Back from the Brink: Restoring Brownfield Sites to Economic Engines — House Hearing
Summary
Transcript of the virtual hearing "Back from the Brink: Restoring Brownfield Sites to Economic Engines" before the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change of the Committee on Energy and Commerce on February 15, 2022, Serial No. 117-67. Chairman Paul Tonko presided. In an opening statement, Mr. Tonko said EPA's Brownfields program has resulted in the assessment of 34,000 properties and that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included some $1.5 billion for the program over the next 5 years. Witnesses were J. Christian Bollwage of Elizabeth, New Jersey; Michael Largent of Whitman County; Lee Ilan of the Mayor's Office of Environmental Remediation; Jason Seyler of Montana; and Patrick B. Ford of Frontier Group of Companies. A letter from Savion Energy was entered into the record.
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[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BACK FROM THE BRINK: RESTORING BROWNFIELD
SITES TO ECONOMIC ENGINES
=======================================================================
VIRTUAL HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE
CHANGE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 15, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-67
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Published for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
energycommerce.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
59-387PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
ANNA G. ESHOO, California Ranking Member
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado FRED UPTON, Michigan
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
KATHY CASTOR, Florida DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
JERRY McNERNEY, California H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
PAUL TONKO, New York BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York BILLY LONG, Missouri
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
TONY CARDENAS, California MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
RAUL RUIZ, California RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
SCOTT H. PETERS, California TIM WALBERG, Michigan
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois,Vice Chair NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware GREG PENCE, Indiana
DARREN SOTO, Florida DAN CRENSHAW, Texas
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania
KATHLEEN M. RICE, New York KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
KIM SCHRIER, Washington
LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
------
Professional Staff
TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Staff Director
WAVERLY GORDON, Deputy Staff Director
NATE HODSON, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change
PAUL TONKO, New York
Chairman
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois Ranking Member
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
RAUL RUIZ, California, Vice Chair RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
SCOTT H. PETERS, California EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California GARY J. PALMER, Alabama
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware DAN CRENSHAW, Texas
DARREN SOTO, Florida CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona (ex officio)
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Paul Tonko, a Representative in Congress from the State of
New York, opening statement.................................... 2
Prepared statement........................................... 4
David B. McKinley, a Representative in Congress from the State of
West Virginia, opening statement............................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Washington, opening statement..................... 15
Prepared statement........................................... 17
Witnesses
J. Christian Bollwage, Major, Elizabeth, New Jersey, U.S.
Conference of Mayors and The National League of Cities......... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 22
Answers to submitted questions................................... 145
Michael Largent, Commissioner, Whitman County Board of
Commissioners, Whitman County, Washington, National Association
of Counties.................................................... 34
Prepared statement........................................... 36
Answers to submitted questions...................................
Lee Ilan, Chief of Planning, Mayor's Office of Environmental
Remediation, The City of New York, New York, National
Brownfields Coalition.......................................... 42
Prepared statement........................................... 44
Answers to submitted questions................................... 150
Jason Seyler, Brownfields Coordinator, Montana Department Of
Environmental Quality, On Behalf Of Association Of State And
Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials................... 90
Prepared statement........................................... 92
Answers to submitted questions................................... 155
Patrick B. Ford, Business Development Director, Frontier Group of
Companies...................................................... 100
Prepared statement........................................... 102
Answers to submitted questions................................... 157
Submitter Material
Letter of February 15, 2022, from Mark Walter, Director of
Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, to Mr. Tonko and Mr.
McKinley, Savion Energy, submitted by Mr. Tonko................ 143
BACK FROM THE BRINK: RESTORING BROWNFIELD SITES TO ECONOMIC ENGINES
----------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2022
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:30 a.m.,
via Webex Cisco online video conferencing, Hon. Paul Tonko
(chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.
Members present: Representatives Tonko, DeGette,
Schakowsky, Sarbanes, Peters, Dingell, Barragan, McEachin,
Blunt Rochester, Soto, O'Halleran, Pallone (ex-officio);
McKinley (subcommmittee ranking member), Johnson, Mullin,
Hudson, Carter, Duncan, Palmer, Curtis, Crenshaw, and Rodgers
(ex-officio).
Staff present: Waverly Gordon, Deputy Staff Director and
General Counsel; Tiffany Guarascio, Staff Director; Anthony
Gutierrez, Professional Staff Member; Perry Hamilton, Deputy
Chief Clerk; Rick Kessler, Senior Advisor and Staff Director,
Energy and Environment; Mackenzie Kuhl, Press Assistant;
Brendan Larkin, Policy Coordinator; Elysa Montfort, Press
Secretary; Kaitlyn Peel, Digital Director; Kylea Rogers, Staff
Assistant; Nikki Roy, Policy Coordinator; Rebecca Tomilchik,
Policy Analyst; Jerry Couri, Minority Deputy Chief Counsel for
Environment; William Clutterbuck, Minority Staff Assistant;
Nate Hodson, Minority Staff Director; Mary Martin, Minority
Chief Counsel, Energy and Environment; and Michael Taggart,
Minority Policy Director.
Mr. Tonko. The Subcommittee on Environment and Climate
Change will now come to order. Today the subcommittee is
holding a hearing entitled, ``Back from the Brink: Restoring
Brownfield Sites to Economic Engines.''
Due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, today's
hearing is being held remotely. All Members and witnesses will
be participating via video conferencing.
As part of our hearing, microphones will be set on mute for
purposes of eliminating inadvertent background noise. Members
and witnesses, you will need to unmute your microphones each
time you choose to speak.
Documents for the record can be sent to Rebecca Tomilchik
at the email address we have provided to staff. All documents
will be entered into the record at the conclusion of the
hearing.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes for an opening
statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL TONKO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
I often say that my district in upState New York is at the
confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers. And with the
construction of the Erie Canal, this region became an
industrial center for our Nation, and a gateway toward Western
expansion. All along these rivers mill towns grew. They
manufactured carpets and leather, textiles, and many other
types of goods. Many of these industries left these towns years
ago, but the mill towns' residents are still dealing with a
legacy of contaminated land.
While this is just one district's story, I know that there
are Brownfields in every congressional district across our
great country, an estimated 450,000 sites found in both rural
and urban communities. And each site helps tell the story of
that community's economic past. But today we need to examine
how we can make these sites part of our districts' economic
futures.
Brownfields are often in good locations, along waterfronts
or near existing transportation infrastructure. They can be
valuable, if communities can obtain the resources to assess
their risks, and remediate them when it is required. But this
effort to turn a potential liability into an asset cannot
happen on its own. EPA has been a critical partner to local and
State governments to provide resources for the assessment and
cleanup of properties.
Since Congress first authorized the program in 2002, EPA's
Brownfields program has resulted in the assessment of 34,000
properties, and the restoration of nearly 144,000 acres of
land. These efforts have created 180,000 jobs, and leveraged
over $34 billion, more than $20 for each dollar spent by EPA.
These remediations protect public health and the environment,
all while preparing properties to get back onto the local tax
rolls.
With these sort of results, it is no wonder that this
program has enjoyed such strong bipartisan support. I want to
acknowledge Ranking Member David McKinley, who led the effort
to reauthorize the program in the House in 2018. I was proud to
partner with him, Chairman Pallone, and our former colleagues,
Representatives John Shimkus and Greg Walden, on that
legislation.
That reauthorization included important reforms that were
widely supported by stakeholders. Many of these reforms sought
to provide grant recipients greater flexibility, especially by
allowing more community-wide planning. The reauthorization also
allowed for more funding to go toward capacity building and
technical assistance for small and disadvantaged communities.
We make it easier for non-profit stakeholders to get involved,
and we increased the maximum grant size to allow a wider range
of projects to compete for funding, which is especially
important for sites that are more expensive to remediate.
While we are working to understand all the impacts of the
2018 reforms, I believe the initial signs are very positive. If
this program has any negatives, it is that Congress has
underfunded it year after year, resulting in many qualified
applications being rejected because of insufficient EPA
funding. I hope that is about to change.
Local governments across the country should be thrilled
that the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act, included some $1.5 billion for the
program over the next 5 years. These additional funds will also
have unique conditions, including no cost share requirements
and higher grant limits to ensure more disadvantaged
communities can access these funds, and that costlier, more
complex sites are able to be remediated.
These funds will make a huge difference to State and local
governments, and I do hope EPA will begin the process of
getting these dollars out the door to deserving communities in
the very near future. It is critical that we build on the
historic investment and continue to fund the program robustly
through the annual appropriations process.
I want to thank our witnesses for joining us this morning.
I look forward to your testimoneys to learn more about EPA's
program, how it has done since the 2018 reauthorization, and
its role in promoting economic redevelopment and environmental
justice, moving forward.
I do hope we can work together to ensure EPA continues to
play a critical role in these economic revitalization efforts.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tonko follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Paul Tonko
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tonko. With that, I will now recognize the subcommittee
ranking member, David McKinley, for an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID B. McKINLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA
Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I do--I join you
in welcoming our panelists, and look forward to their
testimony.
You are right. In 2018 Congress last reauthorized a
brownfield program, and you and I were--we led that bipartisan
effort, and I thank you for helping out.
But what we did on that back then, we expanded the
eligibility to include non-profits. We created a new grant
program, so communities can have the flexibility to clean up
multiple brownfields. We made it easier for small and rural
communities to have flexibility to--excuse me--to participate
in the program. And last, we doubled the amount from $250,000
to $500,000 per grant.
So, I look forward to today's discussion ahead of this
reauthorization. Like you said, Mr. Chairman, you have put
things in perspective to understand what are brownfield sites.
If you go back in time, let's just say a century ago,
manufacturers all across America were building plants, building
sites all across the country. They were locating their plants
near river, rail, and roads. They wanted the most accessible
locations 100 years ago. There weren't zoning laws back then,
all--that they had in effect, so that they could put them
anyplace.
But then, over time, as the economies changed, these
companies often abandoned these plants and--leaving a stigma on
their communities. So they left hulking, abandoned steel
structures, crumbling brick structures, and some of them right
in the downtown area. They are--many of them are potentially
contaminated sites. And new businesses, as you pointed out,
don't want to take on that liability, so they choose to go to
some other area, and leave behind this eyesore that remains. So
this brownfield program has a proven track record of
revitalizing these communities.
And today we are joined--one of the panelists joining us is
Pat Ford. He--who clearly has established himself as one of the
best in the business when it comes to brownfield remediation.
And in West Virginia his work is notable. His projects have
created jobs, expanded tax revenue streams, revitalized
communities around him. I can go on and on about Pat Ford.
But let's just consider. One of these sites, Mr. Chairman,
that we would be talking about is Weirton Steel site, Weirton
Steel. It used to be the sixth largest steel manufacturer in
America, the sixth largest, 1,300 acres, and they located right
in the heart, the middle of the city of Weirton, West Virginia.
And just imagine, now that they have--through sales and
abandonment--excuse me, sales and bankruptcies, the plant has
been abandoned, right in the heart of town, 1,300 acres of
unusable property. That is why this land and what he has taken
on is--this vacant, rusting hulk has been an eyesore for
Weirton. And thanks to Pat Ford and Frontier and others, they
are taking on this--using the brownfield money to revitalize
this, and the city of is Weirton is particularly appreciative
of that.
But, say--like, they have teamed up to redevelop these old
sites. They have leveraged over $90,000 from the EPA to bring
in $123 million in public and private partnerships,
investments. And these investments that Pat and his group are
doing are going to create over 2,500 jobs. So this just one
example.
He has also done the Beech Bottom Industrial Park, the
Brooke glass site in Wellsburg, the port of--in Follansbee,
Port of West Virginia in Follansbee. Projects like this, these
are the accumulation of--this brownfield legislation are
bringing into the northern panhandle of West Virginia over
5,300 jobs, 474 million jobs in total investment. And they have
lowered the unemployment rate in the northern panhandle from 14
percent down to 3.4 percent. Think about that. All from one
program, the success of one program.
So, Mr. Chairman, the brownfield program is clearly one of
the few economic development tools that truly benefits small
and rural communities. So as this committee begins writing this
program for next year's reauthorization, let's build on its
success. If this committee's responsibility is to ensure the
brownfield program remains a public-private partnership, that
is our goal. And we don't want to turn it into another Federal
bailout.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McKinley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. David B. McKinley
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. McKinley. So again, Mr. Chairman, please welcome--join
me in welcoming Pat Ford to this committee once again, and I
thank you, Mr. Chairman, and yield back.
Mr. Tonko. Well, thank you, Representative McKinley, and
welcome, Mr. Ford and all of our witnesses. And the gentleman
yields back. The Chair now recognizes Representative Pallone,
the hardworking chair of the full committee, for 5 minutes for
his opening statement, please.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Tonko. Today, as you
mentioned, we are discussing EPA's Brownfields program, and
that has been extremely successful for the last 20 years at
revitalizing contaminated properties all around the Nation in
order to protect public health and restore economic prosperity
to local communities.
In 2002, I was the ranking member on the subcommittee, and
I worked with then-subcommittee chairman Paul Gilmore from
Ohio, to co-author the Brownfields law. And since that time,
the Brownfields Program has been a critical lifeline for local
governments and communities looking to turn contaminated sites
into economic centers. With financial help from the Federal
Government in the form of grants and loans, communities can
cleanup contaminated sites--and many of them were long
abandoned--and then turn them into parks, public buildings, or
new businesses.
As just one example in my district, the Middlesex County
Improvement Authority was able to turn a six-acre former scrap
metal facility on the Raritan River in Perth Amboy into a
community park.
And the Brownfields Program is a resounding success story
on so many levels. Since the program's inception, 34,000 sites
have been revitalized nationwide, opening up 144,000 acres for
development. Cleaning up brownfields raises neighborhood
property values, decreases toxic exposure, and creates an
opportunity for community-led development.
It is also a fantastic investment in our communities. For
every dollar granted, there is a return of $20.13. And recent
studies show that brownfields cleanups bring an estimated 29 to
$97 million in additional tax revenue to local governments in a
single year after cleanup.
So I am proud that the bipartisan infrastructure law that
Congress passed and the President signed last year will inject
an additional $1.5 billion of new funding into the Brownfields
program. This money will go to State and local governments, as
well as community non-profits, to clean up blighted, unused
sites and turn them into economic drivers for the community. It
will allow communities that could not meet cost sharing
requirements to gain access to grants, and this will
revolutionize the grant process, and make it dramatically
easier for communities, especially low-income and under-served
communities, to get the funding they need.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill also increases grant
amounts that will allow for tougher, more complicated
brownfield sites to finally get the funding they need to
complete the cleanups.
