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For Immediate Release: February 27, 2007

REP. FRANK FLOOR STATEMENT ON BROWNFIELDS REDEVELOPMENT ENHANCEMENT ACT

(House of Representatives - February 27, 2007)

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Mr. Speaker, this is a bill to give more flexibility to our municipalities. They are allowed to use Community Development Block Grant funds for cleaning up brownfields.

   By the way, I do want to comment for a minute on brownfields. We hear a great deal about public sector-private sector, and I believe that people have unwisely seen this as if there was an opposition. In fact, we need to cooperate, and I particularly here want to call attention to an aspect of this bill that is relevant to those who tend to see the private sector as the fountain of all benefits and the public sector as somehow a source of negative activity.

   What we are doing here is giving local governments the right to use Federal money to clean up messes that were left behind by the private sector. Brownfields overwhelmingly are the result of industrial activity that was once profitable and no longer is. That doesn't mean that the people that did it were bad people, necessarily. It does mean given the change in economics, private sector entities walked away in many cases and left the public sector responsible for these cleanups.

   What we are doing here is giving more flexibility to local communities so that they don't have to take out a section 108 loan, which can tie up their Community Development Block Grant funds for a long time. It does give in to local judgment.

   I do want to note one very important point that the gentleman from Michigan, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has stressed, and a point on which I am in complete agreement with him, namely that the funding flexibility here should be for brownfields, not for Superfund sites.

   In the Superfund situation, we have provisions for those who polluted to have to pay in to cleaning up the messes they left behind. We do not want the brownfields money here to be used in any way to diminish that liability.

   So I very much agree with the point that was made by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell). In fact, when we sent this bill previously to the Senate, they removed the restriction that we had put in there that would have prevented this from happening, and we then would not pass the bill. We will send this again to the Senate and we hope they will accept that this is for brownfields, it is not for Superfund. It should be used in this very strict way so as to not become a substitute for private contributions that ought to be coming.

   If we limit this to CDBG money for the brownfields situation, we will be doing it right. This bill is entitled the Brownfields Redevelopment Enhancement Act. We want moneys that are freed up here to be used only for that purpose.