[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROMOTING ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY REDE-
VELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN
THE REVITALIZATION AND REUSE OF CONTAMI-
NATED PROPERTIES
=======================================================================
(117-36)
REMOTE HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 8, 2021
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available online at: https://www.govinfo.gov/committee/house-
transportation?path=/browsecommittee/chamber/house/committee/
transportation
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-324 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon, Chair
SAM GRAVES, Missouri ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON,
DON YOUNG, Alaska District of Columbia
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
BOB GIBBS, Ohio RICK LARSEN, Washington
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois JOHN GARAMENDI, California
JOHN KATKO, New York HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
BRIAN BABIN, Texas Georgia
GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina DINA TITUS, Nevada
MIKE BOST, Illinois SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas JARED HUFFMAN, California
DOUG LaMALFA, California JULIA BROWNLEY, California
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida DONALD M. PAYNE, Jr., New Jersey
MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania MARK DeSAULNIER, California
JENNIFFER GONZALEZ-COLON, STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
Puerto Rico SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
TROY BALDERSON, Ohio ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland
PETE STAUBER, Minnesota TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee GREG STANTON, Arizona
DUSTY JOHNSON, South Dakota COLIN Z. ALLRED, Texas
JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas, Vice Chair
MICHAEL GUEST, Mississippi JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
TROY E. NEHLS, Texas ANTONIO DELGADO, New York
NANCY MACE, South Carolina CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire
NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts
MICHELLE STEEL, California CAROLYN BOURDEAUX, Georgia
KAIALI`I KAHELE, Hawaii
MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia
MARIE NEWMAN, Illinois
TROY A. CARTER, Louisiana
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California,
Chair
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina JARED HUFFMAN, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
JOHN KATKO, New York JOHN GARAMENDI, California
BRIAN BABIN, Texas ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey
MIKE BOST, Illinois ANTONIO DELGADO, New York
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire
DOUG LaMALFA, California CAROLYN BOURDEAUX, Georgia,
BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas Vice Chair
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
JENNIFFER GONZALEZ-COLON, SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
Puerto Rico GREG STANTON, Arizona
NANCY MACE, South Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON,
SAM GRAVES, Missouri (Ex Officio) District of Columbia
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon (Ex
Officio)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
STATEMENTS OF MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE
Hon. Grace F. Napolitano, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, and Chair, Subcommittee on Water Resources
and Environment, opening statement............................. 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Hon. David Rouzer, a Representative in Congress from the State of
North Carolina, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Water
Resources and Environment, opening statement................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Hon. Peter A. DeFazio, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon, and Chair, Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, opening statement.............................. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Hon. Sam Graves, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Missouri, and Ranking Member, Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, prepared statement............................. 61
WITNESSES
Hon. Lucy Vinis, Mayor, Eugene, Oregon, oral statement........... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 12
Michael R. Goldstein, Esq., Chairman, Public Policy,
Redevelopment Incentives, and Regulatory Partnerships
Committee, National Brownfields Coalition, oral statement...... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Susan Parker Bodine, Esq., Partner, Earth & Water Law LLC, oral
statement...................................................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 18
Sacoby Wilson, M.S., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Maryland
Institute for Applied Environmental Health, School of Public
Health, University of Maryland, and Director, Center for
Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health, oral
statement...................................................... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Jerome Shabazz, Founder and Executive Director, Overbrook
Environmental Education Center and JASTECH Development
Services, Inc., oral statement................................. 26
Prepared statement........................................... 27
mark! Lopez, Eastside Community Organizer and Special Projects
Coordinator, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice,
oral statement................................................. 33
Prepared statement........................................... 35
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
December 3, 2021
SUMMARY OF SUBJECT MATTER
TO: Members, Subcommittee on Water Resources and
Environment
FROM: Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment
Staff
RE: Subcommittee Hearing on ``Promoting Economic and
Community Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in the
Revitalization and Reuse of Contaminated Properties''
PURPOSE OF HEARING
The Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment will
meet in open session on Wednesday, December 8, 2021, at 10:00
a.m. ET in the Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2167, and by
video conferencing via Zoom, to receive testimony on federal,
state, and local efforts to address the nation's brownfields
and other contaminated properties. The subcommittee will hear
from local government officials and representatives of non-
profit organizations, academia, and other stakeholders involved
in the remediation and reuse of contaminated properties.
BACKGROUND
SUPERFUND
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA), more commonly known as the Superfund
law, establishes a framework to remediate certain types of
contaminated sites and to hold the parties connected to those
sites responsible for cleanup costs.\1\ CERCLA authorizes the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up contaminated
sites, subject to annual appropriations, and to compel entities
that bear responsibility for all or part of the contamination
at a site to perform or pay for cleanup activities.
Additionally, parties that incur cleanup costs may seek to
recoup those costs from other responsible parties or from the
Superfund Trust Fund, which was enacted to provide a source of
funds for the federal government to finance the cleanup of
contaminated sites where the responsible parties cannot pay or
cannot be identified.\2\
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\1\ See generally, Congressional Research Service, Liability Under
the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability
Act (CERCLA), March 12, 2021 (IF11790).
\2\ See generally, Congressional Research Service, Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act: A Summary of
Superfund Cleanup Authorities and Related Provisions of the Act, June
14, 2012 (R41039). As originally enacted in 1980, section 211(a) of
CERCLA authorized Superfund excise taxes on petroleum and chemical
feedstocks, which were deposited into the Superfund Trust Fund. Section
515(a) of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986
expanded the reach of the tax on domestically manufactured chemical
feedstocks to include imported chemical derivatives. Section 516(a)
such Act established the special tax on corporate income to provide an
additional revenue stream for the Superfund Trust Fund. The taxing
authority for all three sources of revenue to the Superfund Trust Fund
expired at the end of 1995, and general revenues appropriated annually
have largely continued to fund the Superfund program. Section 80201 of
H.R. 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, reinstates the
Superfund tax on certain chemical feedstocks through December 31, 2031.
Section 136701 of H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, would reinstate
the Superfund tax on domestic and imported oil and petroleum through
December 31, 2031.