Now, the bipartisan infrastructure law is not only a
critical investment in the Nation's infrastructure, but also
essential to eliminating legacy toxic exposure in environmental
justice communities. The bill passed 3 years after this
committee came together in a strong, bipartisan fashion to
reauthorize and update the Brownfields Program. That is what
Paul and Mr. McKinley were talking about with the BUILD Act of
2018, and that legislation increased grant amounts, created
multipurpose grants for flexibility, and opened up funding for
non-profits.
So I look forward to hearing from the local leaders and
stakeholders about how the bipartisan infrastructure law and
the 2018 program updates are working, and how the increased
funding and flexibility will benefit their future cleanup
projects.
The 2018 reauthorization that Chairman Tonko and the
Ranking Member McKinley talked about, that expires at the end
of this year, and that is why today's hearing is so important
as we look to, once again, reauthorize this program.
I also want to thank Mayor Bollwage, one of our--one of the
people that is going to be testifying. He is from--he is the
mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey. It is not in my district, it is
just north. But he has testified before this committee many
times in support of the Brownfields Program, including back in
2018, at the time of the reauthorization. And he represents the
U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities,
which he has been involved with for a long time.
So welcome. Welcome back, Mayor Bollwage.
And again, I am hopeful that today's hearing puts us on a
bipartisan path to reauthorize the Brownfields Program this
year, before it expires.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Pallone. So with that, I thank everyone.
Thank you, Paul, and I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. Mr. Pallone yields back. The Chair now
recognizes our ranking member, Mrs. Rodgers.
Are you coming to us from the West Coast?
Mrs. Rodgers. Coming to you from Spokane, Washington.
Mr. Tonko. Wonderful, wonderful. So thank you for joining,
and you are recognized for 5 minutes for your opening
statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
everyone. Good morning to my colleagues. Thank you for bringing
us together today to discuss this important program.
A brownfield is an abandoned or underutilized property with
known or suspected contamination which discourages developers
and buyers. Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties
increases local tax bases; creates jobs; utilizes existing
infrastructure; takes development pressures off of
underdeveloped, open land; and improves and protects the
environment.
Cities and towns across the United States have seen
positive changes in their communities as a result of the
Brownfields program. Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas; the
Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island, Georgia; the
Woodbridge Waterfront in New Jersey; and the University
District in Spokane, Washington.
EPA's Brownfields program, first authorized over two
decades ago, took dead aim at addressing the challenges
preventing these sites from receiving the interest necessary to
foster cleanup and redevelopment. Specifically, the law
instituted defenses to liability for innocent landowners and
prospective purchasers who comply with statutory requirements.
The Brownfields law also authorized grants to encourage
environmental assessment and cleanup of brownfield sites.
The law has been hugely successful. It removed barriers to
addressing environmental contamination. It issued 3,200 grants
for pollution assessment and cleanup, removed abandoned and
blighted properties, and restored community opportunities. In
2018, as it has been mentioned, this committee, led by
subcommittee Republican leader McKinley, advanced a bipartisan
extension of EPA's Brownfields program that built on these
successes. And it sounds like the Chairman also was at the
forefront of that. In fact, in the city of Spokane, Washington
we were one of the beneficiaries of that bill.
The numbers are noteworthy. According to the EPA, as of the
beginning of the current fiscal year, this program has
contributed to more than 34,000 properties being assessed for
environmental contamination; aided the cleanup of 2,261
properties; leveraged more than 180,000 jobs and almost 35
billion in investment; returned more than 9,000 properties back
to communities for reuse; and readied more than 144,000 acres
for anticipated reuse.
The funding authorizations from the 2018 law expire at the
end of next fiscal year. I understand that today's oversight
hearing is kicking off the regular order reauthorization of the
bipartisan law and this bipartisan program, and I appreciate
this work by the committee.
I am very interested in what the panelists have to say, and
want to be joining, and sincerely hope that this will be a
bipartisan effort.
I do have questions that I would like to see addressed, as
far as making major changes to the law. The Clean Future Act,
which the majority proposed earlier in this Congress, was
proposing huge increases in the funding authorizations for the
Brownfields program. Certainly, Congress has spent and the
President has spent records--amount of money, and I continue to
have fundamental concerns about increasing our national debt
and the burden on our children, and believe that that will
limit their opportunities.
I also have practical concerns about mandating dramatic
increases for the Brownfields program. For example, how does
considerably increasing overall grant money affect the quality
of the Brownfields grant application pool? I would like to see
the list of the very qualified projects that are going unfunded
before giving EPA more money.
My goal is to incentivize the applicants to craft their
proposals for long-term success.
Separately, what is the impact of permanently increasing
the amounts that EPA can give in grants, including the
implications on project matching requirements?
Last, the law, including the reforms made in 2018, provides
a great deal of flexibility for the program to address several
different issues, and reach many types of applicants.
Before we make changes to the authorizing law, let's ensure
that a genuine need is shown, and that there are statutory
authorities lacking for successful implementation.
Also, I believe this program should continue to focus and
emphasize economic redevelopment and public-private
partnerships that it creates.
Before closing, Mr. Chairman, I do want to say thank you to
you and your staff for working with us collaboratively on this
hearing, and I hope that we can continue to work together to
reauthorize this program in a bipartisan fashion.
I find it unfortunate that the EPA is not a witness today
to answer questions about the program. It has been operating
for 21 years. I hope that the committee will undertake
aggressive, bipartisan oversight of this program and the 1.5
billion provided to EPA under the bipartisan infrastructure
law.
Prior to EPA testifying on any legislation, which is
essential, we need to take important steps to meaningfully
understand the program as a part of the run-up to
reauthorization. I am pleased that our witness panel has the
experience and perspectives on this subject.
Oh, and I am way over time. I want to extend a warm welcome
to Whitman County Commissioner Michael Largent. He is from my
district, just south of Spokane. I appreciate him being here on
behalf of the National Association of Counties.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Rodgers follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodger
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you all. I look forward to this
hearing.
Mr. Tonko. Well, the gentlelady yields back, and you are
most welcome, in terms of being able to work together on
establishing the hearing.
As Chair, I remind members that, pursuant to committee
rules, all Members' written opening statements shall be made
part of the record.
Now we turn over to--the opportunity to our witnesses. We
will be introducing them, and we will start with Chairman
Pallone. I know he acknowledged Mayor Bollwage in his
introductory comments.
But Chairman, would you please formally welcome Mayor
Bollwage to testify today?
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Tonko. I won't repeat what
I already said about the mayor, but, as I mentioned, he
represents the city of Elizabeth, which is a town--well, a
city, a major city, actually--north of my district.
It is--the Port of Newark and Elizabeth is the major port
facility in the New York Metropolitan Area. It is part of the
Port of New York. But Elizabeth has a history of manufacturing,
industrialization, which, of course, means that there are a lot
of brownfield sites. And I am sure that is why Mayor Bollwage
has taken a lead on that, not only locally and statewide, but
even nationally, through the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the
National League of Cities that he represents today.
I could be wrong, Chris, but I think you have been the
mayor of Elizabeth as long as--if--or maybe even longer, if
that is possible, than I have been in Congress. When did you
first become mayor, if you don't mind my asking? How--when?
Mr. Bollwage. Nineteen ninety three.
Mr. Pallone. Oh, all right. Well, then you--no, I have been
around longer than you, but almost, almost. So thank you.
Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Tonko. Oh, you are most welcome.
And welcome, Mayor Bollwage.
Also we have, as witnesses today, Hon. Michael Largent,
commissioner of Whitman County Board of Commissioners of
Whitman County, Washington, on behalf of the National
Association of Counties.
We also have Ms. Lee Ilan, the chief of planning, Mayor's
Office of Environmental Remediation from the city of New York,
New York, on behalf of the National Brownfields Coalition.
We are also joined by Mr. Jason Seyler, on behalf of the
Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management
Officials.
And finally----
[Audio malfunction.]
Mr. Tonko. So with that, I now recognize Mayor Bollwage for
5 minutes to provide your opening statement, sir. And again,
welcome and thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. J. CHRISTIAN BOLLWAGE, MAYOR
THE CITY OF ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY, ON BEHALF OF U.S.
CONFERENCE OF MAYORS AND THE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES; HON.
MICHAEL LARGENT, COMMISSIONER, WHITMAN COUNTY BOARD OF
COMMISSIONERS, WHITMAN COUNTY, WASHINGTON, ON BEHALF OF
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES; LEE ILAN, CHIEF OF PLANNING,
MAYOR'S OFFICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION, THE CITY OF NEW
YORK, NEW YORK, ON BEHALF OF NATIONAL BROWNFIELDS COALITION;
JASON SEYLER, BROWNFIELDS COORDINATOR, MONTANA DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY, ON BEHALF OF ASSOCIATION OF STATE AND
TERRITORIAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT OFFICIALS (ASTSWMO); AND
PATRICK B. FORD, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR, FRONTIER GROUP
OF COMPANIES
STATEMENT OF J. CHRISTIAN BOLLWAGE
Mr. Bollwage. Chairman Pallone and Chairman Tonko, it is
good to see the two of you again, and thank you for this
opportunity.
Ranking Member McMorris Rodgers, Ranking Member McKinley,
and distinguished members of this committee, my name is Chris
Bollwage. I am the mayor of the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey,
the fourth largest city in our State, since 1993. I am honored
to give testimony on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors
and the National League of Cities on our perspective on the
Brownfields law that was reauthorized in 2018.
And I think the first time I testified in this committee
was back in 1999, so I want to thank the committee for
listening to the recommendations of our organizations--put
forth and incorporated them into 2018 Brownfields
reauthorization.
I am here to advise all of you that the additional tools
that you provided the Brownfields program continues to be one
of the most useful and successful programs on the local level,
supporting our efforts to revitalize, redevelop abandoned
properties that blight our communities.
I also want to thank the Congress for the additional 1.5
billion of Brownfields money that was included in the
infrastructure law, allowing for higher grants amounts in the
areas of cleanup, multi-purpose grants, and training. We are
hopeful that EPA will take advantage of this increased funding
and flexibility to provide larger grants and amounts to
communities with brownfields that may need some extra
assistance.
This program has a very positive impact on many communities
throughout the Nation, including my own. We are a port city,
with a majority of industrial companies and businesses along
the waterfront. And now our waterfront has luxury townhouses,
homes for people who formerly lived in public housing, mixed
use, and commercial space. In addition, our neighborhood
revitalization program provides transitional services for
residents, a catalyst for the construction of five other
developments within our port.
Brownfield redevelopment is a powerful economic tool.
Brownfield properties represent unrealized potential. Turning
polluted properties back into productive real eState helps us
create jobs in distressed communities. Revitalizing
neighborhoods improves public health and safety and, most
important, increases our tax base. The original Brownfields law
assisted with the cleanup and the redevelopment of many
properties and success stories like mine, and also in
communities across the country.
I was there in 2002, when George Bush signed the law in
Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Working together, other brownfields
stakeholders, we advocated for changes to the law that would
assist in putting these most difficult sites back into
productive use. We believe these changes improved the program,
and Congress has helped tremendously. I would like to mention a
few.
The 2008 reauthorization, for the first time, authorized
multi-purpose grants, up to one million, allowing a community
to use the money in a targeted area where it is most needed.
Second, the reauthorization raised the cap on cleanup grant
amounts from 200,000 to 500,000, and up to, with flexibility,
to 650,000. For communities that have more contaminated sites,
this is a real game changer. So this creation, an additional
tool, adds to local government efficiency.
Third, the reauthorization allows grant recipients to use
up to 5 percent for administrative costs. This change is
particularly important for smaller communities that previously
may not have even applied, due to the cost burdens with Federal
grants.
So while the 2018 reauthorization maintained the original
authorization level of 200 million, we are grateful for the
additional funding that the bipartisan infrastructure law is
providing. Given the huge number of brownfield sites, how
successful this program is, it will never be a bad investment
to put more money into this program.
In conclusion, as Congress looks forward toward
reauthorization of the Brownfields program in 2023, we welcome
mayors throughout this country to provide input to further
improve the program.
So, Chairman Tonko, I would like to thank you and the
subcommittee for allowing me to testify this day. This program
is one that not only Members of Congress, but mayors throughout
this Nation are proud to be a part of, and I look forward to
answering any questions you or the committee may have. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bollwage follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tonko. Well, thank you. And you are most welcome. Thank
you for your advocacy. Now we will move to Commissioner
Largent.
You are recognized for 5 minutes, please, sir.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL LARGENT
Mr. Largent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Unlike Mayor
Bollwage, this is an entirely new experience for me, so we will
see how this goes.
But Mr. Chairman Tonko, Ranking Member McKinley, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for
today's hearing.
I also want to thank the full committee, and Chairman
Pallone, and my representative--hi, Cathy--Representative
McMorris Rodgers, for their leadership. On behalf of the
National Association of Counties, thank you for providing the
opportunity to testify.
My name is Michael Largent, and I am a county commissioner
from Whitman County, Washington. Whitman County is rural, with
just under 50,000 residents. Located in the southeast corner of
the State, my county encompasses nearly 2,200 square miles, and
our economy is driven by health care, retail trade,
manufacturing, and my field of agriculture.
As a lifelong wheat farmer, and after spending 16 years as
a county commissioner, I have seen firsthand the significant
role local governments play in protecting our environment by
implementing the EPA's Brownfields and Land Revitalization
Program, which plays a critical role in supporting the
environment and local economies.
As I look out at the rolling hills outside my window right
now, I am reminded that my farm and my rural community has
benefited over the years from the various industries such as
fertilizer plants, fuel depots, and repair shops, some of which
have created some of the brownfields we have in our county
today. However, these companies are long gone, and my county
simply does not have adequate resources to bring these sites
back to usefulness.
Today I will briefly discuss several critical points for
your consideration as the subcommittee assesses challenges and
opportunities at the local level to improve these programs. And
please refer to my written testimony for more details on these
topics.
In my home county we have two sites of note: the former
Palouse Producer site in Palouse, Washington and the steam
power plant site in Pullman, Washington. Work on the Palouse
Producers site has finished, and the site is going through the
annual review process, which will continue to 2025.
Regardless of urban or rural settings, brownfield
revitalization is vital to the strength of local economies and
the workforce. Counties encourage Federal support for economic
development and environmental remediation. Counties appreciate
Congress providing the resources needed to remediate
brownfields with the passage of the historic bipartisan
infrastructure law.
Counties are eligible for 1.2 billion over 5 years to carry
out brownfields projects authorized under CERCLA. Often times
counties cannot afford this critical work on our own, and the
money authorized under the IIJA will allow us more
opportunities to take on the much larger and expensive
projects. Counties look forward to partnering with the EPA to
start revitalizing brownfields in our communities.
The inter-governmental partnership and early, consistent,
and meaningful engagement with counties are vital in developing
and implementing the program standards, policies, programs, and
regulations. Congress has a crucial role in developing policies
that guide our actions at the local level and significantly
impact our local economies and environment. Counties urge the
subcommittee to provide direct, flexible Federal funding
options to local governments that can be used to remediate
brownfield sites at the local level.
