Great Lakes passenger steamers Lakes) and a high-speed catamaran running between Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Muskegon, Michigan. An international ferry ran on Lake Ontario from Rochester, New York to Toronto from 2004 to 2005, but it was plagued with high operating costs and low demand. The privately owned company was taken over by the City of Rochester, and the ship was sold overseas where it operated across the Strait of Gibraltar. Cruise ship traffic on the Great Lakes increased in the early-21st century, with ships like the MS Hamburg, the MS Saint Laurent and the smaller ships of the Great Lakes Cruise Company offering multi-day
Great Lakes that border the Great Lakes as well as the U.S. Congress, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, described as "the largest investment in the Great Lakes in two decades," was funded at $475 million in the U.S. federal government's Fiscal Year 2011 budget, and $300 million in the Fiscal Year 2012 budget. Through the program a coalition of federal agencies is making grants to local and state entities for toxics cleanups, wetlands and coastline restoration projects, and invasive species-related projects. In 2006, the United States Coast Guard