Date: 2005-05-19
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. my amendment will provide an additional $2 million for brownfield assessments and cleanups. while fully funding grants for States to administer their voluntary cleanup programs. The assessment and cleanup of brownfields are critical to the economic and environmental health of communities across the Nation. Brownfields represent lost opportunity where they exist. In 2002. President Bush signed the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act. That bill authorized $200 million annually in Federal assistance to. States and local communities to assess brownfield sites and to conduct cleanup where the assessment indicated that cleanup was warranted. The law also authorized $50 million annually in grants to States to assist States in implementing voluntary cleanup programs. The committees that wrote this legislation. the Committee on. Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Energy and Commerce. following years of hearings. discussions and considerations. determined an assessment. on cleanup of brownfields required at least $200 million annually and that State voluntary cleanup programs should be supported at $50 million annually. The bill before the House provides $52 million for the State programs and only $95.5 million for assessment and cleanups. My amendment simply transfers this unauthorized $2 million in grants to the State bureaucracies to the actual assessment and cleanup of brownfield sites. and I believe that it will be more useful to do that. When the President signed the Brownfields Revitalization Act in 2002. it represented the centerpiece of the administrations environmental agenda. It was widely praised and received broad bipartisan support. According to the Government Accountability Office. there are Well over 500.000 brownfields across the country. These abandoned and underused sites represent a blight to neighborhoods. pose health and safety threats. and create a drain on economic activity. Brownfield grants generate economic returns in excess of five to one. The City of Dallas. which I represent. one of the first cities designated as a Brownfield Showcase Community by the Environmental Protection Agency. has used assessment and remediation grant programs to redevelop 35 sites in the core of the city. A Federal investment of less than $2 million has leveraged more than $370 million in private investment and created or helped to retain close to 3.000 permanent fulltime jobs. Over 1.600 units of housing. including 134 units of affordable housing. have been developed on former brownfield sites. The program has brought new vitality to long distressed portions of the city. boosting the tax base and bringing important economic opportunities to the neighborhoods. Unfortunately. this bill. and the administration budget request it represents. prefers to fund more State bureaucracy rather than more actual cleanup and economic redevelopment. Mr. Chairman. the inadequate funding level for cleanup that was in the Presidents budget is just another example of the administration touting authorization legislation and failing to follow through with the actual funding. According to the Conference of May-