Furthermore, counties support the redevelopment of
abandoned or underutilized industrial and commercial sites,
which are frequently contaminated due to past practices,
through programs designed to allow these sites to once again
become economically viable.
In conclusion, counties stand ready to work with our
Federal partners to develop policies that continue the
revitalization of our brownfields, improve our environment,
sustain our economy, and ensure the resiliency of our local
economies. We urge the committee to reauthorize these programs
and fully fund the grant programs associated with facilitating
the necessary work to clean up our environment.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify on this
critical topic.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Largent follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tonko. Well, we thank you, Commissioner Largent, and
thank you for your advocacy. Now we will move to Ms. Ilan.
You are recognized for 5 minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF LEE ILAN
Ms. Ilan. Thank you, Chairman Tonko, Ranking Member
McKinley, and members of the subcommittee. The National
Brownfields Coalition appreciates the opportunity to testify
today on restoring brownfield sites.
I am Lee Ilan, chief of planning for the New York City
Mayor's Office of Environmental Remediation. In this capacity I
have promoted brownfields cleanup and redevelopment for over 20
years.
New York City runs its own full-service brownfields cleanup
program, similar in scope to those run by states. The city has
received 17 EPA brownfield grants, which supported the creation
of 1,400 units of affordable housing, two charter schools, two
parks, and one health care center. Last week we began an
assessment to allow a non-profit to open a Meals on Wheels site
for low-income families.
Today I address you solely as a member of the Steering
Committee for the National Brownfields Coalition. The Coalition
is a national, non-partisan alliance of public interest groups
and public and private sector professionals who speak about and
advocate for brownfields cleanup and redevelopment policies.
The Brownfields program's reliable funding and consistency
allows EPA to fund local and tribal governments, states, and
non-profits to study and address contaminated sites, do long-
term reuse planning, consult with stakeholders, and line up
private and public partners. Ultimately, the program enables
economic development, improves the environment, preserves
greenfields, protects public health, and gives community
members a voice in what their neighborhoods look like.
EPA's brownfield job training grants enable community
members to acquire skills, and work in fields like
environmental cleanup and solar panel installation. The average
starting wage nationally for graduates is over $14 an hour.
Regarding funding, we are thrilled with the level of
investment in the bipartisan infrastructure law. Historically,
due to underfunding of the program, EPA could only fund a third
of the requests it received, even if proposals got high scores.
The recent increased funding will allow communities to address
larger sites and small, but complicated sites. We also hope it
will enable EPA to fund more of the proposals they get.
We also applaud Congress for eliminating that 20 percent
cost share requirement for cleanup and revolving loan fund
grants in the bipartisan infrastructure law.
The possibility of fully funded cleanups is a game changer.
That said, tax incentives would further expand brownfield
restoration. The National Brownfields Coalition strongly urges
Congress to renew the Federal brownfield tax deduction that
expired in 2011. This deduction was previously available
through tax code section 198, and encouraged private investment
in cleanup by allowing parties to deduct all site cleanup costs
in the year they are incurred, rather than spread over 10
years.
This powerful incentive was available everywhere, not only
in communities that were fortunate to have a good grant writer.
It was used more than 625 times in more than 40 states over the
14 years it was available. Further, the deduction is already
available to responsible parties under Superfund. We ask you to
restore it for volunteers cleaning up brownfields, too.
Brownfield reuse also promotes environmental justice. EPA
grants are most often used in areas dealing with the worst
effects of brownfields. Historic disinvestment and the legacy
of pollution contribute to poor health outcomes, diminishing
jobs, and decaying housing stock. The grants enable communities
to assess their needs and assets broadly, developing area-wide
strategies to address clusters of brownfield sites. Because
gentrification and displacement are risks in redevelopment, the
Coalition is working with EPA on educational programing for
strategies to avoid displacement, safeguard affordable housing
and small businesses, and support high-wage, working-class
jobs.
In New York City the vast majority of grant sites are in
low-income areas, and we use EPA grants primarily on affordable
housing. We build large-scale, mixed-income developments,
supportive and senior residences, and home ownership projects
that help working-class people own a piece of their
neighborhood. New affordable housing provides significant
health benefits by eliminating exposures to lead paint from
older housing stock and reducing anxiety among residents.
Ground floor spaces provide retail and community services,
improving neighborhoods broadly.
Brownfield restoration also addresses impacts of climate
change. Historic development patterns led many industries to
locate near waterways. Their use of hazardous materials leaves
communities with brownfields, vulnerable to the effects of
flooding, coastal storms, and sea level rise.
Grants flooded funding studies--to relocate residents in
Philadelphia, strategies for mitigation and riverfront
redevelopment in North Dakota, remediation of a corridor in
Oregon to end decades of flooding and prevent over $9 million
in damage, and land re-use for greenhouse gas reduction near
San Francisco.
In closing, EPA's program is widely used, highly valuable,
and makes excellent use of funding from Congress. When we
cleanup and recycle land, we eliminate exposure to
contaminants, and the jobs, new businesses, housing, parks, and
cultural and social centers that we create are truly an
economic engine.
This concludes my statement. I am happy to answer
questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ilan follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Ms. Ilan, and thank you for your
leadership and your input.
Next we will move to Mr. Seyler.
You are recognized, sir, for 5 minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF JASON SEYLER
Mr. Seyler. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Tonko,
Ranking Member McKinley, and members of the subcommittee. Thank
you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
My name is Jason Seyler, and I am the Brownfields
coordinator for the Montana Department of Environmental
Quality, and I am testifying today as the vice chair for the
Brownfields Focus Group of the Association of State and
Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials, ASTSWMO.
ASTSWMO is an association representing the waste management
remediation programs of 50 states, five territories, and the
District of Columbia. ASTSWMO is a strong supporter and a
partner of the U.S. Brownfields program.
Brownfields, at its heart, is a redevelopment program where
developers, communities, and regulators are all working
together toward the cleanup and redevelopment of blighted and
underutilized properties. It is this collaborative effort, the
relationships built, and the lasting impacts to the communities
we serve that makes myself and my fellow brownfield State
counterparts so passionate about the assistance that we are
allowed to provide our states and communities.
Prior to the passage of the original Small Business
Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act in 2002,
the fear of acquiring the environmental liability from a
boarded-up downtown building or an abandoned corner gas station
contributed to the lack of infill investment, and the flight of
businesses from the economic heart of communities. This
ultimately led to the dramatic increase in sprawl, traffic
congestion, isolation of disadvantaged neighborhoods, and these
communities' economic, social, and environmental decline.
Since 2002, the Brownfields program has served to break
down barriers to redevelopment, and move properties with an
environmental past forward when they would otherwise have
remained blighted. Brownfields-assisted redevelopment sparks
private investment and job creation. It encourages
infrastructure reuse, increases property values and the tax
base, and facilitates community revitalization.
While there are plenty of examples of larger brownfield
success stories that have involved multimillion-dollar
redevelopments, possibly the more significant projects are felt
within small, rural, and disadvantaged communities. Communities
of less than 5,000 rarely have planning departments or grant-
writing stuff, but they are the heart of this country, and they
rely on the assistance that EPA and, more specifically, states
can provide.
For the past 20 years, Brownfields funding to states,
territories, and tribes via the 128(a) Brownfields grant has
been essential for states to build and maintain successful
State Brownfields programs and aid struggling local
governments, developers, and non-profits. You see a better
future for those old corner gas stations and the boarded-up
buildings along Main Street.
The 2018 BUILD Act not only reauthorized the Brownfields
program, but it also included amendments that provided
struggling, small, disadvantaged communities tools necessary to
tackle environmental liabilities, preventing investment,
growth, and prosperity of its citizens. Amendments such as the
removing of the necessity for communities to have acquired a
property by involuntary acquisitions have since been modeled
and adopted by states. Another amendment provided State
Brownfields programs with $20,000 technical assistance grants
to assist small and disadvantaged communities with critical
planning and community outreach efforts.
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides an
additional 1.2 billion in assessment and cleanup Brownfields
funding over the next 5 years. This is the largest single
investment in brownfields infrastructure, and has the goal of
creating 154,000 jobs, and stimulating 30 billion in public and
private funding.
I would also like to specifically highlight the twofold
increase in the 128(a) State Brownfields funding, which will be
used to facilitate EPA's distribution of this historic funding
to impacted communities. In addition, Montana and other states
will use these funds to provide micro cleanup grants to small
and disadvantaged communities. On average, these $50,000
cleanup grants will allow these targeted communities to address
blight along Main Street, which will attract reinvestment into
their downtowns, and begin to entice younger generations back
home.
Since its inception, the national Brownfields program has
assisted in the redevelopment of over 9,500 properties,
totaling 143,000 acres, while leveraging over 35 billion in
redevelopment capital, and resulting in over 183,000 jobs.
Multiple return on investment studies show between 17 to $34
dollars leveraged for every $1 spent in brownfields assistance.
On behalf of my fellow State brownfields coordinators, I
want to express my sincere appreciation for the
transformational effects these investments will continue to
have on the communities we serve.
To summarize, ASTSWMO believes that a robust Brownfields
program is essential to the nation's environmental, economic,
and social health.
Thank you for this opportunity to offer testimony. I will
be--I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Seyler follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Seyler, and thank you for your
leadership with ASTSWMO. It is great to have your input also
today.
So finally, we will close with Mr. Ford.
You are recognized, sir, for 5 minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF PATRICK B. FORD
Mr. Ford. Thank you, Chair Tonko, and thank you, Ranking
Member David McKinley.
I am Pat Ford, director of business development for the
Frontier Group of Companies based in Buffalo, New York. I have
had the blessing over my 35-year career to work as a city
planner and administrator for towns as small as 250 people in
West Virginia, as large as Pittsburgh, with over 300,000
people. As a development executive, I have led a non-profit in
Weirton, West Virginia; a top-500 engineering and architecture
company in Baltimore; and now work for one of the most
successful private sector brownfield developers in the country.
The common thread through all my positions has been the
repurposing of brownfields as the catalyst to greater community
revitalization. From gas stations to decommissioned coal-fired
power plants and abandoned factories, I have had every role one
could imagine in the repurposing of a brownfield. I have been
the permit reviewer, the site planner, the engineer, the
enforcement officer, the funder, the collaborator, the policy
administrator, the property owner, and the developer.
What I have learned on my career trajectory is that the
market does not take care of brownfields. There is no such
thing as a conventional approach to brownfield development.
There is no such thing as conventional financing in brownfield
development.
Brownfields continue to have a stigma, and, even in the
United States of America, people's appetite for risk still has
a limit. And that limit is the private development of a
brownfield. That is, until the U.S. EPA stepped in to fill the
shoes of past captains of industry, and take on the risk that
so many other agencies and developers avoided.
We are just now, as a country, figuring out how to mend the
disruptions of our domestic and international supply chain
logistics. I would argue that the most logical solution to
these disruptions is the repurposing of brownfields.
Our most critical and strategically located brownfields are
within 8 hours of 50 percent of our country's industrial
output, 50 percent of America's population, and within a labor
shed that has the muscle memory to slit, cut, coat, grind,
fabricate, form, and assemble raw materials better than any
other workforce in the country.
These same abandoned brownfields have the bones, river,
roads, rail in place to support our future industrial growth
for the remainder of this century. We must keep our large
brownfields in our country's industrial inventory to meet the
demand for economic growth. We must provide the EPA with the
resources, regulatory and monetary, to ready these sites for
economic development. It is cost prohibitive to take a green
field and recreate the infrastructure that exist on our
industrial brownfield sites. There is no better time than now
to put these forgotten pockets of our proud industrial heritage
back into play, and breathe life back into the bones of our
abandoned factory sites located in states and towns that
desperately need the jobs.
Who, who in our national economy's operating room is
equipped to breathe life back into the bones of our
brownfields? You will find them at 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue,
N.W. You will find no better agency than the U.S. EPA that is
equipped with the tools and staff to reinvigorate communities
that have fallen on hard times.
I can only attest to the EPA's flexibility and their keen
recognition of the role that government needs to have in the
economic development arena. The EPA understands the importance
of leverage, private investment, risk share, and where to fit
in a development's capital stack.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a critical juncture in our
country's industrial renaissance, where international companies
are moving operations into the U.S., U.S.-based companies that
moved abroad are moving back to the states, existing industries
are expanding, supply chain disruptions are being corrected,
and government has figured out how to move at the pace of
business. Now is not the time to tap the brakes in this small
window of one of the greatest industrial renaissance in modern
history.
The U.S. EPA has built an on-ramp to growing our country's
industrial output highway. We need to keep our foot on the
accelerator, and give the United States Environmental
Protection Agency the fuel they need to take us to the
checkered flag. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Ford, and thank you for the many
hats that you have worn that are related to the brownfield's
efforts, so we appreciate your advocacy.
So we are thankful for every witness, for the testimony
that the witnesses have provided, and there is now time for us
to move to questions. I will start by recognizing myself for 5
minutes.
There seems to be a consensus around the importance of $1.5
billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law in the 2018
reforms to the program. So, Mayor Bollwage, I really
appreciated your testimony's explanation of the changes to the
program. I believe the hallmark of these reforms was indeed
adding and allowing local and State governments to better meet
their unique needs.
Mr. Mayor, can you give us a sense of whether multipurpose
grants can provide greater flexibility to communities?
And if so, have they been working well so far?
Mr. Bollwage. Thank you for the question, Chairman. You
know, the extra funding and the flexibility is extremely
important to communities because, historically, there has only
been around $90 million appropriated every year for the grants
to local governments and non-profits. So the extra $300 million
per year is extremely beneficial, because it will help us get
more brownfield sites developed.
And I think Mr. Ford explained it best. EPA typically turns
away about 65 percent of the grant applications. So the
additional funding, the flexibility in the bipartisan
infrastructure law, highly qualified applicants can be funded
over the next 5 years. And the infrastructure bill will also
allow higher grant amounts in the areas of cleanup, the
multipurpose grants, and job training. And EPA, then, can seize
on this and this opportunity for the higher dollar amounts to
be utilized to assist our communities in bringing properties
back on the tax rolls.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
And Ms. Ilan, I know that New York has been a leader in
these community-wide strategies through the BOA program, or the
Brownfield Opportunity Area program. Can you share a bit about
why this approach may be better for communities with multiple
brownfield sites, and whether EPA's multipurpose grants can
help State and local governments move in this direction?
