Federal authorities are providing $50 million to restore seven river basins on the Gulf of Mexico after last year's devastating oil spill, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Monday. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said a task force has set out a series of goals to help restore the region, the result of a year of work between the five Gulf Coast states-which includes Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida-and the federal government. Jackson said as a first concrete step the U.S. Department of Agriculture is giving $50 million to restore seven river basins. President Barack Obama appointed Jackson head of the Gulf of Ecosystem Restoration Task Force after the April 2010 explosion of the British Petroleum-operated Deepwater Horizon rig and subsequent oil spill. The task force has laid out a plan for restoring a key region that has seen several years of environmental decline.