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CERCLA cleanup and response actions fall into two
categories. Removal actions are generally shorter-term actions
taken to address immediate risks. Remedial actions are
generally longer-term actions to address contamination more
permanently, and may involve long-term treatment or containment
of wastes in place. Although EPA cleans up some sites itself,
it may also compel ``potentially responsible parties'' (PRPs)
\3\ to perform or pay for the cleanup. PRPs are liable if there
has been: (1) an actual or threatened release (2) of a
hazardous substance (defined in section 101(14) of CERCLA) that
(3) causes the incurrence of response costs.\4\ Liability is
retroactive (parties may be liable for the release of hazardous
substances prior to CERCLA's enactment in 1980), strict
(regardless of a party's negligence), and joint and several (a
party may be liable for all cleanup costs at a site, even if
other parties also contributed to the contamination).\5\
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\3\ Section 107(a) of CERCLA defines those parties liable for
response costs for contaminated facilities as: (1) the owner or
operator of the facility; (2) the owner or operator of the facility at
the time of disposal of the hazardous substances; (3) any person who
arranged for the disposal of a hazardous substance at the facility and
(4) any person who accepts a hazardous substance for transport to the
facility. See 42 U.S.C. 9607(a).
\4\ See 42 U.S.C. 9607.
\5\ See https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/superfund-liability.
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BROWNFIELDS
Brownfields are real properties, ``the expansion,
redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the
presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance,
pollutant, or contaminant.'' \6\ Types of brownfields include
inactive factories, gas stations, salvage yards, or abandoned
warehouses. These sites drive down property values, provide
little or no tax revenue, and contribute to community blight.
The EPA reports that an estimated 450,000 to one million
brownfields sites exist within the United States.\7\ Cleanup
and redevelopment of these abandoned sites can increase local
tax bases, promote economic development, revitalize
neighborhoods, facilitate job growth, enable the creation of
public parks and open space, or preserve existing properties,
including undeveloped green spaces.
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\6\ See 42 U.S.C. 9601(39) (definition of ``Brownfield site''). See
also, generally, Overview of EPA's Brownfields Program, located at
https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/overview-epas-brownfields-program.
\7\ See Overview of EPA's Brownfields Program, located at https://
www.epa.gov/brownfields/overview-epas-brownfields-program
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BROWNFIELDS REVITALIZATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION ACT
In 2001, Congress passed the Brownfields Revitalization and
Environmental Restoration Act of 2001, contained as title II of
the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields
Revitalization Act of 2001, to create specific authority to
conduct brownfields assessments and cleanups.\8\ This
legislation amended the Superfund law to authorize funding
through EPA for brownfields assessment and cleanup grants,
provide targeted CERCLA liability protections, and increase
support for State and tribal voluntary response programs. In
2018, Congress further amended the program through the
Brownfields Utilization, Investment, and Local Development
(BUILD) Act, enacted as Division N of the Consolidated
Appropriations Act, 2018.\9\
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\8\ See P.L. 107-118 (signed in January 2002).
\9\ See P.L. 115-141, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018.
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The brownfields program provides direct funding authority
for brownfields site assessments, cleanups, revolving loans,
environmental job training, technical assistance, and other
funding assistance for state and tribal brownfields program. To
facilitate the leveraging of public resources, EPA's
brownfields program collaborates with other federal programs
and state agencies to identify and make available resources for
brownfields-related activities.
Specifically, the brownfields program authorizes $200
million annually (through fiscal year 2023) \10\ for the
following types of funding assistance:
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\10\ See 42 U.S.C. 9604(k)(13).
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Brownfields Assessment Grants: which provide
funding for brownfield inventories, planning, environmental
assessments, and community outreach. Assessment grants are
limited to $200,000 per site except in some cases, where due to
size and contamination level, the limit is $350,000.\11\
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\11\ See 42 U.S.C. 9604(k)(2) and (5)(A)(i).
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Brownfields Cleanup Grants: which provide funding
to carry out cleanup activities at brownfields sites owned by
the applicant. Cleanup grants are limited to $1 million per
eligible entity (or a maximum of $650,000 per site) and can be
awarded on a community-wide or site-by-site basis.\12\
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\12\ See 42 U.S.C. 9604(k)(3) and (5)(A)(ii).
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Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Grants:
which allow eligible entities (as defined in section 104(k)(1))
to capitalize revolving funds for the remediation of
brownfields, subject to the same funding limitations as direct
grants.\13\
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\13\ See 42 U.S.C. 9604(k)(3)(A)(i).
In addition, the brownfields program authorizes $50 million
annually (through fiscal year 2023) for state and tribal
response programs.\14\ States and tribes may use this
assistance to establish or enhance individual state response
programs, capitalize existing revolving loan programs, and
develop risk-sharing pools, indemnity pools, or insurance
mechanisms to provide financing for remediation activities.\15\
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\14\ See 42 U.S.C. 9628.
\15\ See https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/state-and-tribal-response-
program-grants.
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The brownfields program also provides targeted protection
from Superfund liability for innocent landowners, owners of
property contaminated by a source on contiguous property, and
for prospective purchasers of property which may be
contaminated.\16\ It clarified Superfund's ``innocent
landowner'' defense against liability for a person who
unknowingly purchased contaminated land, provided the person
made ``all appropriate inquiries'' prior to the
transaction.\17\ The brownfields law did not define what
constitutes ``all appropriate inquiries,'' but directed EPA to
establish by regulation the standards and practices which would
satisfy the ``all appropriate inquiries'' requirement. On
November 1, 2005, EPA issued a final rule establishing the
standards and practices which would satisfy the ``all
appropriate inquiries'' requirement.\18\
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\16\ See 42 U.S.C. 9607(q) and (r).
\17\ See 42 U.S.C. 9607(q).
\18\ See 70 Fed. Reg. 66070. See also https://www.epa.gov/sites/
production/files/2015-05/documents/aai_reporting_factsheet.pdf.
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The brownfields program generally has been well received by
EPA, states, communities, investors, and developers. According
to EPA, since its inception, the brownfields program has
assessed over 34,000 properties, has cleaned up over 2,200
sites and has made ready over 9,100 sites for reuse.\19\ In
addition, according to EPA, federal brownfields assistance has
leveraged more than $35.2 billion in additional cleanup and
redevelopment funding.\20\ This is consistent with the intent
of the brownfields program to provide vital federal ``seed
money'' for redevelopment and to leverage this money in
conjunction with funding from state, local, private, and other
federal sources to address brownfield sites.\21\ According to
EPA, its brownfields program has helped to create or leverage
almost 180,000 jobs.\22\
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\19\ See https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/brownfields-program-
accomplishments-and-benefits.