Ms. Ilan. Yes, thank you. Brownfield Opportunity Area
grants--the flexibility is that they can go to local
governments and to local non-profits. So in the city they have
almost exclusively gone to local non-profits that know the
issues in their area. And this, I think, has happened in
Rochester, too, and in other areas of the State. Having the
flexibility of the grants to address issues is critical, and
EPA assessment grants can be used for that kind of area-wide
planning, too.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
And Commissioner Largent, I appreciate that not all
communities have the resources of New York. You represent some
very small rural counties, as you indicated, many of which have
benefited from the EPA program, and I am sure there are many
more that would like to benefit.
So, the 2018 reauthorization allowed grant recipients to
use a small portion, up to 5 percent, of funds to be used for
administrative expenses. Why was this change important for
these smaller communities?
Mr. Largent. Well, most importantly, most of our small
towns and, in particular, our county and the rest of the small
rural counties, we simply don't have the infrastructure to even
begin the projects.
For me personally, I come to work often in my, you know, my
work clothes, if my wife doesn't catch me. We don't have
somebody in our county that could even initiate this program.
In one particular instance, in the city of Palouse, it was that
help to teach the city of Palouse how to apply for the grant,
how to move forward in the process that was critical. If that
had not happened, we would not have had that success of that
brownfield. So we don't have the infrastructure in smaller
counties.
Mr. Tonko. Great. Thank you so much.
And Mr. Seyler, your testimony mentioned the 2018 bill
allowed for states to provide technical assistance grants to
small and disadvantaged communities. Can you explain why that
is so important, especially for these smaller and rural
communities?
Mr. Seyler. As the commissioner just recently said, they--
small communities don't have the bandwidth nor the capacity to
have a planning department, or a grant-writing effort. And so
what these what these grants offered is it allowed the
communities to actually receive some incredibly expertise
planning assistance that we were able to provide them.
These communities would not have been able to hire these
experts in planning, and it just offered community--the
community was really able to see the effects of this planning
effort, and to visualize what this could--property could
become. And it was just phenomenal, just to see that
transformation of--the belief in the community.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And Mr. Ford, is there anything you
would add about the 2018 reauthorization, and how it increased
flexibilities, whether it is multipurpose grants, or allowing a
bigger role for non-profits and assessments and cleanups?
[Pause.]
Mr. Tonko. Mr.--you are muted, sir.
Mr. Ford. I appreciate you, Chair.
What really was a game changer--and I know that is that is
an overused phrase--was the fact that you allowed non-profit,
private. You creeped into that space to allow private entities,
private not-for-profits to capitalize on those opportunities,
as opposed to doing an end-around to try to figure out how to
solve that issue.
And then, not only that, understanding that a small
economic development agency has little bandwidth to identify
projects, assess them, and repurpose them, you gave us the
additional resources in one shot to assess and remediate and
development, as opposed to assess for 1 year, apply for a grant
the next year, and then cleanup, and then development. So
basically, you took a 3-year process and cut it by two-thirds,
down to a year.
And that is just one of those examples where you have
allowed government to operate at the pace of business. And in
today's economy, I just can't express how much, as an industry
and as a business, we appreciate that, Chair.
Mr. Tonko. Well, thank you, and we appreciate the
stakeholders and their input.
I apologize to my colleagues, we went a little over there.
But I now recognize Representative McKinley, subcommittee
ranking member, for 5 minutes, sir, to ask questions, please.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this
panel. I--it has been illuminating about how this is--these--
this program has worked all across the country.
But I want to direct my question primarily back to Pat
Ford, because he and I have had these conversations, and we
debated it back then, which was the fact that--someone
mentioned again--there are 450,000 brownfield sites across
America, 450,000 sites. And the funding level previous--prior
to this infusion of the infrastructure was only about 1,000
sites a year we were able to clean up. So anyone can do the
math. It doesn't take an engineer to do that, but you can
figure out we are talking hundreds of years before we would
ever get these sites cleaned up with it.
So with the improvements we made--and I think, Mr. Ford,
you participated with us, you gave us counsel, your insight
into how we crafted that 2018 bill, so it--made significant
improvements with it. And we are seeing some uptick, but there
is still not enough funds for it. So I applaud the fact that
the infrastructure bill put this $1.5 billion more into this
program and, as a result of that--but that leads to this
question, essentially--is that we have got to be able to
sustain this, otherwise we are going to drop back to the 2018
levels after 5 years of this.
So my question is, I have got some conditions with this.
One is we want to make sure this remains a public-private
partnership. We don't want, as the Chairman--the ranking
chairman said, we don't want this to be a government bailout.
So what are ways that we might be able to sustain this
increased level of funding at the 1.5 billion, or--or we are
going to--on these individual grants, from $500--500,000 to
five million? What are some things that we might do? Could a
revolving fund--could that work?
And the second question, so if--both of them, Mr. Ford, are
directed to you--a followup question or comment to what the
Chairman just raised, what would you recommend in this next
program? You were instrumental. Your fingerprints are all over
the 2018 legislation. So what would you recommend?
So those two things: how do we--how can we sustain this
level of funding; and second, what can we improve?
Mr. Ford. There is two changes that I would like to see the
committee consider.
The first is that you inched the eligibility criteria into
the private sector by allowing private not-for-profits be
eligible to access this money for assessments and cleanup. I
think it would be fantastic if you could actually take it one
step further, provided that a private for-profit applicant
could illustrate threshold criteria to allow private for-
profits to get this money directly.
There are State programs throughout the United States that
actually have their own brownfields programs that actually
grant money to private entities. I would like to see the
committee do that, particularly in light of the fact that we
have illustrated and can illustrate that we have the ability to
leverage those government dollars into private investment and
job creation.
The second thing is a nuance of the actual EPA programs
themselves under the category of the EPA operating at the pace
of business. The TBA program, the Targeted Brownfields
Assistance program, is a fast, easy, flexible program that
small communities with economic development agencies with a
staff of one, or large economic development agencies like we
have in Buffalo, New York can access.
And what is great about the TBA is it is a rolling program,
a rolling fund, rolling deadlines, meaning that, as long as--it
is funded, any time throughout the year you reach out to a
program manager, you fill out a questionnaire, you submit it,
and you can access technical services funded by the EPA to get
an assessment immediately. It would be----
Mr. McKinley. And if I could interrupt, we can't--
reclaiming my time just for a second on it, and that is you are
talking about how we can improve it. But--and I got notes on
those.
But what about how do we sustain the funding level at this
level? Is there some way that, through a revolving fund or--how
can we maintain this? Because otherwise, we are going to drop
back to the 2018 levels again.
Mr. Ford. You do--I think a revolving loan fund would be
something worth considering. There--I think, if you could
mirror something like a payment in lieu of taxes, a pilot
program whereby--which the investments that are made into a
brownfield site, if a percentage of that could be rolled back
into a fund similar to a pilot program on other sites that are
established in communities, the found money, the found
investments that are occurring in these brownfield sites could
then be used to replenish funding and grow that funding.
And again, if you just look at the records of--the record
numbers of investment in some of the brownfields we have done,
I think that that would be a fantastic opportunity to replenish
some of these funds for continued use for assessing cleanup.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. Ford.
I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. Representative McKinley yields back. The Chair
now recognizes Chair Pallone of the full committee for 5
minutes, sir, to ask questions, please.
Mr. Pallone. Well, thank you, Chairman Tonko. Everybody is
talking about money, so I will, too.
My questions really relate to the need for continuous
funding. In other words, not wanting the reauthorization to
expire, not wanting the levels of funding to go down, as Mr.
McKinley suggested, and looking forward to the reauthorization
of the program this year, if at all possible. So let me start
with Mayor Bollwage.
Given your extensive experience with the Brownfields
program, can you elaborate on how important continuous funding
is for the program?
And maybe how does that 1.5 billion in additional funds for
Brownfields from the bipartisan infrastructure bill translate
to clean ups--cleanup on the grounds in cities like yours?
If you could kind of combine those two, Chris, I would
appreciate it.
Mr. Bollwage. Yes, no problem. Thank you, Congressman. I
get a kick out of the debate about refunding the program and
tax revenue.
Keep in mind that, if you look at my particular situation
at Jersey Gardens Mall, it provided us $63,000 a year on 160-
acre parcel when it was a dump. When we got a Brownfields grant
to study the property, it now generates a 2 million square-foot
mall, four hotels, and it is bringing the city of Elizabeth
over $6 million a year, not counting the jobs, or not counting
the hotel revenue and the travel. So when you talk about the
debt, and you talk about the financing, these EPA grants pay
for themselves in the long run in a big way.
And Mr. Ford's program that he just mentioned is extremely
similar to the urban development action grant that the Congress
adopted back in the 1980's that was eventually eliminated,
where a fund was created, money went back into the community
what was called a UDAG grant, and then towns could then reuse
that money for further economic development projects, whether
it be in Brownfields or something else.
So the debate about the national debt and the debate about
sustainability can only be taken into effect if you then look
at the good job that mayors and city councils do in
rejuvenating their own tax base to help facilitate less dollars
in other areas from the Federal Government.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you. Thank you, Chris, and I won't talk
about Jersey Gardens. I love going there, by the way, to IKEA
and the other places. But let me go to Ms. Ilan.
Can you talk about why the program needs additional
continuous funding to better address eligible contaminated
sites?
In other words, we know we are getting this 1.5 from
Brownfields, but I don't think that is going to be enough to
clean and restore all the sites have been identified that need
funding. So again, I am trying to point out that we really
can't be letting this funding expire, even with the Brownfields
we have to reauthorize.
What is the importance of continuous funding to really get
to more of these sites, if you will, Ms. Ilan?
Ms. Ilan. Thank you. The continuous funding allows the
planning to happen. The grants--guidelines come out, and you
have got to be prepared for them, and then your funding goes
down, and you have got to be writing your application for the
next one. The fellow panelists have talked about the capacity
of local governments to prepare these.
Knowing that the funding is going to be there from year to
year allows the grants to be written to plan for each project,
and to look to the next project, so when they are ready, the
funding is there.
Mr. Pallone. I appreciate that. I don't know if anyone else
on the panel--it was a minute left--would like to talk about--
or maybe, if you agree with Ms. Ilan, that this full,
uninterrupted reauthorization, which runs out this year, is
still critical. If Commissioner Largent or any of the others
want to comment on that, I am still getting to this continuous
funding. I don't want the reauthorization to expire.
Would any of the other three of you who haven't commented
like to talk about that briefly?
Mr. Largent. Well, now--this is Commissioner Largent, and I
happen to agree with the last panelist. You know, for us, in a
small, rural, and/or disadvantaged county, when we identify a
brownfield site, the first thing I am going to do is say help.
What is the next step? How do we write this grant?
Now, if--you know, these are--becomes a revolving fund, and
it is a loan, instead of a grant, I would suggest that, for
some of the small counties that lack the financial capacity,
that may be enough of a deterrent that we wouldn't apply for
the grant.
So, you know, it is a big task to continue to reauthorize
these funds. But from my perspective, you know, we are not
looking at big industrial sites; we are looking at--as in the
city of Palouse--one-sixth of their downtown was a brownfield
site. And to have to repay a loan or pay interest on it may
have been a deterrent to that successful project.
Mr. Pallone. All right, thank you. My time has run out.
Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Tonko. Well, the Chair yields back. The Chair now
recognizes Mrs. Rodgers, our full committee ranking member.
And you are allowed now to ask questions for 5 minutes,
please. Thank you.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to continue
highlighting the example in--at the city of Palouse, which is
a--it is a very small town, just over 1,000 people. They had a
non-functioning petroleum distribution site that covered one-
sixth of its downtown, and it had become a bit of an eyesore,
wasn't paying local taxes. And Palouse, the city of Palouse,
received a targeted brownfield assessment grant, which led to
other brownfields funding. And the--Palouse's property now is
on its way to being resolved.
So Commissioner Largent, I really appreciate you being with
us here today and sharing the perspective from Whitman County.
I want to just to ask you, without the Brownfields grant, would
Whitman County and counties like it be able to afford
assessments and cleanup of contaminated sites, or attract
private properties like those in Pullman and Palouse?
Mr. Largent. From a counties perspective, and for our small
towns, it is an unqualified no. We would not be able to afford
it.
We struggle with paying our employees a livable wage. We
don't do new programs. We can't pick up new initiatives.
Without this money from the EPA, it would not have happened,
and categorically.
Mrs. Rodgers. So we have the example of the Palouse site. I
know that it is farther along than the Pullman site. But would
you speak to what would be the impact on the community without
this grant?
And then, since the Palouse cleanup, what has it done for
the local economy, and how has it changed the community?
Mr. Largent. Well, when we look at a brownfield
remediation, we look at two things: the first being the
environmental impact of this particular site; the second being
the economic viability of this particular site.
I happen to serve on the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board,
which deals with creating habitat for salmon, which relates to
our transportation needs, and needs to keep our dams and our
barges and--down to export.
But for the city of Palouse and Mayor Echanove--the former
mayor, deserves a lot of credit for this--they are a bedroom
town of Washington State University, Pullman. Without the grant
funding for--from the EPA for this brownfields remediation,
one-sixth of--as you say--of that downtown would be unavailable
for economic development. And so currently they have that ready
for economic development.
We have another site in Pullman that we are looking at, and
are hopeful that we build a--we develop that in the future
without EPA money. The city of Pullman, Washington State
University, and the Port of Whitman would not be able to
develop a particular project there. So I would suggest to you
that while Whitman County may not have the most amount of
brownfields, on behalf of counties nationwide I would say its
impact is huge.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you. And thank you again, Commissioner
Largent, for joining us here today.
Mr. Ford, I wanted to ask just for you to speak. If the
Brownfields program did not exist, would private capital want
to get involved in cleaning up these sites? And would you just
speak to that aspect?
Mr. Ford. No, you would really be up--so what I call--you
would get upside down on a project extremely quick.
Again, and what you find out, if you just look at recent
history, the people that really had the appetite for risk were
the people that really had nothing to lose. You know, the non-
profits, the economic development authorities, people like
that, who had the confidence to have the State and the Federal
Governments back them. But even at that, there is too many
other opportunities for developers to jump into and capitalize
on with less risk.
And so the importance of the U.S. EPA is that they have
this collaborative approach to share that risk. So it is not
that we are risk--so much risk averse, it is that, you know, we
don't want to be the only one up there with everything to lose.
And so what is great about the U.S. EPA is that it allows
us to share risk. It allows us to collaborate on the end use,
and it elaborates on an opportunity, or gives us a mechanism
whereby which the developer, the landowner, the community,
elected officials at the local, State, and Federal level can
work together on an assessment, the cleanup----
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you.
Mr. Ford[continuing]. The plan, and----
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you.
Mr. Ford[continuing]. The end use.
Mrs. Rodgers. I want--yes, great. I wanted to ask one more
question, because you talk about these brownfield--the
Brownfields program being the gateway. Would you speak to the
economic second chance that it gives communities that have lost
that legacy manufacturing facility?
