Ohio: Cleveland Clinic

"If this fee goes through without any adjustment, we really don't see any recourse but to eliminate jobs, and based on the fee, the elimination of jobs would amount to somewhere in excess of 400," said Oliver Henkel, chief government relations officer.

Henkel told lawmakers that the proposed franchise fee would cost the Clinic alone more than $40 million over the next two years. His remarks to the House's Human Services Subcommittee wrapped up a parade of testimony from Ohio hospital officials offering gloomy scenarios of layoffs and service cuts if the franchise fees are allowed to stand. Also testifying were officials from St.

If the budget is adopted, the $475 million would be 10 times larger than any single chunk provided in the past, said Andy Buchsbaum of the National Wildlife Federation.

"Yeah, its big, and it's as real as a president can make it," said Buchsbaum, regional executive director of the federation's Great Lakes office. "It still has to go through Congress, but there's never been a presidential budget that commits this much money to the restoration of the Great Lakes."

Northeast Ohio medical institutions could benefit too, thanks to proposals to boost federal cancer research dollars, with at least some of the $6 billion nationally flowing to the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and other Ohio institutions, said Sen.