\20\ See id.
\21\ See https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/overview-epas-brownfields-
program.
\22\ See https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/brownfields-program-
accomplishments-and-benefits.
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On May 11, 2021, EPA announced that 151 applicants (out of
a total of 418 individual grant requests) were selected to
receive 154 multipurpose, assessment, and cleanup (MAC) grants
totaling $66.5 million.\23\ Of this amount, $8.8 million in
grants went for 111 multipurpose grants to conduct a range of
eligible assessment and cleanup activities at one or more
brownfields properties, $42.2 million in grants went for 107
site assessments, and $15.5 million went for 36 cleanup
grants.\24\
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\23\ See https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/applicants-selected-fy-
2021-brownfields-multipurpose-assessment-and-cleanup-grants.
\24\ See id.
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On June 16, 2021, EPA selected 27 existing RLF grantees to
receive $11.6 million in supplemental funding to help
communities continue their work to carry out cleanup and
redevelopment projects on contaminated brownfield
properties.\25\ Supplemental funding for RLF grants is
available to grantees that have depleted their funds and have
viable cleanup projects ready for work.
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\25\ See https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/announcing-fy21-
supplemental-funding-brownfields-revolving-loan-fund-grants.
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FUNDING OF EPA'S BROWNFIELDS PROGRAM
EPA's brownfields program has an authorized funding level
of $250 million annually (through fiscal year (FY) 2023).\26\
In FY 2021, Congress appropriated $161.78 million for the
brownfields program, of which $91.0 million was for brownfields
site assessment and cleanup grants, $46.2 million was for state
voluntary cleanup programs, and $24.0 million was for EPA's
administrative expenses for the program.\27\ In the FY 2022
budget request, the administration has requested a total of
$200.3 million for the brownfields program, of which $130.0
million is for brownfields site assessment and cleanup grants,
$46.2 million is for state voluntary cleanup programs, and
$24.2 million is for EPA's administration of the brownfields
program.\28\
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\26\ See 42 U.S.C. 9604(k)(13) and 9628
\27\ See https://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/fy-2022-justification-
appropriation-estimates-committee-appropriations.
\28\ See id.
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BROWNFIELDS IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
Generally speaking, the brownfields program has been
effective at expanding the redevelopment of former brownfields
sites. In 2018, Congress amended the brownfields law in the
BUILD Act to address stakeholder recommendations to further
brownfields redevelopment and reuse, including: (1) expanded
grant eligibility for non-profit redevelopment organizations;
(2) increased per-project limits for remediation grants; (3)
expanded grant authority for multi-purpose assessment and
cleanup grants; and (4) new brownfields ranking criteria
focusing on renewable energy and energy efficiency projects and
waterfront developments.\29\ The BUILD Act extended then-
current authorization levels without increase for brownfields
grants through FY 2023.
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\29\ https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2018-08/documents/1-
pg_build_summary_
handout_508_0818.pdf.
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Brownfields stakeholders have advocated for increasing the
overall authorization of appropriations for the brownfields
program beyond the $250 million annual level.\30\ Currently EPA
receives four times more grant applications than can be funded
under current appropriations.\31\ Assuming full funding of the
brownfields program, there would still likely be a shortfall
between the amount requested through grant applications and
annual appropriations.\32\ Accordingly, stakeholders advocate
for increasing the overall authorization of appropriations for
the brownfields site assessment and cleanup grant component of
the program commensurate with the apparent needs.
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\30\ See witness testimony during Subcommittee hearing on Building
a 21st Century Infrastructure for America: Revitalizing American
Communities through the Brownfields Program, March 28, 2017, (https://
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115hhrg24789/pdf/CHRG-115hhrg
24789.pdf).
\31\ Cf. List of applicants for brownfields grants in FY2021
(https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/documents/
fy21_mac_all_applicants_list_updated.pdf) and list of brownfields grant
recpients for FY2021 (https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-04/
documents/fy21_bf_mac_grant_selections_may_2021.pdf).
\32\ See id.
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Another issue related to the program is establishing
effective performance measures to determine the extent to which
the program is achieving its goals. While EPA does report on
the cumulative sites addressed, jobs generated, and the cleanup
and redevelopment funds leveraged, there has been little
reporting on cleanup and redevelopment activities, which is one
of the primary objectives of the program. In partial response
to these concerns, in 2020, EPA released a report that examined
certain environmental benefits that accrue when brownfield
sites are used for redevelopment.\33\ This study, entitled 2020
Environmental Benefits of Brownfields Redevelopment--A
Nationwide Assessment, found that, when housing and job growth
is accommodated by redeveloping existing brownfields sites, the
expansion of paved impervious surfaces and average vehicle
miles traveled per capita/per job are reduced as compared to
accommodating the same amount of growth on previously
undeveloped sites.\34\
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\33\ https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/brownfields-program-
environmental-and-economic-benefits.
\34\ See id.
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On a related matter, as the program continues to mature, it
is possible to begin reviewing the performance of the
brownfields program in addressing redevelopment and reuse goals
throughout the nation. Brownfields properties can be found in
large urban centers, small and rural communities, and suburban
neighborhoods. Since there are more applications for assistance
under the brownfields program than can be funded under current
appropriations, current funding of the brownfields program has
limited the ability of the brownfields law to address all the
site assessment and cleanup grant applications proposed in any
one year. Yet, there has never been a formal review of the
types of brownfields properties that have been addressed
through the EPA program and how the current selection process,
when combined with a lack of sufficient federal funding,
addresses the types, geographic locations, and the independent
economic capabilities of communities to revitalize brownfields
properties that are present around the nation.
In its 1996 report that informed the creation of the
initial EPA brownfields grant program, the National
Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) highlighted the
importance of ensuring that brownfields investment ``provide
focus to a problem which by its very nature is inextricably
linked to environmental justice''--which the NEJAC observed is
both an urban and rural concern.\35\ This concern about
targeting brownfields site assessment and remediation grants
was also recently highlighted by EPA Administrator Michael
Regan in awarding the FY 2021 brownfields MAC grants. In an
interview associated with this announcement, Administrator
Regan noted, ``[t]his is a significant opportunity for
environmental justice communities and rural communities that
for far too long have been living with blighted pieces of
property.'' \36\
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\35\ https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-02/documents/
public-dialogue-brownfields-1296.pdf.
\36\ https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-
government-and-politics-5a60b4e839dae5ab3268948a7bcb76fd.