Mr. Ford. Absolutely. I will go so far as to say that the
EPA is the funding source of last resort. If it wasn't for the
EPA, we wouldn't have those opportunities to help these
communities that are on the last leg, that lost an industry,
that lost a business.
And again, it gives those people hope to bring life or,
what I say, breathe life back into the bones of these
communities.
Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you. My time has expired.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. You are most welcome. And now we recognize the
gentlewoman from Colorado, who also serves as chair of the
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation.
Representative DeGette, you are----
Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much----
Mr. Tonko[continuing]. Recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. DeGette[continuing]. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thank
you for holding this really important hearing. I want to thank
all of these witnesses for their full-throated endorsement of
Brownfields.
This, to me, is such an elegant and bipartisan way to solve
environmental contamination. I have always been a big proponent
of it. And to hear the successes that we have had--when I
started out in my political career in the Colorado legislature
in the 1990's, nobody really--Brownfields was still in its
nascent stage, and people hadn't really thought about the way,
as several of our witnesses testified, Brownfields can be a
win-win, because it can help us cleanup environmental
contamination that has just been stagnant for decades and
decades. And it incentivizes the cleanup, but then it has these
incredible repercussions for the economy and economic
development for our communities. And when I was in the
legislature, I actually passed a bill in Colorado called the
Voluntary Redevelopment and Cleanup Act, which was a
brownfields bill. And it is still in effect today in Colorado,
over 20 years later, and it has been used in thousands of sites
across the State.
So now it is sort of agreed upon by everybody, and we hear
that today on both sides of the aisle. And so I want to ask
just a couple of questions about where we can go further with
brownfields.
And Mayor Bollwage, I want to ask you about the brownfields
cleanup grants that you and your fellow mayors receive, how
they help you address pollution problems, including exposure to
lead and asbestos.
Mr. Bollwage. Thank you, Congresswoman.
We had a building fire, where asbestos was used and foam
was used to put the fire out. It is currently a 20-acre parcel,
and the contamination on that site is difficult to measure at
the current time. Land, industrial land, in our city goes for
somewhere between 2.5 to $3 million an acre because of our port
location. And developers are, at times, more than willing to
put the investment in, in order to get the return on that
investment. But the cleanup costs could be in excess of
100,000, $200,000, especially in the items that you are talking
about.
So when the future revenue after construction is put in
place, and then you talk about other grants or other areas,
when it comes to the contamination that you speak about, the
cleanup cost could be excessive. And so therefore, to quote Mr.
Ford, if it wasn't for the EPA and these grants, then the
projects would be a non-starter.
Ms. DeGette. Right. I mean, these areas would just be
sitting there, because it wouldn't be economically feasible at
the time to clean them up. But if we do clean them up, then
they will give a lot of other economic impact. And I want to
ask you about that.
These communities that are near the brownfield sites, if
the pollution stays there, what is the long-term impact on
those communities?
Mr. Bollwage. Well, let me give you a comparison,
Congresswoman. We have a Superfund site in our city that was
destroyed by a massive fire in the 1980's--in 1980, to be
exact--and the resolution for that site was to cap the site
with cement, and leave it that way for 99 years with no tax
revenue.
Ms. DeGette. Yes.
Mr. Bollwage. Yet we talk about a brownfield site in a
neighborhood, a broken down gas station, you could fix it up
and make it a convenience store, make it a tax revenue, and it
is a public health issue, as you can make this whole community
safer, cleaner, and neater.
Ms. DeGette. We had a site just like that in Denver at the
Shattuck site. They capped a whole city block, and eventually
we were able to clean it up. And now it is a vibrant commercial
area in the city. So you are exactly right.
One of my colleagues talked about the many, many--I think
it was Mr. McKinley talked about the many, many sites that are
remaining. How do you think we could cleanup--how do--
prioritize the cleanup of all the sites that we have out there
right now?
Mr. Bollwage. So the mayor--first of all, the mayor--the
U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities, it
was our research in the 1990's and the early 2000's that
characterized brownfields throughout this Nation. And we
identified at least, in a minimum, one per congressional
district.
And so, as you move forward in cleaning these sites up, you
know, and maintaining how you move forward, it is a struggle,
and it is our research that got us to this point, and we are
just hopeful to continue it.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. You are most welcome. The gentlewoman yields
back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. Johnson, you are recognized for 5 minutes, please.
Mr. Johnson. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking
Member, for hosting this important hearing today. And I would
also like to thank Ranking Member McKinley for his work in
recent years, leading the reauthorization for Brownfields
program, because this has greatly benefited our bordering
districts on both banks of the Ohio River, here in Ohio and
West Virginia.
And you know, it is a good time to host this hearing
because, as we all know, this program is set for an
unprecedented, enormous infusion of funding from the recent
infrastructure bill. So it is really important for our
subcommittee to hear from the witnesses for an update on how
the program is working, how we might improve it, and how, as
policymakers, we should monitor progress across the country,
going forward.
My rural Ohio district is part of the industrial Midwest.
Some call it the Rust Belt. But we have a very proud history of
manufacturing and industry, and I believe a bright future
ahead, too. The Brownfields program has been put to great use
in my district in the Mahoning Valley in the Northeast;
Jefferson County and Lawrence County in the middle of my
district; and further down south; and recently, in the Cities
of Ironton and Coal Grove, with a $600,000 Brownfields grant
from the Trump Administration, to bring land back into
productive use, and attract new jobs and investment in our
region.
So, Mr. Ford, if I could go to you first, we are seeing a
debate right now where some would like to de-emphasize economic
development for brownfield sites in a more desirable--in more
desirable areas, where funding is more easily flowing and,
instead, focus on cleanups in rural and low-income communities
to make this land more desirable in a sort of a--to use an old
movie quote, if-you-build-it-they-will-come type of
arrangement.
What do you believe is the best approach here? Should we
continue investing where the money flows, and the projects are
more targeted? Or do we need to look at rural areas that are
struggling to get their hands on this money?
Has this been tried before? And what were the results?
Mr. Ford. I would start out with, first, where investment
should occur. It has always been my opinion that the market
doesn't take care of industrial development, but the market
does take care of housing and retail development. And housing
and retail development always follows the jobs, and the jobs
and the industries are now--and particularly in recent years,
and well into the future, are going to be gravitating toward
these old industrial sites that have the infrastructure to be
repurposed at the pace of business.
And so, what is also attractive about that is that it
allows for a public-private partnership, whereby which we can
collaboratively work together to figure out how to
stretchdollar. And we have been able to come up with a formula
whereby which every public dollar that we receive from the U.S.
EPA we can leverage $182 of private investment. You will not
find any other program in the U.S. Government that does that.
And what you also will find out is that it will put people
back to work who can now afford to maintain their quality of
living in the very rural communities in which they were raised,
and it will also allow for housing starts to begin outside the
area, not necessarily on the sites that are, what I believe,
ideally situated to remain in our industrial inventory for this
growth that we are going to see.
So I can--that is why I really stress the importance of not
tapping the brakes, and not changing our paradigm, but
continuing on this path where the grants are highly
competitive, there are cash matches, and they go to areas that
can illustrate the capacity to not only identify a project,
report on a project, benchmark a project, and also leverage
private investment and job creation that can actually be
benchmarked. So in future years, when this----
Mr. Johnson. Well, very good. I hate to move on. I need to
ask Mr. Largent a quick question, and I am running out of time.
Mr. Largent, it was encouraging to hear in your testimony
your mention of rural counties with less than 50,000 people,
which brings certain challenges, given the responsibilities
county governments have. I have got several of these very
geographically--these areas in my geographically large rural
district.
Would you talk about the importance of having an accurate
definition of ``rural'' for this program, so that deserving
communities are not left out?
Mr. Largent. I would----
Mr. Johnson. And do that quickly, because I am out of time.
Mr. Largent. Let me just encourage the subcommittee to be
real clear on the definition of what rural counties are, and
set a clear definition and population threshold. I think that
is going to be really important to rural counties, to set that
definition correctly. And I think that has yet to be done.
Mr. Johnson. OK, all right. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Maryland.
Representative Sarbanes, you are recognized for 5 minutes,
please.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank you for the hearing today, for today's witnesses who are
joining us to discuss this very critical program.
As we know, contaminated brownfield sites can be found in
every single congressional district, including my own. As
legacies of pollution and poor environmental stewardship, they
not only impact the health and safety of the nearby communities
that must contend with the effects of residual pollution, but
also render otherwise useful pieces of property ill-suited to
economic development.
The EPA's Brownfields program is, in many ways, the epitome
of a successful national initiative. By providing Federal
funding and resources to local parties to help cleanup these
sites, it fosters our community's well-being, and demonstrates
that environmental responsibility and successful economic
development can go hand in hand.
I would like to mention one brownfield site in my district.
It is called Ridgley's Cove. It is a green space near
Baltimore's Inner Harbor along the Patapsco River's middle
branch. Actually, I discovered it years ago, when I accompanied
my son, who is an avid birder, down to the site, and we saw
some of the needs that were there, but the great potential that
it had. The site was long contaminated with industrial residue.
But thanks in part to a successful grant application by
Baltimore City to the EPA Brownfields program in 2017,
Ridgley's Cove underwent assessment and remediation planning.
It is now, I am glad to say, part of the Middle Branch
Redevelopment Project concept, well on its way to becoming part
of a community-centered recreational and natural waterfront
that will be enjoyed by Baltimore's locals and visitors alike.
Mr. Mayor, like Baltimore the needs of your port city of
Elizabeth have changed over the years, and you have recently
taken advantage of opportunities to develop its waterfront
property. Can you speak to the role that the Brownfields
program can play in jump starting remediation in particular,
along with community engagement and development at former
industrial sites?
Mr. Bollwage. Thank you, Congressman, and I do enjoy the
Inner Harbor, by the way, when I visit, so it is a very nice
place.
You know, when communities come together that struggle
economically, they need to work together. And your question
about the concerns, you know, matching requirements are always
a concern. Some communities have recovered from the recession
in 2008 and, you know, bigger cities don't have trouble with
matching. Smaller communities definitely do. And so it is a
combination of how you move forward, and the matching funds are
part of the struggle, yet not a roadblock.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thanks very much.
I am very proud--we have referenced it a number of times
today--that the bipartisan infrastructure law contained this
extra funding of $1.5 billion in support for the Brownfields
program. And this increased funding will allow more communities
to tackle larger remediation projects that will have
significant environmental, health, and economic returns. And
frankly, these Brownfields programs, the remediation piece, can
anchor a much broader development opportunity. That is the
promise that we have with this.
Ms. Ilan, as we look toward reauthorization of the
Brownfields program next year, in your estimation how can we
best ensure that Congress continues to build upon the success
of the program, and directs its resources to the communities
that are most in need of the remediation investment?
Ms. Ilan. Thank you. Reauthorizing the program is really
essential.
As we talked about continuity earlier, allowing communities
to know that the money is going to be there. With the
bipartisan infrastructure law's, increased funding, it will be
interesting to see over the next several years what kind of
applications come in, and how far further EPA can go in funding
worthy applications that come in.
So I think you are going to see a lot of creative projects
cleaning up rural, and urban, and all sorts of communities all
over the country.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thanks very much. I mean, clearly, having
authorization in place, the right authorities for this work, as
well as robust funding that can support that, is key to the
planning dimension. And for major projects and minor or smaller
projects, being able to plan, have some certainty, you know,
expectations of kind of what the next stage is going to be, is
really critical. And that is why combining the authorization
that is coming along with these new resources is so important.
Mr. Chairman, thanks very much. I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back. We thank you. And
next we will recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, direct from
the event center.
Representative Mullin, you are recognized for 5 minutes,
please.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Seyler, in Oklahoma we have a lot of areas I think that
are probably similar to yours in your State, particularly in
the rural and tribal lands. Where do you think the role--or how
do you think brownfields projects play a role in the rural and
tribal land areas?
Mr. Seyler. I think it is critical. As you--as I have said
in my testimony, these small, rural communities, they are
overwhelmed with and have a limited capacity for what they can
handle.
Commissioner Largent also mentioned that just the lack of
bandwidth and no new programs coming in--and this--where
brownfields can help is, especially with State funds, we can
come in and assist these communities. We go to city council
meetings, we meet with local developers, we meet with the
coffee shop owner, the person interested in making a brewery.
We meet with them, we go over the risks, we go over the hurdles
that they would need to go, but also kind of reassure them in
that this is a process that we have gone through, that we have
a track record.
And showing them examples of where Brownfields has
succeeded enables them to commit to these projects, and it can
then--it just revitalize communities. It increases self-belief
in those communities. It starts attracting the younger
generation back into those communities, and it just leads to
revitalization and additional economic development.
Mr. Mullin. Do you feel there is adequate outreach to
tribal communities in these areas?
Mr. Seyler. So the tribes are allowed to apply for 128(a)
funds, as well. It is--and that is--it is a tricky effort,
because we have State funding, we have tribal funding, and--but
the EPA is trying to do the best at covering all areas with
128(a) funds sufficiently to provide sufficient funding for
brownfields efforts.
Mr. Mullin. So I--spinning off of that, would you start--
would you take--say that the technical assistance for
brownfield grants, or grants particular to--that is relevant to
those areas, are they helpful, or is there enough there, or are
they too complicated for these tribes to get to? What is your
thoughts on that?
Mr. Seyler. So the technical assistance program is a
fantastic program for those areas that lack the capacity or--
and the bandwidth, especially in--also tribes. The technical
assistance program comes in as the experts, and puts on
trainings. They meet with communities, similar to what states
provide. They meet with tribal elders, they meet with
commissioners, local commissioners, and talk about brownfields,
you know, and help them provide that hand-holding assistance
that is needed sometimes to develop that program, and to make
it sustainable in the future.
So I think that is--it is critical funding for these areas
that are under-served.
Mr. Mullin. So just--because, like I said, our states are
similar in the brownfield cleanup spots, the tribal areas and
rural areas. So maybe you can help me here. What are some of
the innovative ways that your states benefited from these
cleanups in brownfield areas?
Mr. Seyler. So one of the things that we have done that has
kind of changed the landscape on petroleum sites--petroleum
sites, you think of local gas stations that are boarded up and
under-utilized, right there on the corner Main Street. They
were always, always high-traffic areas.
But in tribal areas, specifically, what we do is we reach
out to the--our counterparts, our tribal counterparts, to help
identify these gas station properties. And then we leverage our
State petroleum funds, or the leaking underground storage tank
funds. And so we use brownfields to do an assessment, which
covers the deductible of our State funds, which then can
clean--it can be used to clean it up. And then those properties
within tribes or out of the tribes are able to be redeveloped.
These properties are often times underwater. Like we
previously mentioned, a property could be valued at 15,000
market rate, but there is $150,000 in cleanup necessary. There
is no way a developer is going to come in in those areas. And
that is only leveraging the Brownfields program, as well as
State funding, that we can get these sites back into beneficial
use.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you, sir.
