For Senator Stabenow, fighting for our Michigan way of life means fighting to stop the thousands of trucks carrying Canadian trash that regularly drive across our borders. Those trucks, loaded with trash, are polluting our air, filling our landfills, and posing a very real threat to our homeland security.

We don't know what dangerous substances they may contain. Substances that could end up in our backyards, our drinking water, even on our streets.

Because of how this trash affects our border security, Senator Stabenow, Senator Carl Levin and Representative John Dingell joined together to request an investigation. They asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to look into the security risks caused by Canadian trash shipments to Michigan and the United States.

As a result of their request, DHS released a report early this year. That report highlighted many serious security risks, including ineffective screening strategies. This makes it impossible to know what exactly is being transported inside the trucks that enter Michigan every day.

DHS refused to release the report to the public, but the Senate Subcommittee investigating the issue decided to release it instead. Click here to view the report (PDF).

Senator Stabenow has led the fight to call attention to this issue, and she's had some success. She authored a law requiring high-tech equipment be used to search Canadian trash trucks crossing Michigan's borders. Since May of 2003, this law has regularly turned away trash trucks carrying radioactive material, dangerous medical waste and record quantities of illegal drugs.