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WITNESSES
The Honorable Lucy Vinis, Mayor, Eugene, OR
Michael Goldstein, Esq., Chairman, Public Policy,
Redevelopment Incentives, and Regulatory Partnerships
Committee, National Brownfields Coalition
Susan Bodine, Esq., Partner, Earth & Water Law,
Washington, D.C.
Sacoby Wilson, Ph.D., M.S., Associate Professor &
Director, Center for Community Engagement, Environmental
Justice & Health, Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental
Health, School of Public Health, University of Maryland,
College Park, MD
Jerome Shabazz, Executive Director, Overbrook
Environmental Education Center, JASTECH Development Services,
Inc., Philadelphia, PA
mark! Lopez, Eastside Community Organizer &
Special Projects Coordinator, East Yard Communities for
Environmental Justice, Commerce, California
PROMOTING ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL
JUSTICE IN THE REVITALIZATION AND REUSE OF CONTAMINATED PROPERTIES
----------
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m. in
room 2167 Rayburn House Office Building and via Zoom, Hon.
Grace F. Napolitano (Chair of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present in person: Mrs. Napolitano, Mr. DeFazio,
Mr. Rouzer, Mr. Graves of Louisiana, Mr. LaMalfa, and Mr.
Westerman.
Members present remotely: Mr. Huffman, Ms. Johnson of
Texas, Mr. Lowenthal, Mr. Delgado, Ms. Bourdeaux, Mr. Carbajal,
Mr. Stanton, Ms. Norton, Mr. Cohen, and Mr. Mast.
Mrs. Napolitano. Good morning. I call this hearing to
order.
Today's hearing highlights the historic levels of
investment for the cleanup of contaminated and toxic waste
sites that was included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill
signed by President Biden last month.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to significantly
improve the pace of toxic cleanups, to provide increased
protection for human and environmental health, and to ensure
this investment benefits all communities, especially rural and
small communities that have disproportionately borne the burden
of toxic contamination in the past.
Let me begin by asking unanimous consent that the chair be
authorized to declare a recess at any time during today's
hearing.
Without objection, so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that Members not on the
subcommittee be permitted to sit with the subcommittee at
today's hearing and ask questions.
And without objection, so ordered.
As a reminder, please, please keep your microphone muted
unless speaking. Should I hear any inadvertent noise, I will
request that the Member please mute their microphone.
And finally, to insert a document into the record, please
have your staff email it to [email protected].
These are very historic times in Congress. Just a few weeks
ago, President Biden signed into law the single largest
investment in our Nation's infrastructure ever. The
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or Jobs Act, provides
once-in-a-lifetime investment that will modernize our roads,
bridges, transit, ports, and airports, as well as our critical
water and wastewater systems.
We all know the neglect that our critical infrastructure
has faced over the years due to the shortsighted budget
reductions under the previous administration or through the
lack of available resources from our State and local partners.
However, that continued neglect is now over. And thanks to the
courage of Members on both sides of the aisle--thank you, Mr.
Rouzer--infrastructure investment help is now on the way. This
is especially true for the critical infrastructure under the
jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and
Environment.
The Jobs Act provides over $12.7 billion in critical
infrastructure assistance to States and local communities to
rebuild their crumbling wastewater systems, and reauthorizes
the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, the SRF, for the first
time in its 34-year history.
Just as important, more than half of this assistance is
provided as grants, responding to the direct testimony of
rural, small, and economically disadvantaged communities that
testified before this subcommittee on their struggles to afford
critical wastewater upgrades.
The Jobs Act provides the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
known as USACE, with an additional $17.1 billion to carry out
crucial construction and operation and maintenance activities
on critical water resources development projects throughout the
Nation.
This committee, on a bipartisan basis, has now completed
work on four Water Resources Development Acts in a row, and
will begin work on the fifth early next year. However, all of
the projects authorized in WRDAs need appropriated funds for
communities to realize the full navigation, flood control, and
environmental benefits these projects provide. The $17.1
billion in the Jobs Act will quickly bring many of these
critical water resources projects into reality.
Finally, and central to the theme of today's hearing,
passage of the Jobs Act, when combined with the Build Back
Better Act, provides billions to clean up the Nation's most
toxic hazardous waste dumps, and to make sure polluters pay to
clean up their mess.
First, the Jobs Act provides a total of $1.5 billion to
assess and remediate our Nation's brownfields, those
underutilized sites in big cities and small towns where
contamination or the threat of contamination limits full use of
these properties. This is the most significant investment in
Federal brownfields cleanup funding in its 20-year history and
will finally allow for the redevelopment of properties that
have languished for years, simply waiting for critical cleanup
funds.
Second, just as important, the Jobs Act, when combined with
the Build Back Better Act, will provide an additional $30
billion to clean up America's most contaminated Superfund
sites, finally bringing relief to urban and rural neighborhoods
that have had to live with these legacy toxic waste dumps for
decades.
And these combined bills will finally restore the
``polluter pays'' concept of Superfund cleanup, making sure
that polluters, not the taxpayers, pay the cost of cleaning up
toxic contamination.
I am proud to support these historic investments in
brownfields and Superfund cleanups, which will rejuvenate
neighborhoods, will protect the health of our families, our
neighborhoods, our environment, and will start to undo the
toxic legacy of the past.
However, now that these funds are available, it is equally
critical that these investments benefit families and
neighborhoods of all economic means in rural and urban areas,
in minority and Tribal communities, and in every geographic
area of this country.
That is the focus of today's hearing, listening to
stakeholders on how we can improve the EPA's Brownfields
Program. This program has, by most accounts, been successful in
redeveloping many unutilized and underutilized brownfield
sites. However, if you dig a little deeper, there are questions
about whether all communities have benefited from this critical
redevelopment investment, and whether this investment has
actually benefited those who have had to suffer with legacy
contamination for decades.
Today we will hear from stakeholders representing an array
of viewpoints on the successes of the Brownfields Program, and
should hear who has benefited and who may have been left
behind. As we stand on the cusp of significant increases in
brownfields and Superfund cleanup investment, it is critical
that all these voices be heard.
We need to ensure that the historic funds in the Jobs Act
and the Build Back Better Act are used to help all communities
realize a future without toxic contamination, and to ensure
that these funds benefit our communities, both rural and urban,
especially those that have been overlooked or passed over for
critical reinvestment funds in the past.