With that, Chairman, I will yield back.
Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from California.
Mr. Peters, you are recognized for 5 minutes, please.
Mr. Peters. Thank, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for having this
hearing.
It is--obviously, this is a very successful program. It is
supported on both sides of the aisle to--and it is an
appropriate role for the Federal Government to step in and help
these communities that had been otherwise hurt by pollution and
industrial departures.
I also would love to hear from the EPA about how they
thought that the program was working, and I know we can--we
have time for that, too, and it is important to hear from these
folks who are in the nature of practitioners. But one question
I am curious about for everyone--and I will ask Mr.--Ms. Ilan
about the climate benefits of Brownfield programs.
You talked about that in your written testimony. How would
you suggest, as Members of Congress, that we make sure that
brownfield sites remain safe as we experience climate impacts
like more intense flooding or hurricanes?
Over time, those will become more frequent and severe. What
advice would you give us, as the folks administrating this
program?
Ms. Ilan. Thanks. As we were recovering from Hurricane
Sandy, we looked at our brownfield sites that were in the
process of cleanup around the coast. And the main thing that we
found was that the cleanup itself was the most important thing
to protect the communities.
So what we try to do is encourage cleanups in the coastal
areas. I mean, in New York we are not cleaning up sites on
spec, they're driven by where people want to do the cleanups,
and have an idea for an end use. We are fortunate in that way.
And so making sure we have the funding and the expertise
available to take those cleanups through the State and the city
programs as fast as possible and as thorough as possible is
what protects communities.
Mr. Peters. Thank you. I would ask Mayor Bollwage sort of
along those same lines.
You know, we have heard, I think pretty consistently, and
not a lot of talk-back, about the need for more resources for
the program. Mayor Bollwage, in your written testimony you talk
about the need to provide larger grants to the program--to the
communities that are most in need. What sort of suggestions,
from your viewpoint, would you give us for prioritizing
projects?
How would you--you know, what would be the things we should
be looking for, in terms of making awards?
Mr. Bollwage. Yes, it is really difficult--thank you,
Congressman--it is really difficult for the mayors to recommend
the prioritizing from the EPA, and we understand that is
difficult. After all, 65 percent of the projects that are
proposed to EPA do not get funded.
So one of the things we are looking at is, you know, in the
reauthorization for 2023, is it took 9 years for the last
reauthorization. We are hopeful that it doesn't take that long
this time. And do not claw back the 1.5 billion from the
infrastructure law, because it is an extremely successful
program. And then you can address not only the climate issues
you just spoke about, but also larger grants to some of the
municipalities. And you can take into--some of the concerns
that were earlier mentioned about the rural areas, and where
the priorities should be.
Mr. Peters. I would just ask you--I hear what you are
saying, it is not your job to give us a list of priorities. We
will probably be asking for your input on that, anyway, just
because, you know, recognizing that only 65 percent of the
things get funded, there is going to be a lot of choices that
have to be made, and we think that the people who are on the
ground would--could give us some pretty good advice.
Let me ask you one other thing, though, about what you--
about renewable energy, and I wonder if you are hearing from
other mayors interested in incorporating renewable energy in
their brownfield plans, and whether you see good options for
energy projects on remediated land or economic benefits.
Anything in that line?
Mr. Bollwage. Yes, Congressman.
First of all, the mayors would like to get together on your
first question and get back to you on that, if it is OK, as we
develop the reauthorization process.
And on the renewable----
Mr. Peters. That makes a lot of sense.
Mr. Bollwage. Thank you. And then the renewable energy
issue, the--just to give you an example, the Jersey Gardens
Mall did a solar roof panel which, when it was done 12 years
ago, was the largest renewable energy project in the State of
New Jersey at that time. It is a two million square-foot mall
with solar panels along the roof. So that was done outside of
this process. But still, it would not have had the opportunity
to be done if we did not get an initial Brownfields grant in
order to study the remediation of what was then the dump, the
garbage dump in the city of Elizabeth.
Mr. Peters. OK. Thank you very much. My time is expiring,
and I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Georgia.
Representative Carter, you are recognized for 5 minutes,
please.
Mr. Carter. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of
the witnesses for being here.
You know, I have the honor and privilege of representing
the entire coast of Georgia, over 100 miles of pristine
coastline. And we have got quite a few brownfields that have
been renovated, if you will, and we have got a number of
success stories.
In fact, I believe that Ranking Member McMorris Rodgers
mentioned one about Jekyll Island, and--where we had a coal
plant at one time that is now a sea island--or, excuse me, a
turtle--sea turtle museum and hospital. And it is a great
place. If you are ever on the coast of Georgia, and you want to
see a great example of a success story with brownfields, that
is one place you ought to visit. Not only that, but just the
cultural aspect of seeing what they are doing with the sea
turtles there, when they are rescuing them, is really
fascinating and really good.
Other examples in the first district, in the southernmost
part of my district, next to the Florida State line, is Camden
County, where we used to have the Durango paper mill, and they
cleaned that up. It was a brownfield, and they cleaned it up.
St. Mary's, which--some of you may be familiar with Cumberland
Island, where they have the horses and everything, that is St.
Mary's is where the--is the entrance to Cumberland Island, if
you will. And that is one area that is extremely important to
them, another example of a success. Even with the city of
Savannah, we have got some areas there where we have truly seen
some success stories with brownfields.
Now, I will tell you, we have got quite a few that still
need to be worked on down here, and they take so long. It is
just unbelievable, the time that these things take. But
nevertheless, it is what it is, and we have to work through
that.
The program itself, and the protection that is provided by
the program, what was a negative for many years, is now a
positive. And I just cited the examples of that. It checks a
lot of boxes. There is no question about that.
I want to ask--Mr. Bollwage and Mr. Largent, I want to ask
you this. I would like for each of you to respond to a comment
that was made from a former EPA official who ran the Federal
Brownfields program. This is the comment. Please bear with me.
``The success of the Brownfields program is in large part
because it is locally driven. EPA does not select remedies,
does not control land use, and provides only seed money that
can be leveraged with other funding sources. EPA's grant funds
can only be used for the purposes authorized by Congress. There
is no limitation on the use of other funds leveraged by EPA's
investment.''
Do you agree with that, Mr. Bollwage?
Mr. Bollwage. Thank you, Congressman. Yes. The local
elected officials helped design the original Brownfields
program, in conjunction with Congress and the EPA.
I remember when Mayor Daley asked me, back in 1997, to be
the Chair of the Brownfields Task Force, and then worked with
the U.S. Conference of Mayors in order to develop a process to
get to the original bill, where the tools were needed to get
the job done at the local level.
You know, this may surprise a lot of Members of Congress.
However, mayors can understand how to implement projects and
get things done. And this program has been so successful at the
local level, and that is why it is popular and bipartisan. It
is a win for economic development, a win for the government,
and a win for the residents.
You know, one of the things, Congressman, in listening to
all of the speakers here today, whether it was a 168-acre
landfill in my city, or a gas station in Oklahoma, Brownfields
grants have helped revitalize the community.
Mr. Carter. I thank you for that, Mr. Mayor. And I was a
mayor in another life, as well, so I can attest to what you
just said, and it is important. So--and it helps that----
Mr. Bollwage. Once a mayor, always a mayor, Congressman.
Mr. Carter. I appreciate that.
Mr. Largent, did you want to respond to that? I had asked
you before.
[Pause.]
Mr. Carter. You are on mute.
Mr. Largent. I didn't know I would get caught this time.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Largent. But I 100 percent agree with that statement.
One of the great parts of the EPA Brownfields grants
program is that it affords communities lots of flexibility with
their Plan B development of cleanup properties.
And if I might refer to my notes--in fact, paragraph 6(c)
of section 104(k) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response
Compensation and Liability Act explicitly calls out criteria
EPA must use to rank and award Brownfields grants. These
include smaller and low-income communities whose tax base is
insufficient, and have difficulty getting private capital.
Mr. Carter, that is us. That is us in Whitman County. That
is in eastern Washington.
Mr. Carter. Well, I am out of time, but I do thank all of
you.
This is a great program. As a former mayor, I can tell you
it benefits cities, it benefits municipalities, and I am all
in. So thank you very much for this.
Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentlewoman from Michigan.
Representative Dingell, you are recognized for 5 minutes,
please.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the
ranking minority McMorris Rodgers, as well, and to all the
panelists who have just been great today. And it is wonderful
to see on this committee bipartisan support for the Brownfields
program, which has worked. I mean, I think that is what we are
all talking about, and probably because a lot of it has been at
the local level.
In my district, the Downriver Community Conference, which
is made up of all of our local males--mayors--is managing one
of the best brownfield companies. We are all allowed to be
proud of where we come from in the country. Since 1999, the DCC
has received about $20 million, and has supported the
assessment and the cleanup of activities at over 300 brownfield
sites.
Now, unfortunately, we have got--we are on the water, like
my colleague was just talking about in Georgia, and we have a
lot of sites that have needed to be cleaned up. And quite
frankly, we got too many sites that have been designated
brownfield that still need to be cleaned up, which is why the
investment in the bipartisan infrastructure law was so
important, because we have got to get these sites cleaned up,
we have got to give you all the resources you need, and we have
got to get the EPA Brownfields program reauthorized. So
hopefully, this hearing is going to make sure we do so, and do
it in a bipartisan way.
But let me move to a topic that really matters to me now,
because--we have been in this program now for a decade, but we
are discovering more hazardous substances like PFAS that need
cleanup, as well. And we need a strong, robust program that has
got the funding to tackle these abandoned and contaminated
sites. The investments included in the infrastructure package
are needed to clean up sites for future economic development,
but it also has given local communities confidence that they
need to know the Federal Government is going to--that we care,
and we are going to help you.
Michigan has been hit really hard. So I want to tackle on
these new emerging contaminants. As the EPA moves to clean up
emerging contaminants, it is critical that EPA provide
technical assistance to State and local governments to better
inform their cleanup efforts. It is also critical that the
funding included in the bipartisan infrastructure law and
brownfields reauthorization continue to include TA grants, so
communities can gain the technical expertise they need to
properly cleanup these sites so they are safe, and they are
ready for redevelopment.
Commissioner Largent and Mr. Seyler, briefly, do you have
scientific expertise within your organizations to address these
emerging contaminants?
Commissioner Largent first.
Mr. Largent. Absolutely not. And if you would speak to my
colleagues on the west side of Washington State around military
bases, you would find them in a world of hurt with PFAS.
Mrs. Dingell. Mr. Seyler?
Mr. Seyler. So the Montana--speaking on behalf of Montana
DEQ, we do have project officers that are focusing on these
emerging contaminants of concern, and they are, as Commissioner
Lambert
[sic] said, they are on military bases and addressing those
communities surrounding those areas.
Mrs. Dingell. So--but let me followup on this, and ask if
they need technical assistance.
And to both you and Commissioner Largent again, for the
Brownfields program to successfully address emerging
contaminants, what sort of technical assistance do local levels
of government need from EPA during both the application and the
remediation process?
And would EPA need additional resources to administer the
Brownfields program as we discover new threats?
Mr. Largent. Well, from a----
Mrs. Dingell. Mr. Seyler? Oh, go ahead, Commissioner, you
go.
Mr. Largent. OK, thank you. I must first admit I don't have
a lot of experience in PFAS, other than hearing my fellow
commissioners around military bases bring this topic up and up
and up and up.
But I would suggest that, as far as the Brownfields
program, they need a number to call. We have got a huge issue
with PFAS around this space. We need coordination with the
military, with the Washington State Department of Ecology, and
EPA to clean this up. There needs to be a coordinating number
to call, and I think, if you are going to address PFAS, you are
going to need resources.
Mrs. Dingell. Mr. Seyler?
Mr. Seyler. And thank you, Representative. So I would just
kind of reiterate.
So ASTSWMO does have a focus group on emergency
[sic] contaminants of concern, and I think the goal of that
focus group is to disseminate information to states, my
counterparts. And I think, if funded by EPA, the Brownfields
program could definitely help disseminate that at a further
level down to the city and county commissioner levels, because
we do have those--that network, that local network, and
partnerships at those local levels.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you.
I will yield back, Mr. Chairman, but I know we will be able
to submit questions for the record, and I would like all of our
panel's advice on what we should be thinking about as we
address emerging contaminants.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Tonko. Well, certainly.
Mrs. Dingell. Thank you.
Mr. Tonko. So you are welcome to do that, and thank you.
The gentlewoman yields back. The Chair now recognizes the
gentleman from South Carolina.
Representative Duncan, you are recognized for 5 minutes,
please.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.
What a great hearing. Everyone has brownfield sites in their
district, as has been noted out today. South Carolina is no
different with that.
One of the great parts of the EPA Brownfields grants
program is that it affords communities a lot of flexibility
with their planned redevelopment of cleanup properties. In
fact, paragraph 6(c) of section 104(k) of CERCLA explicitly
calls out criteria EPA must use to rank, award Brownfields
grants. These criteria include smaller and low-income
communities whose tax base is insufficient, and have difficulty
getting private capital, communities that have greater-than-
normal incidence of disease caused by pollution, and local
economic stimulation efforts based on completion of the
cleanup.
So, Mr. Ford, would you be concerned if these ranking
criteria were administratively de-emphasized by EPA, or if
Congress were to eliminate any of those?
Mr. Ford. My concern, if they eliminated some of those
criteria, is that the benefit of having a cash match is skin in
the game. And if someone has--it has been my experience, if
someone has skin in the game or that cash match, they have got
a stake in that project, and they are less likely to walk away.
If no one has skin in the game, no one puts in a cash match,
things go south. People just--I have seen it--they just wash
their hands, and they walk away, and the site remains a great
spot for tumbleweeds. So that criteria, to me, is absolutely
critical.
And also it illustrates capacity. You need to make sure
that--when I say ``you,'' the program--needs to have that
criteria to illustrate that the people who are getting the
grant have the capacity to manage the grant, and see to it to
the end.
Mr. Duncan. Mayor, would you agree with that? Same
question.
Mr. Bollwage. Somewhat. I think the ranking is difficult
for mayors and local officials to assess, based on the number
of applications that have been sent to the EPA over the years.
However, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League
of Cities would be more than willing to work with this
committee on a process on how we can rank it going forward, or
what projects are going to be at the top of the funding list.
Mr. Duncan. I want to go to Commissioner Largent. Same
question.
Mr. Largent. Well, in short, I, and I think NACo, would be
very concerned if Congress does away with these requirements to
help smaller and lower-income communities. Again, that
describes my county and many of the counties that are
represented by NACo, so we support the current requirements.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you for that.
