsylvania Sea Grant by writing a letter to Congress. To get started, simply copy and paste the below sample letter, and customize it to fit your message, including examples of how Pennsylvania Sea Grant has helped you, the region, and/or the economy. Submit your letter to your representative online or via mail. Find your representative here. Please consider attaching the Sea Grant Association’s FY 2027 Programmatic Request with your letter.
We appreciate your support!
Sample Letter
Dear Congressman/woman or Senator [NAME]:
As a constituent and a beneficiary of Pennsylvania’s Sea Grant program, I am writing to ask you to request the Appropriations Committees fund the Sea Grant Program at $138,899,565, with $120,377,565 to the National Sea Grant College Program and $18,522,000 to Sea Grant Aquaculture Research in the FY 2027 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill. Sea Grant has benefitted from bipartisan congressional support since its creation in 1966 and leverages nearly $3 for every $1 appropriated by Congress, investing those funds directly in support of local needs.
As one of the 34 Sea Grant programs, Pennsylvania Sea Grant receives a portion of the annual appropriation to Sea Grant. Pennsylvania Sea Grant partners with local, state, regional, and national organizations to meet the legally required match of $1 dollar for every $2 federal dollars, which increases the impact of every federal dollar. In addition, Pennsylvania Sea Grant leverages a combination of state, federal, and private funds to expand support for the program. Pennsylvania benefits from this, as this money is invested in Sea Grant staff and their work in local communities.
This funding supports Pennsylvania Sea Grant activities including:
- Hosting no-cost professional development workshops for K-12 educators and environmental literacy programs for K-12 students.
- Engaging graduate students in fellowship opportunities, increasing their earning potential.
- Conserving open space with public access for fishing and passive recreation.
Additional programming, activities, and success from 2024-2025 include:
- Healthy Coasts and Watersheds: 816 acres of habitat were protected, enhanced, or restored
- Workforce Development: 58 undergraduate and graduate students supported, 708 resource managers used ecosystem-based approaches, 16 students became employed in a career related to their degree
- Environmental Literacy: 600,925 K-12 students reached, 123 educators trained, 7,266 people were engaged in informal education programs
By living and working directly in our community, Sea Grant staff quickly respond to local needs. Coastal communities around the country are protected and supported thanks to the national Sea Grant network’s important activities around building resilient communities and economies, developing sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, maintaining healthy coastal ecosystems, and promoting environmental literacy and workforce development. By co-developing science-based solutions, tools, and information to directly respond to those objectives, we end up with productive, healthy, and successful communities.
…consider adding examples here.
I recognize our nation is facing fiscal constraints and suggest that where we have discretion, federal funding ought to go to those programs that deliver economic, environmental, and education benefits to our state and local decision makers and are a wise use of taxpayer funds. The Sea Grant Program does both, generating huge economic benefits and a high return on investment from federal dollars.
In our state, this looks like…consider adding examples here.
I urge you to strongly support the National Sea Grant College Program by submitting a programmatic request to the Appropriations Committee that would fully fund the program in FY 2027 at the proposed levels. I have attached a document that should be helpful for submitting such a request to the Appropriations Committees.
Thank you for your consideration, and please reach out if I can be of further assistance.
Sincerely,
Name/Organization
Attachment: Sea Grant Association’s FY 2027 Programmatic Request