At this time, I am pleased to yield to my colleague, the
ranking member of the subcommittee, my good friend, Mr. Rouzer,
for any thoughts he may have.
[Mrs. Napolitano's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Grace F. Napolitano, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California, and Chair, Subcommittee on Water
Resources and Environment
These are historic times in Congress.
Just a few weeks ago, President Biden signed into law the single
largest investment in our nation's infrastructure ever. The
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (or Jobs Act) provides once-in-
a-lifetime investment that will modernize our roads, bridges, transit,
ports and airports, as well as our critical water and wastewater
systems.
We all know the neglect that our critical infrastructure has faced
over the years--due to shortsighted budget reductions under the
previous administration or through lack of available resources from our
state and local partners. However, that continued neglect is now over--
and thanks to the courage of members on both sides of the aisle--
infrastructure investment help is now on the way.
This is especially true for the critical infrastructure under the
jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
The Jobs Act provides over $12.7 billion in critical infrastructure
assistance to States and local communities to rebuild their crumbling
wastewater systems--and reauthorizes the Clean Water State Revolving
Fund program for the first time in its 34-year history!
Just as important, more than half of this assistance is provided as
grants--responding to the direct testimony of rural, small, and
economically-disadvantaged communities that testified before this
Subcommittee on their struggles to afford critical wastewater upgrades.
The Jobs Act also provides the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with an
additional $17.1 billion to carry out crucial construction and
operation and maintenance activities on critical water resources
development projects throughout the nation.
This committee, on a bipartisan basis, has now completed work on
four water resources development acts in a row--and will begin work on
the fifth early next year. However, all of the projects authorized in
WRDAs need appropriated funds for communities to realize the full
navigation, flood control, and environmental benefits these projects
provide. The $17.1 billion in the Jobs Act will quickly bring many of
these critical water resources projects into reality.
Finally, and central to the theme of today's hearing, passage of
the Jobs Act--when combined with the Build Back Better Act--provides
BILLIONS to clean up the nation's most toxic hazardous waste dumps--and
to make sure polluters pay to clean up their mess.
First, the Jobs Act provides a total of $1.5 billion to assess and
remediate our nation's brownfields--those underutilized sites in big
cities and small towns where contamination or the threat of
contamination limits full use of these properties.
This is the most significant investment in federal brownfields
cleanup funding in its 20-year history and will finally allow for the
redevelopment of properties that have languished for years simply
waiting for critical cleanup funds.
Second, and just as important, the Jobs Act, when combined with the
Build Back Better Act, will provide an ADDITIONAL $30 BILLION to clean
up America's most contaminated Superfund sites--finally bringing relief
to urban and rural neighborhoods that have had to live with these
legacy toxic waste dumps for decades.
And these combined bills will finally restore the ``polluter pays''
concept of Superfund cleanup--making sure that polluters, not
taxpayers, pay the cost of cleaning up toxic contamination.
I am proud to support these historic investments in brownfields and
Superfund cleanups, which will rejuvenate neighborhoods, will protect
the health of our families, our neighborhoods, and our environment, and
will start to undo the toxic legacy of the past.
However, now that these funds are available, it is equally critical
that these investments benefit families and neighborhoods of all
economic means--in rural and urban areas, in minority and tribal
communities, and in every geographic area of the country.
That is the focus of today's hearing--listening to stakeholders on
how we can improve upon the EPA's brownfields program.
This program has, by most accounts, been successful in redeveloping
many un-utilized or under-utilized brownfields sites; however, if you
dig a little deeper, there are questions about whether all communities
have benefited from this critical redevelopment investment and whether
this investment has actually benefited those who have had to suffer
with legacy contamination for decades.
Today, we will hear from stakeholders representing an array of
viewpoints on the successes of the brownfields program--and should hear
who has benefited and who may have been left behind.
As we stand on the cusp of significant increases in brownfields and
Superfund cleanup investment, it is critical that all of these voices
be heard.
We need to ensure that the historic funds in the Jobs Act and the
Build Back Better Act are used to help all communities realize a future
without toxic contamination, and to ensure that these funds benefit all
communities--both rural and urban--especially those that have been
overlooked or passed over for critical reinvestment funds in the past.
At this time, I am pleased to yield to my colleague, the Ranking
Member of our subcommittee, Mr. Rouzer, for any thoughts he may have.
Mr. Rouzer. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate you
holding this hearing, and I would also like to thank our
witnesses for being here today.
Today's hearing will examine contaminated properties known
as brownfields, the tools the Environmental Protection Agency
has to address them, and what we hope to accomplish with those
tools.
There are hundreds of thousands of brownfield sites in
America, in both rural and urban areas. They are often prime
locations for redevelopment, except for the fact, of course,
that the land may have some contamination. Brownfields drive
down property values, decrease tax revenues, and are a blight
on many of our cities and towns. In the past, few wanted to
invest in cleaning up these sites because they feared
liability. And rightfully so. As a result, many developers
turned to undeveloped green spaces for new investments and
development.
It became clear that it made good economic and
environmental sense to remove legal roadblocks and support
State, local, and private efforts to clean up and redevelop
brownfields. Through this committee's efforts, the Small
Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act
became law in early 2002, which the committee updated in 2018
with the Brownfields Utilization, Investment, and Local
Development Act.
The law provided legislative authority for the Brownfields
Program, including grants for site assessments and cleanup. The
law also clarified liability issues and helped provide greater
protections for those who have had no history with
contamination of the brownfields property, and want to clean up
and redevelop them.
Turning brownfields back into usable property involves the
efforts of the EPA, State and local governments, developers,
and nongovernmental organizations. The Brownfields Program,
codified in 2002, is itself built on another pivotal
environmental law, the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act, known by its acronym, CERCLA,
which is also commonly referred to as ``Superfund.''
Passed by Congress in 1980, Superfund provides the basis
for federally overseen cleanup of environmentally damaged
sites. In addition to funding cleanup efforts, the program
provides a liability framework that has enabled needed
environmental remediation to be done.
I look forward to the testimony today to learn how to
improve the Brownfields and Superfund Programs, and
specifically how they affect the local economies of
communities, and the lives of the people who live in and near
those communities.
[Mr. Rouzer's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. David Rouzer, a Representative in Congress
from the State of North Carolina, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Water Resources and Environment
Thank you, Chair Napolitano. I appreciate you holding this hearing,
and I would also like to thank our witnesses for being here today.