Switching gears, Mayor, I want to ask a little bit about
liability under CERCLA. In your testimony you mentioned
liability concerns for voluntary acquisition of property. You
go on to say that properties lie idle because of the fear of
unknown liability risk, which can deter investments.
I couldn't agree more with you. I have seen it in the real
eState auction business, where there was just concern about
properties, and the liability, and the chain of title, and
going up the chain of title to find the study to pay for a
cleanup on some of the Superfund properties.
As we approach this next reauthorization of the program, is
there anything we can do, from a liability perspective, to
protect innocent developers and incentivize investment in some
of the mothballed sites that you mentioned, Mayor?
Mr. Bollwage. So, you know, the mothball properties are
long-term, are idle, vacant properties, and usually, because of
the risk of the environmental contamination or the unknown
cleanup costs, it has not been a major problem in my city. But
as you say, Congressman, it is in some other communities.
So allowing local governments to voluntarily acquire
properties to be removed from the liability chain, as long as
they didn't cause or contribute to the contamination, would be
important. However, this will remove--what is important is this
removes the risk for local governments, which are typically
risk averse, and allows the assessment of the cleanup and the
redevelopment of sites, which are blights and hazards on the
community.
And Congressman, you know, the liability question is always
a tricky question in this process.
Mr. Duncan. Yes, you cut out on me there at the end, but I
will agree with you on that. The liability is a huge factor
here, especially when you--someone has got to pay for the
cleanup of the site. You want to incentivize a new investors to
come in and redevelop, and rehab the property, but they don't
want to have the liability.
And the person, if they travel back up the chain of title
to the ultimate perpetrator, those folks may have filed
bankruptcy and out of business. So I am glad this program
exists.
Mr. Chairman, a great hearing, and I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentlewoman from California, celebrating a Super
Bowl win. We represent--we recognize Representative Barragan
for 5 minutes, please.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you, Chairman Tonko. And yes, we still
are celebrating. I appreciate you holding this hearing on how
we build on the continued success of the Environmental
Protection Agency's Brownfields program.
Just recently the EPA announced a Brownfields job training
grant to the Los Angeles Conservation Corps to recruit 60
residents from South Los Angeles, including from Watts, in my
district, to earn several certifications to prepare them for
long-term careers in environmental cleanup and solar
installation.
The infrastructure law Democrats fought for made historic
investments in the Brownfields program, both for cleanup and
job training.
Mr. Bollwage, EPA anticipates awarding up to 50 additional
Brownfields job training grants a year, thanks to the
infrastructure law. How will this expansion of funding help to
create economic opportunity in urban communities?
Mr. Bollwage. Well, thank you for the question,
Congresswoman, because it also helps in the area of the non-
profits, and getting more people involved in the brownfield
remediation process.
And the 50 grants, or whatever money is available in the
infrastructure program will just encourage more and more
people, especially in the smaller brownfield sites. These
grants would be extremely helpful to non-profits and others.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you. Just to followup, does the
additional funding for brownfields--will the funding from this
program in the infrastructure law provide more opportunities to
support affordable housing redevelopment on brownfield sites?
Mr. Bollwage. You know, that has always been a good
question regarding the choices that neighborhoods or the
choices that communities make. And it depends on the community,
what the brownfield sites are used for. In our city, we have
been able to use brownfield remediation funding for both, for
large-scale economic development projects such as a mall, but
we have also done affordable housing, and we have done market
rate housing, as well.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you.
Ms. Ilan, at the beginning of this year the EPA released a
draft environmental justice plan for its cleanup programs,
including brownfields. The four main goals in the plan are,
one, improve compliance with environmental and civil rights
laws; two, implementing Justice40; three, improving community
engagement; and four, incorporating environmental justice
considerations in regulations and the remediation process.
How should EPA work with applicants to ensure environmental
justice principles are followed, and equity is centered during
the redevelopment of brownfield sites?
Ms. Ilan. Environmental justice is really important. The
city of New York is right now engaged in a years-long
environmental justice plan and program, so we welcome the
Federal attention to environmental justice, as well.
I think for communities that may not be doing their own
plans, environmental justice guidelines contained in the EPA
work can make sure that the most disadvantaged communities are
getting attention and their fair share of funding. And I will
say in New York we use the lion's share of EPA Brownfields
funding on affordable housing programs, so--and projects. So we
are excited to see that funding increase.
Ms. Barragan. Great, thank you.
My congressional district includes the Port of Los Angeles,
it includes a lot of industrial areas, and I think about
Wilmington, California next to the ports, where there is also
opportunities there to clean up brownfields, and what that can
mean for housing, and what it can mean to address some of the
issues that we are seeing. Mr. Ford, do you have anything that
you would like to add on possible use of brownfields for
housing or other purposes in these areas?
Mr. Ford. No, ma'am. Thank you for asking.
Ms. Barragan. OK, OK.
Ms. Ilan, a year ago the EPA put out a brief fact sheet to
provide guidance on how property owners of coastal brownfield
sites can assess and address risks with sea level rise for
their sites. In your work for New York City, have you had to
address sea level rise concerns for any brownfield sites?
And do you think local jurisdictions would benefit from
greater technical assistance from EPA in assessing the risk of
sea level rise to their site?
Ms. Ilan. In our experience--I would have to look back at
the sites in our program, and I would be happy to get back to
you on that.
In general, I think technical assistance that is provided
through the program is hugely helpful for issues like climate
change, and sea level rise, and coastal storms.
Ms. Barragan. OK, thank you so much for that.
I am out of time. Otherwise, I would go to you, Mr.
Bollwage, for any followup.
I will--I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. The gentlewoman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Alabama.
Representative Palmer, you are recognized for 5 minutes,
please.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am using a new
desktop version of this. If my microphone is not adequate, let
me know.
What I want to do is I am going to followup on some of the
questions. This has been a very good hearing, and it is
something that we all should be focused on. There is, I think,
450,000 brownfield sites around the country. And because of the
number of brownfield sites, I think it makes sense to utilize
private-sector companies to assist in the cleanup.
And one of the questions that I would have for Mr. Ford is,
wouldn't it make sense to work in a collaborative manner
between the Federal Government, the State and local government
to allow private-sector groups, private companies to come in
and do this cleanup, and maybe to incentivize it and do it
through a--an expedited regulatory and permitting process?
Mr. Ford. Absolutely, sir. And that is where I really would
like to see the trajectory of the U.S. EPA go. Let the U.S. EPA
do what they do very well: be the up-front money to share the
risk in the acquisition and the assessment and the remediation,
and then let the private sector--let us do what we do best on
the back end, and that is complete the readiness of sites to
attract economic investment, and pursue the job creation that
we are equipped to do.
Mr. Palmer. I see Mr. Largent nodding his head. And one of
the reasons I bring this up is that I see a lot of these
brownfield sites in areas where they don't have economic
activity, and these are facilities that not only pose a health
risk in many instances, but just cleaning them up does not
improve the economic viability of those areas.
So from that perspective, wouldn't it make even more sense
to engage the private sector, Mr. Largent?
Mr. Largent. I concur with Mr. Ford on this. And the
question you asked would be--could be asked, ``Why not?''
These sites that are cleaned up, we hope to attract
economic development. We can make that nexus more direct with
the person developing that property. I think that is good.
In my county we try to focus onrole of doing for our
constituents what they can't do for themselves. But if private
industry can do this with proper oversight, and efficient use
of the grant money, I am all for it.
Mr. Palmer. Well, I think what we want to do is, actually,
we want to get these places cleaned up, but we also want to
improve the quality of life for the people in the area, and
that includes economic opportunity. It also helps with the
cities and local governments, because it expands their tax
base.
The other question I have--and this has been addressed a
couple of times, but not necessarily satisfactorily--is the
liability protections that we need to forward to private
companies that are willing to do this.
And in one particular area that I would like for the panel
to address is, when a company acquires another company that is
located on a brownfield, or has some issues like that, and that
new company works with the EPA, works with State and local
government to clean up that facility, to provide some liability
protection in that regard because they are trying to be good
citizens, they are trying to maintain--if a--something that
provides jobs and revenue for the local area--and I have seen a
couple of cases where that hasn't been the case.
So shouldn't we work in tandem here with the government to
provide some liability protection, Mr. Ford, Mr. Largent, any
of the panel?
Mr. Ford. I would say yes, sir. I would say absolutely,
because so many of these sites, including these RCRA sites,
they have one big stop sign out in front. And we don't--we do
not want to get involved with that, unless we get those
protections.
And then I would even take it one step further. Not only
give us the protections, but also give us the opportunity and
protection to bifurcate these sites into pieces, as opposed to
obligating us to take care of the entire 1,300 acres at once.
Let us take it one prospect or one project or one industry at a
time, sir.
Mr. Palmer. Well, that--I would be for that, but I think we
would have to make sure that we have done the due diligence to
make sure that that is possible. So if you start moving part of
it, there may be some cases where moving part of it creates
some other issues.
Mr. Chairman, I do think this is something that the
subcommittee and--should take into account about how we engage
the private sector to expedite the cleanup on this massive
number of sites that remain out there. With that, Mr. Chairman,
again, I think this has been a good hearing, and I appreciate
the opportunity to address the panel.
I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. Well, thank you, sir. And the gentleman from
Alabama yields back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman
from Virginia, a staunch environmentalist, Representative
McEachin.
You are recognized for 5 minutes, please.
Mr. McEachin. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
for convening today's hearing. And of course, I want to extend
my thanks to our witnesses for joining this discussion on
restoring brownfield sites to economic engines.
I look forward to working with the Chairman and other
members of this subcommittee in ameliorating over 450,000
brownfields, which often hold hazardous substances and
pollutants. These brownfields are disproportionately sited in
low-income communities and communities of color.
I am proud to say that the Commonwealth of Virginia has
been at the forefront of brownfield remediation, and boasts
numerous success stories. For example, through brownfield
redevelopment grant funding from the EPA, the city of Hopewell
in my district has redeveloped a former commercial building
into an upscale restaurant. The project cleared over 100 jobs.
And the city of Hopewell now will continue to redevelop the
nearby riverfront in historic downtown areas in a similar
fashion.
The success of this program is one of the many reasons why
I was proud to support the bipartisan infrastructure law that
invested 1.5 billion into brownfield remediation. This historic
investment is critical to continuing the great success of this
program.
Ms. Lee Ilan ? I hope I am pronouncing that correctly--the
President's Justice40 Initiative directs Federal agencies to
ensure 40 percent of the benefits of Federal investment on
environmental issues flow to disadvantaged communities. How do
you believe that this initiative will help shape the future of
brownfield remediation?
Ms. Ilan. Thank you. Yes, the ranking criteria for the
proposals, I think, fits in very well with the Justice40
Initiative, in that it looks for where the Brownfields funds
should get invested into the projects that need it most. So
they are not going into wealthy areas of communities that can
take care of themselves with funding and end uses, but it
attracts the funding to the areas that need affordable housing,
that need jobs, that need better health protection. So I think
that is a really good match.
Mr. McEachin. Now, interestingly, in your written testimony
you write about how brownfield remediation can sometimes cause
harm to environmental justice communities. Can you elaborate on
that for a moment, and tell us what policies we can put in
place to prevent that?
Ms. Ilan. Yes. We found that sometimes investment attracts
new interest, attracts new residents, attracts new businesses,
and it becomes a risk for the long-time residents and the long-
time businesses that have been there.
So I think probably the first thing to do is to listen to
the community members, and hear about what they want. They are
not asking for disinvestment. They are asking for ways that
they can be able to stay in the community and benefit from the
housing, from the jobs, from the new amenities that get put in.
Mr. McEachin. Can you explain to me and to the committee
why it is necessary to have public engagement throughout the
entire remediation of brownfield sites?
Ms. Ilan. Certainly, if people have concerns and questions
about the remediation and what it means, it helps them
understand what is going on with this--these equipment, and
these trucks, and these people, and what is happening here, and
it helps them welcome the cleanup, and prompts them to ask
about how they can participate in the benefits of the
investment.
Mr. McEachin. And how can we take the brownfield
remediation program and enhance it to better support
environmental justice communities? Are there things we can do
in that regard?
Ms. Ilan. Again, I think it starts with listening. If you
are not at the table, you are on the menu, as is said
frequently in the environmental justice community. So allowing
communities impacted by environmental justice, by historic
disinvestment, by legacies of policies of racism, it is very
important that they be in the room to speak for themselves, and
to be represented in the conversation.
Mr. McEachin. I want to extend my thanks to you, in
particular, for your hard work in this field.
And Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. The gentleman from Virginia yields back. The
Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Utah,
[inaudible].
Representative Curtis, you are recognized for 5 minutes,
please.
Mr. Curtis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Ranking
Member. Thank you, witnesses.
My history with brownfields is perhaps a little different
than most on the committee. And Mr. Ford, I found myself
smiling as you were describing your experience. Many years
before I was in Congress I used some IRA funds to purchase a
number of acres in a brownfield. Several years later, as a
business owner and a manufacturer, we chose that same
brownfield site to build our 140,000--manufacturing facility.
We were the first business to go into that site.
And then again, several years later, Mayor Bollwage, I
became the mayor of the city that encompassed that brownfield,
and served as mayor while we filled out the rest of that. And
like many, my hometown was home to some of these brownfield
sites. Mine was the Ironton Steel plant. It was 338 acres. And
at the time I became mayor, it was estimated that we were
losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property tax by that
property being vacant. That is not to count what the county was
losing, and the school district was losing.
Now, today, it won't surprise anybody that project is a
huge success. We took very contaminated land and turned it into
productive property that Utahns could enjoy. We raised local
property tax values, and brought new tax revenue to the city.
Today I am sure--I don't know the exact numbers--there is
thousands of jobs associated with that site. Property tax is a
significant contributor to the cities and counties, the
services they provide, and the school district.
And as I evaluate that, I connect three areas that I think
were important to the success of that: one was a $200,000
Brownsville grant--clearly, that was important; also, the new
property owners, they didn't contaminate the property, but
another steel mill had purchased that property, and they were
very helpful; and of course, the city, and the role that we
played.
And Mayor Bollwage, I would like to start with you. As I
mentioned, I was a mayor. I know firsthand. In my opinion, you
have the best job in the world. There is nothing like being a
local mayor. And I--to be honest, I miss that a lot. But I also
know that you are overwhelmed with pressures that face you,
services that residents demand. You get the phone call when the
dog barks at night, when the trash can doesn't get picked up,
or there is a pothole in front of somebody's yards.
Could you maybe just share why these grants, this
Brownfields program is important to elevate projects like this
to a level where mayors can deal with it, given all the
pressures that you are under?
And how is it that this program separates those, and helps
mayors deal with this?
Mr. Bollwage. Thank you for the question, Congressman. And
once a mayor, always a mayor, so thank you for that title.
