WASHINGTON, DC - The Environment and the Economy Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), today held a hearing entitled, “EPA’s Brownfields Program: Empowering Cleanup and Encouraging Economic Redevelopment."
The Brownfields Program is an important program that provides technical assistance to states, local communities, tribes, and other stakeholders to assess, cleanup, and restore once contaminated areas to beneficial use. Subcommittee members heard from two panels of witnesses while examining the many successes of the Brownfields Program while looking at areas where the program can be improved.
Mathy Stanislaus, Assistant Administrator of the Office of Land and Emergency Management at the EPA, noted, “Brownfields sites are in the heart of America’s downtowns and existing/former economic centers and reclaiming these vacant or underutilized properties and repurposing brownfields is at the core of the EPA’s community economic revitalization efforts through the Brownfields program. Repurposing land can be the impetus for spurring community revitalization."
Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) explored ways EPA could improve the brownfields program for smaller towns asking, “Would a regional approach be helpful for small towns to get together so that they may collectively come up to three or four thousand people?" Stanislaus, recognizing the importance of easing access to the program for smaller, rural towns, replied, “Yes, absolutely."
Chairman Shimkus concluded, “I have a number of brownfield sites in my district ranging from former family gas stations and the local corner dry cleaners to a former plating company and a former hospital. Cleaning up these sites and returning them to productive use is great for the economy because brownfields grants can be directly leveraged into jobs, into additional redevelopment funds, and into increased residential property values. We need to see what works - and there is a lot to like about the program - but we find that there are always areas we can improve upon." Related Items
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