Today's hearing will examine contaminated properties known as
``brownfields,'' the tools the Environmental Protection Agency has to
address them, and what we hope to accomplish with them. There are
hundreds of thousands of brownfield sites in America, in both rural and
urban areas. They are often prime locations for redevelopment--except
for the fact that the land may have some contamination. Brownfields
drive down property values, decrease tax revenues, and are a blight on
many of our cities and towns.
In the past, few wanted to invest in cleaning up these sites
because they feared liability. As a result, many developers turned to
undeveloped green spaces for new investments. It became clear that it
made good economic and environmental sense to remove legal roadblocks,
and support state, local, and private efforts to clean up and redevelop
brownfields.
Through this committee's efforts, the ``Small Business Liability
Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act'' became law in early 2002,
which the Committee updated in 2018 with the Brownfields Utilization,
Investment, and Local Development (BUILD) Act. The law provided
legislative authority for the Brownfields Program, including grants for
site assessments and cleanup. The law also clarified liability issues
and helped provide greater protections for those who have had no
history with contamination of the brownfields property and want to
clean up and redevelop them.
Turning brownfields back into usable property involves the efforts
of the Environmental Protection Agency, state and local governments,
developers, and non-governmental organizations.
The Brownfields Program codified in 2002 is itself built on another
pivotal environmental law, the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act, known by its acronym ``CERCLA'' but is
also commonly referred to as ``Superfund.''
Passed by Congress in 1980, Superfund provides the basis for
federally overseen cleanup of environmentally damaged sites. In
addition to funding cleanup efforts, the program provides a liability
framework that has enabled needed environmental remediation to get
done.
I look forward to the testimony today to learn how to improve the
Brownfields and Superfund Programs and specifically how they affect the
local economies of communities and the lives of the people who live in
and near them.
Mr. Rouzer. Again, thank you to our witnesses, and I yield
back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Rouzer, very much, for your
testimony. And now I am pleased to yield to the chair of the
committee, Mr. DeFazio, for any thoughts he may have.
Mr. DeFazio. Thanks, Madam Chair. Thanks for calling this
hearing to highlight just some of the critical investments in
the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
This committee twice passed the bill called INVEST, a
comprehensive approach to rebuilding America's infrastructure.
We went through a real legislative process. In the end we were
given a Senate product written behind closed doors, but I think
we pushed the envelope a lot. The numbers are not quite as high
as what we had, but they are historic, and will provide for a
tremendous amount of activity.
We are not done yet, in terms of Build Back Better, and
additional policies in there, and the potential for
implementation policies of the vast amount of money in this
bill to better address some of the concerns this committee had
that did not make it into the final cut. Today, we are here to
talk about those issues within the purview of the Water
Resources and Environment Subcommittee.
The first is, the first reauthorization of the Clean Water
State Revolving Fund program in 34 years. Things don't happen
quickly around here. This is my 35th year, and I am retiring
next year. It will be 36. But that was passed in my first term,
and has never been reauthorized, and it is a critical, critical
program for the States to deal with their wastewater issues, in
partnership with the Federal Government. That alone is pretty
big news.
But the bill also provides $12.7 billion--B, billion--in
new wastewater infrastructure funding over 5 years for States
and municipalities to directly help communities large and
small. And even better--this is different and historic--about
half that funding will be provided in the form of grants.
There are many communities out there, relatively small
communities, without an income or a tax base that could support
the costs of these new systems. And the combination of grants
and funding will make it affordable and will make it more
widely available.
We also have inclusion investments for the utilities, the
wastewater utilities, to recapture, reuse their methane. It can
be reused directly as a fuel. That way it is prevented from
being vented into the atmosphere in a more damaging form. One
utility who testified before the committee a few years ago in
New Jersey is generating all the electricity they need for
their newly refurbished plant, and selling onto the grid, and
making money, and saving the ratepayers from higher costs. This
is a win for the constituents and the environment.
The National Utility Contractors Association estimates that
every $1 billion in SRF funding produces 28,000 new jobs. That
will mean roughly 350,000 new jobs over the term of this bill
for the working men and women who will be doing much-needed
construction and repair of our wastewater systems.
And today, the hearing, though, is focused on Brownfields
and Superfund Programs, two programs that were created to clean
up legacy toxic contamination. The Jobs Act has some big wins
there, too, providing billions for both programs to finally
address the backlog of remediation projects throughout the
country. Right now, the EPA can only fund about one in four
local brownfields cleanup project applications, and that is a
result of chronic underfunding.
The EPA states that every Federal dollar invested in
brownfields assessment or cleanup leverages over $20 in
private-sector investment, and every $100,000 in EPA
brownfields funds expended leverages around 10.3 jobs. That is
pretty darn efficient when you are accomplishing a goal and
creating economic activity that inexpensively. That means that
the $1.5 billion in brownfields investment contained in the
Jobs Act can be expected reasonably to generate $30 billion in
additional private-sector investment in brownfields properties,
and create 150,000 new jobs associated with the reuse of those
properties.
Similarly, for the Superfund Program, the Jobs Act, when
combined with the Build Back Better Act, will provide over $30
billion in additional remediation funds and finally restore the
polluter pays principle for Superfund cleanup that was allowed
to languish many years ago under Republican control. Superfund
was enacted with the premise that polluters should be required
to pay for the cleanup of their messes, not the taxpayers. But
over the years, that has devolved to where the polluters aren't
paying, and many times you can't find a responsible party, so,
the taxpayers are paying. That is not right.
So, this bill is going to right that wrong, and begin to
deal with some of these very hazardous sites. So, this will
bring a lot of relief to communities across the Nation, who
have been forced to wait in line for the small annual
appropriated trickle of cleanup funds.
So, Madam Chair, the Jobs Act and Build Back Better Act are
filled with programs to directly benefit health, safety, and
quality of life for American families. And just looking at the
two programs we are going to look at today--and I have
discussed this morning clean water and brownfields--this
investment will create close to 1 million jobs.
I welcome our witnesses here today and look forward to the
rest of the hearing.
[Mr. DeFazio's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Peter A. DeFazio, a Representative in
Congress from the State of Oregon, and Chair, Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure
Thank you, Madam Chair, for calling today's hearing and for
highlighting the critical investments in the Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act.
I am proud of this committee's hard work in pulling together the
single largest infrastructure investment in our nation's history.