You know, often times a developer will come into City Hall
and meet with our policy and planning department. And they are
willing to build a project, or they have a tenant to come into
a project, yet the cleanup costs may be a couple of hundred
thousand dollars. And in such a difficult and tight labor
market and rental market as we have here now, it will be
difficult for that project to move forward without the cleanup
costs that are offered under a Brownfields reauthorization
grant.
Mr. Curtis. Good, thank you.
Mr. Ford, I really enjoyed your skin in the game--your
discussion about skin in the game. And here again, as mayor, I
understand how important that is. But I also think it is
important to point out that skin in the game doesn't always
mean the city has to write a check. Right? There is a lot of
ways that they can contribute to that. Can you comment on that,
and make sure everybody understands, you know, how a city can
do this, right, if they can't write a check?
[Pause.]
Mr. Curtis. I think you are still muted, Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford. Thank you. Yes, sir, in-kind services, technical
assistance, abatement or some types of incentives, there are a
variety of ways that that match can be satisfied. Support, you
know, showing up to the elected officials and expressing your
support. Showing up at the bank when we are getting financing.
There is a number of ways in which someone can satisfy that
requirement.
And the beautiful thing about the U.S. EPA is that they
have had the flexibility to allow people to be--creatively meet
that match.
Mr. Curtis. Excellent. In our case we were able to put a
road through the project, and we had help getting funds for the
road from the county. And so it was very helpful.
And we also--we used some local tax incentives. As
mentioned, the Federal Government could do more on tax
incentives.
I would also like to point out counties and cities are also
tax amenities, and they can also provide some tax incentives,
as well.
And I regret that I am out of time. Mr. Chairman, I yield
the balance.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, the gentleman from Utah yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the woman from Delaware. The
Representative is also the Chair of the Delaware delegation.
Representative Blunt Rochester, you are recognized for 5
minutes, please.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to the
ranking member, thank you both for calling this important
hearing. And I want to thank all the witnesses for their
testimony today.
As many of my colleagues have noted, the bipartisan
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriated an
unprecedented investment in EPA's brownfields programs. This
historic $1.5 billion will help transform and revitalize
brownfield properties across the country.
By cleaning up and redeveloping these sites, we are not
only mitigating the environmental harms and public health
impacts of a community, but also creating opportunities for
economic growth. From the conversion of a cannery in the
popular Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, Delaware, to the
transformation of a vacant gas station into a green space to
help reduce stormwater in the Brandywine Village, Delaware has
seen the benefits of the Brownfields program. And I was proud
to support the infrastructure law, and look forward to the
increased revitalization of brownfield sites.
My first question is for you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Bollwage, as
previously mentioned, the redevelopment of brownfields in low-
income communities and communities of color often results in a
higher cost of living in these communities. How can governments
balance economic development and gentrification concerns?
And are there ways to boost economic development and
cleanup toxic sites without pushing out the communities that
bore the burden of the toxic pollution in the first place?
Mr. Bollwage. So thank you, Congresswoman. We actually had
to deal with that issue in a Hope VI project over 20 years ago,
with gentrification and the issue of your question. We also had
brownfields on the site.
So one of the things that I did is convene a group of
tenants, and those tenants then got to pick the choices on what
exactly would happen on the brownfield site in order to make
sure that, when we built affordable housing, they were not the
ones that were gentrified or forced out. I even hired them a
lawyer, as well, as--they could have legal advice. And then we
picked three developers, and we had the tenants interview the
developers, and then the tenants picked the developer to move
forward with the project.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Well, so I am sure that also
engendered that trust that is necessary, as well. Thank you,
Mr. Mayor.
Ms. Ilan, building upon Representative Peters's questions,
and in your written testimony, you highlight the fact that
legacy of improper disposal of materials in coastal communities
makes them especially vulnerable to stormwater pollution.
Additionally, these areas tend to be located
disproportionately in low-income neighborhoods and communities
of color that have been further marginalized by discriminatory
land use policies.
Given this historical and present-day context, what
improvements can governments make with the increased funding
from EPA in communities along coastlines?
Ms. Ilan. I think allowing--encouraging in the proposal
people to describe sites along coastlines is essential. But
each community looks at the needs across the board, and chooses
the place with the most needs, whether that is coastal or
infill. And the history of the lack of zoning, the waterways,
the transportation routes, these were--where the jobs were,
were where the people lived.
So the flexibility of the program that allows us to choose
sites in the areas that have the most need is a real benefit of
the program.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. And as a coastal State, I am
especially concerned about how to develop brownfields
sustainably. And earlier I mentioned the transformation of a
vacant gas station into a green space to help reduce
stormwater. Are there any ways that you have promoted
sustainable reuse of brownfield sites, and how have these
sustainable uses benefited communities?
Ms. Ilan. As I said, most of our brownfield grants are used
on affordable housing projects, so we work with a housing
agency, and see where the needs are, and where they can put
them in.
As I said, I will take a look at our map of sites and which
ones are along the coast, and I will provide some additional
information in my written testimony.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you, that will be helpful.
And last question, I just wanted to ask the mayor if he
could also reiterate a little bit about the 20 percent cost
share requirement, and how that actually makes it easier for
municipalities to be able to have the funding, and apply for
grants, and particularly those communities that typically would
not have that?
Mr. Bollwage. The cost sharing for the municipalities or
the matching grants?
Ms. Blunt Rochester. The matching grants, sorry.
Mr. Bollwage. Yes. I mean, matching grants in a bigger
municipality are relatively easy to accomplish. In a smaller
municipality it could become more difficult. But it should,
clearly, not be a roadblock in any way to reauthorization.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you so much, and I yield back
from the second smallest State in the country. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Tonko. You are welcome. But powerful. Small, but
powerful.
Ms. Blunt Rochester. Small, but mighty. Small, but mighty.
Mr. Tonko. There you go, there you go. Thank you so much.
The gentlewoman from Delaware yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Texas.
Representative Crenshaw, you are recognized for 5 minutes,
please.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
witnesses for joining us today.
Look, these sites are complicated, in part because of the
hazards that have contaminated them, and also in part because
of how complicated most Federal law has become to clean up
contaminated sites. I think many members of the committee might
agree that, when introduced to programs like CERCLA, were
astounded that any cleanups happen at all under these rules.
Now, the Brownfields program has been a glimmer of hope. I
think we all agree with that. We would like to see it continue
in the most efficient way possible, and get these sites back
into the hands of the community.
This question is for Mr. Ford: What future legislative or
implementation changes do you believe would improve the
operation of the Brownfields programs?
Mr. Ford. There is one particular program that I would like
to see expanded, and that is the TBA program, and that is a
rolling program throughout the year where technical assistance
is provided at the cost of the Federal Government to assess
properties. And so, if you get a prospect that comes in in
January, that TBA money can be available, let's say in
February, you can have the assessment done in March, and you
can actually work toward closing a deal immediately.
The cleanup funding, unfortunately, is not rolling, and you
have to wait until the end of the year to apply for it. So if
we get a prospect that comes in in January, the property needs
to be cleaned up. We have to wait until November. Then we get a
pre-notification the next year, in May. We can incur pre-award
costs the next year, in July, and then get awarded the money a
year later. By then we have lost that window of opportunity.
Why not amend the TBA program to have rolling windows of
funding, like they do in the Economic Development
Administration, to get access to clean up money so the EPA can
now move at the pace of business on preparing that site for
these prospects that are coming into our community?
Mr. Crenshaw. Anything on CERCLA? Anything on the
liabilities that private industry faces that cause, you know,
an aversion to investing in these sites in the first place?
Mr. Ford. Yes, I will tell you--and those are going to be
the sites, sir, that--they are not the low hanging fruit, and
they are--until an endgame is established for these sites,
there is really no way out for these properties that are under
CERCLA.
And so what we would need is, I would say, take the
practices and how we have handled brownfields, and apply that
same philosophy to those properties, as well. Allow us to take
bites out of these larger properties one bite at a time, one
industry at a time. Let us bifurcate the site, like we do
brownfield sites.
I mean, right now it is the way it is set up. You know, you
could have a site, if it is 1,300 acres, with 13 corrective
action areas, and you can't remove that cloud unless all 13
areas are cleaned up.
Mr. Crenshaw. OK.
Mr. Ford. We are upside down on that deal if we try to do
that.
Mr. Crenshaw. Right. Changing subjects not too drastically,
but Mr. Ford, a witness at a congressional hearing last year
testified that Congress should create a Brownfields loan
guarantee program, and incentives to build out social
infrastructure, and avoid projects that raise the economic
value of communities because this makes those areas more
unaffordable.
Is there a difference--how do you respond to this? Is there
a difference between raising economic value and raising
community value?
Mr. Ford. There is a big difference. I have seen our
brownfield sites, when we have invested in them, they have
never triggered gentrification. As a matter of fact, the very
areas that we are investing in already are populated with large
segments of disadvantaged--of residents. And in fact, what we
have done is we have created opportunities for those people
without displacing them.
And the loan fund should actually be used for building out
the physical infrastructure, because the social infrastructure
that we have found to be there is actually emboldened,
empowered, and trained, and we created employment opportunities
for those folks to go back to work without being displaced, and
without leaving the community because there are employment
opportunities elsewhere.
Mr. Crenshaw. Right. I mean, it certainly seems to me that
raising the value of any given area has little downsides worth
noting.
In Houston Minute Maid Park, the home of the Astros, the
greatest team ever--just for anyone listening, you should know
that, greatest team ever--and it is the home of the Astros. And
that was not always a good area. And you know, it is hard to
imagine a scenario where it would have been better off not to
develop that brownfield into something better.
You know, does it mean that we can't be smart about how we
develop it? But those decisions certainly need to be localized.
If I have some time, which I don't--I was going to ask you
more questions.
I yield back.
Mr. Tonko. The gentleman from Texas yields back. The Chair
now recognizes the very patient representative from Florida.
Thank you for your very active participation in the
subcommittee, Representative Soto. You are recognized for 5
minutes, please.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Chairman. The American Rescue Plan and
the infrastructure law are helping central Florida build back
better. I have the fastest-growing single-member district in
the Nation. We grew 40 percent in central Florida over the last
10 years. And so we have had to make some tough growth
decisions.
First, protecting green spaces and preparing for climate
change. And I am excited that the American Rescue Plan helped
Florida put in $300 million for wildlife corridors in our
district to protect some of those green spaces. Both Democrats
and Republicans came together in the Florida legislature to do
that.
They also voted on a budget that included $404 million from
the American Rescue Plan for climate change, resiliency, and
preparation, again making our State more resilient, even as we
face increasing hurricanes.
We have also had a need to redevelop brownfields, spaces
that were polluted in the past, and are in key economic areas.
That is why I was proud to cast my vote for the Build Back
Better infrastructure law, $21 billion for environmental
remediation, including 1.5 billion for brownfields. I
appreciate the Democrats on the committee who voted--all of us
voted yes, as well as the Ranking Member McKinley and Fred
Upton also voting yes. It is great to see more bipartisanship
now. We really could have used your votes then, too.
You know, I am meeting with local officials now about this
10 years' worth of funding, many like the witnesses we have
here, like Mayor Bollwage and Commissioner Largent. And we are
getting great ideas to help old citrus manufacturing sites--
even though we do still do a lot of that--old military and
manufacturing sites. Winter Haven in my district has a marquee
industrial property that could be helpful for a new hospital,
and we are going to be working with them on that. In Kissimmee,
they are working on old industrial sites that now can serve for
new apartments to help out with our affordable housing. In
Orlando we still have legacy World War II military sites that
we are working on. So all of these are very helpful.
Brownfield mediation can be a difficult and technical
process. Many communities who are working on brownfield
cleanups, especially historically under-served communities, can
face significant challenges when it comes to cleaning up these
contaminated sites.
Ms. Ilan, do communities have all the necessary resources
to assess potential brownfield sites on their own?
Ms. Ilan. No, across the country we don't, which is why the
EPA assessment money is so essential. It starts from simply
doing phase ones to allow acquisitions and property
transactions, to the phase two's that really do the
environmental testing at the site to enable the remediation and
the cleanup to go forward. So we are very grateful for the
assessment funding.
Mr. Soto. And this is exactly why technical assistance is a
critical component of achieving equitable brownfields
remediation. You will see that throughout the Build Back Better
infrastructure law to help with equity.
Can you please explain why technical assistance is so
critical to communities who face the burden of remediating a
brownfield site?
Ms. Ilan. Technical assistance is valuable because you
don't necessarily have all the expertise in-house. The
technical assistance providers do education, they can help you
find experts who can help work through the legal and technical
issues, and they can help you interpret data on a project and
make the best cleanup decisions. So it is really terrific.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Ms. Ilan. And as we emerge from the
pandemic, as cases are dropping, unemployment at 4 percent, we
have avoided a foreclosure crisis in central Florida. And as we
are passing the America COMPETES Act to help boost microchip
manufacturing, biotech, aerospace, medical devices in the
district and across the Nation, it is going to be key to be
able to redevelop these sites.
I want to end by giving--since I originally was born in New
Jersey--Mr. Bollwage the last few seconds to talk about his
perspective, as a mayor, of why the Brownfields is so key.
Mr. Bollwage. Congressman, where in New Jersey?
Mr. Soto. I was raised in ?
[Audio malfunction.]
Mr. Bollwage. I missed it, I missed the city. I didn't hear
the city. I am sorry, Congressman.
Mr. Soto. Oh, forgive me. New Brunswick, Ringwood ? and my
time is expired, so I am going to let you go. But I appreciate
all the work that--doing for your State, as well.
I yield back.
Mr. Bollwage. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you,
Congressman.
Mr. Tonko. Mr. Mayor, did you want to offer any other
additional comments?
Mr. Bollwage. Well, thank you, Chairman. I just would like
to thank this committee and all of the questions, as well as
the other panelists, because the brownfields are extremely
important, whether you are in an urban community like myself, a
rural community, or a suburban community. We all have
brownfields to deal with, and this committee has been extremely
supportive of moving forward.
Mr. Tonko. Well, thank you. I believe that completes the
list of colleagues who were interested in asking questions, and
it was a long list.
And before we adjourn, I do have an opportunity here to
offer some letter that is requested to be entered into the
record.
I request unanimous consent to enter the following into the
record, and that would be a letter from Savion Energy.
Any objection?
Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Tonko. I again thank our witnesses for joining us for
today's hearing, and additional thanks for your very
enlightening comments and responses to the questions.
And certainly, I think I can speak on behalf of
Representative McKinley and myself. We look forward to your
additional work, as we go forward, to advise us as stakeholders
and learned frontliners, to make this program as effective as
possible.
So with that, I remind members that, pursuant to committee
rules, they have ten business days by which to submit
additional questions for the record to be answered by our
witnesses.
I ask that our witnesses respond promptly to any such
questions that you may receive.
Again, thank you, one and all. And at this time the
subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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