The bipartisan Jobs Act provides once-in-a-lifetime investment that
will modernize our roads, bridges, rail, transit, ports, and airports,
as well as our critical water and wastewater systems.
The Jobs Act will have a very real and positive impact on every
American--from decreasing the average amount of time required to get to
work or school or the grocery store, to expanding access to rail and
mass transit options for both urban and rural areas, to addressing the
existential threat that climate change poses on every citizen of this
planet.
There is a lot to celebrate in the Jobs Act for programs within the
Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee's purview.
To start, the Jobs Act is the first ever reauthorization of the
Clean Water State Revolving Fund program in its 34-year history.
That feat alone should be big news, but it gets better because the
Jobs Act also actually provides over $12.7 billion in new wastewater
infrastructure funding over the next five years to states and
municipalities.
This historic level of funding will directly help communities--
large and small--address the backlog of wastewater infrastructure
upgrades which our mayors and our constituents have told us are
critically needed.
Even better, about half of this funding will be provided in the
form of grants--meaning that communities will finally be able to make
these critical upgrades but not saddle households with additional debt
or looming rate increases.
And this investment will also be carried out with an eye towards
minimizing or mitigating any impacts on climate change--including
investment by utilities to recapture and reuse greenhouse gasses such
as methane--in order to protect our environment as well as reduce the
long-term operational costs of the wastewater treatment plant.
The water infrastructure funding in the Jobs Act is a no-brainer,
win-win outcome for our constituents and our environment. And, because
the National Utility Contractors Association estimates that every $1
billion in SRF funding produces 28,000 new jobs, this would mean
roughly 350,000 new jobs to directly benefit the working men and women
who too often are forgotten here in Washington.
Today's hearing is focused on EPA's brownfields and Superfund
programs--two programs created to clean up legacy toxic contamination
that scars our communities with blighted or underutilized properties
and threatens the health of our neighborhoods and our environment.
However, the Jobs Act has several wins for brownfields and
Superfund as well--providing billions for both programs to finally
address the backlog of remediation projects throughout the country--a
backlog that results in EPA being able to fund only about 1 in 4 local
brownfields cleanup project applications annually.
This backlog of projects is the result of chronic underfunding of
the brownfields program, which is extremely popular with local mayors
and communities for the multiple benefits this program can produce.
The EPA states that every federal dollar invested in a brownfields
assessment or cleanup leverages over $20 in private sector investment,
and every $100,000 in EPA brownfields funds expended leverages around
10.3 jobs.
This means that the $1.5 billion in brownfields investment
contained in the Jobs Act can reasonably be expected to generate
approximately $30 billion in additional private sector investment in
brownfields properties--and create over 150,000 new jobs associated
with the reuse of these properties.
Similarly, for EPA's Superfund program, the Jobs Act, when combined
with the Build Back Better Act, will provide over $30 billion in
additional remediation funds and finally restore the ``polluter pays''
principle for Superfund cleanup that was allowed to languish under
Republican control.
The Superfund program was enacted with the premise that polluters
should be required to pay for the cleanup of their messes; however,
over the years, the program shifted the costs of cleanup to American
taxpayers--letting polluters off the hook and slowing down Superfund
cleanups as annual funding for the program was reduced.
The Jobs Act and the Build Back Better Act reverse this trend and
will bring welcome relief to communities across the nation who have
been forced to wait in line for the trickle of scarce cleanup funds.
These bills will also save taxpayers money by again putting the
burden to pay for Superfund cleanups back where it belongs--with the
polluters who caused these toxic sites in the first place.
Madam Chair, the Jobs Act and the Build Back Better Act are filled
with programs that will directly benefit the health, safety, and
quality of life of American families. And, just looking at the two
programs I have discussed this morning--the Clean Water and brownfields
program--this investment will create close to 1 million new jobs.
Today's hearing will highlight some of these critical investments,
as well as help to ensure that these investments benefit all
communities--rural and urban, tribal and economically-disadvantaged--
regardless of where they are located.
I welcome the witnesses here today and yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio, and I need to
thank you personally, because you have been a great leader, and
certainly have made it easier for me to work on the water and
the infrastructure. But without your leadership for the whole
committee and my subcommittee--thank you very much, sir.
Now we will move on to the introduction of witnesses. Thank
you very much. We will now proceed to hear from those who are
prepared to testify.
I ask the witnesses to please turn their cameras on and
leave them on for the duration of the panel. Thank you for
being with us, and welcome.
On today's panel we have the Honorable Lucy Vinis, mayor of
Eugene, Oregon; Mr. Michael Goldstein, chairman of the National
Brownfields Coalition Committee on Public Policy, Redevelopment
Incentives, and Regulatory Partnerships; Ms. Susan Bodine,
partner, Earth & Water Law; Dr. Sacoby Wilson, associate
professor and director, Center for Community Engagement,
Environmental Justice, and Health, Maryland Institute for
Applied Environmental Health at the University of Maryland's
School of Public Health; Mr. Jerome Shabazz, executive
director, Overbrook Environmental Education Center,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Mr. mark! Lopez, Eastside
community organizer and special projects coordinator, East Yard
Communities for Environmental Justice, Commerce, California.
Without objection, your prepared statements will be entered
into the record, and all witnesses are asked to limit their
remarks for 5 minutes.
Yes, I would like to have Mr. DeFazio please take the mic
and introduce the mayor.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to
take a minute to introduce the mayor of the city of Eugene, the
largest city in my district, sister city to Springfield, where
I live.
Lucy, as you know, managed--and it is not easy to get
Springfield in Lane County and Eugene all on the same page to
put together two very successful brownfield cleanup programs.
And being recognized for her success and her advocacy in her
work, she has been named to--by the President to the Local
Government Advisory Committee on these issues.
So, I am certain her testimony today will get into some of
that.
So, Lucy, welcome to the hearing. It's a little early
there, and I appreciate your doing this. Thank you.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio.
Without objection, your prepared statements will be entered
into the record.
And again, all witnesses are asked to limit their remarks
to 5 minutes.
Mayor Vinis, welcome, and you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF HON. LUCY VINIS, MAYOR, EUGENE, OREGON; MICHAEL R.
GOLDSTEIN, ESQ., CHAIRMAN, PUBLIC POLICY, REDEVELOPMENT
INCENTIVES, AND REGULATORY PARTNERSHIPS COMMITTEE, NATIONAL
BROWNFIELDS COALITION; SUSAN PARKER BODINE, ESQ., PARTNER,
EARTH & WATER LAW LLC; SACOBY WILSON, M.S., Ph.D., ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR, MARYLAND INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH,
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, AND DIRECTOR,
CENTER FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, AND
HEALTH; JEROME SHABAZZ, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
OVERBROOK ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION CENTER AND JASTECH
DEVELOPMENT SERVICES, INC.; AND mark! LOPEZ, EASTSIDE COMMUNITY
ORGANIZER AND SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR, EAST YARD
COMMUNITIES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Ms. Vinis. Good morning, Chair DeFazio and Chair
Napolitano, and members of the committee. I am Lucy Vinis,
mayor of Eugene, Oregon, and I am here with you today to
testify about Eugene's experience with the Environmental
Protection Agency's Brownfields Assessment Grant Program.
As you know, the Brownfields Assessment Grant Program
provides funding for local communities to assess contaminated
properties with the end goal to put these sites back into
productive use. It is a critical resource for local governments
to address sites with unknown contamination levels, and the
city of Eugene and our regional partners were grateful that the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act law included $1.5
billion in new brownfields funding to help address the backlog
of important projects.
Eugene received EPA funding in 2012 and 2017. Together with
Lane County and the city of Springfield, our brownfields
coalition was awarded grants to conduct scientifically based
assessments of vacant urban and rural sites to determine if and
to what extent contamination existed. During the grant period,
we funded 54 environmental assessments, and developed 4 cleanup
plans covering 37 brownfield sites in the region. Here are a
few examples of this work.
First, one of the largest sites is on Eugene's downtown
riverfront, a 17-acre redevelopment site which lies along the
Willamette River and is walking distance to our downtown and
the University of Oregon campus. We used the EPA grant to test
for contamination throughout this former industrial site. Now
remediated, the site is being transformed to include a new,
world-class park, infrastructure for market-rate and affordable
housing, and commercial development. In July 2022, it will host
our riverfront festival, as part of the Oregon22 world track
and field championships.
Second, our first EPA grant came on the heels of the great
recession and kicked off a multiparty effort to redevelop a
group of surface parking lots in our downtown. The area is now
home to a new five-story affordable housing complex, a market-
rate apartment building, a hotel, and commercial retail and
office space. It provides housing within walking distance to
services, primary employment centers, and transit.
Lastly, we used assessment grant funds to redevelop a
former auto repair shop into the University of Oregon's
Innovation Hub, a space that anchors the region's
entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Funds also supported the redevelopment of a 60-year-old
parking garage into a new pavilion under construction right now
that will be a permanent and all-weather home for our farmers
market, providing economic support to small farmers across the
region.
The Brownfields Assessment Program is a valuable Federal
tool because it is focused, well-managed, with clear
expectations and straightforward objectives.
As a member of the Climate Mayors Steering Committee, a
member of Mayors and CEOs for U.S. Housing Investment, and a
newly appointed member of the EPA's Local Government Advisory
Committee, I believe this program helps cities meet three
critical objectives: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through
incentivizing reuse of urban sites; to advance housing equity
by creating an opportunity to redevelop derelict properties;
and to support environmental justice efforts by remediating
polluted sites that disproportionately impact neighborhoods
that are home to low-income residents and communities of color.
In a bipartisan world, the Brownfields Assessment Grant
Program has broad support from both conservative and
progressive voices. That said, I must add that, while the
infusion of brownfields funding in the infrastructure bill will
make a big impact, the communities needing this investment
still exceed the grant availability.
Additionally, assessment funds are only the first step.
Contaminated sites also need remediation funding before they
can be redeveloped. With that in mind, I ask this committee to
engage the Biden administration and EPA leadership to increase
the number and size of both assessment and remediation grants
to local governments as soon as possible.
And finally, I would be remiss if I did not also mention
the extraordinary support that EPA staff has always provided
with this program. Our region 10 contacts and staff at the
national headquarters have always ensured that local
governments are informed, supported, and kept engaged on the
program opportunities and implementation.
Thank you for allowing me time to share Eugene's
experience, and thank you for your service to our great Nation.
[Ms. Vinis' prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Lucy Vinis, Mayor, Eugene, Oregon
Good morning, Chairman DeFazio and members of the Committee. I am
Lucy Vinis, the Mayor of Eugene, Oregon and am here with you today to
testify about Eugene's experience with the Environmental Protection
Agency's Brownfields Assessment grant program.
As you know, the Brownfields Assessment grant program provides
funding for local communities to assess contaminated properties with
the end goal to put these sites back into productive use. It is a
critical resource for local governments to address sites with unknown
contamination levels, and the City of Eugene and our regional partners
were grateful that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)
law included $1.5 billion in new Brownfields funding to help address
the backlog of important projects.
Eugene had the privilege of receiving EPA funding in 2012 and 2017,
to implement the assessment program. In partnership with Lane County
and our neighbor to the east, the City of Springfield, our Brownfields
Coalition was awarded grant funds to address properties throughout the
region on both urban and rural sites.
During the grant period, we funded 54 environmental assessments and
developed 4 clean-up plans covering 37 brownfield sites in the region.
Many of our sites had sat vacant and underused for years, resulting in
a fear of unknown clean-up costs and leading potential developers to
assume the site had problems that it may not actually have. With our
EPA grant, we conducted scientifically based assessments to determine
if contamination existed and if so, to what extent.
To add insight into those numbers, let me provide a few examples of
redevelopment sites that Eugene has benefited from.
1. One of the largest sites is on Eugene's Downtown Riverfront, a
17-acre redevelopment site which lies along the Willamette River and is
in walking distance to our downtown and the University of Oregon
campus. We used the EPA grant to test for contamination throughout the
former industrial site that had been in use since the late 19th
century. The site has since been remediated and is being transformed,
complete with a new world class park, new infrastructure for market
rate and affordable housing, and new commercial development. We will
host our Riverfront Festival on the site as part of the Oregon 22--the
world track and field championships this coming July. By reusing a
contaminated property, we are advancing our community vision for
compact transit-oriented development that is climate friendly and
accessible for all of the community.
2. Our first EPA grant came on the heels of the great recession
and kicked off a multi-party effort to redevelop a group of parcels in
our downtown that had been a surface parking lots for many years. The
once-underused properties in the center of town are now a vibrant mix
of housing and commercial activity. There is a new 5-story affordable
housing complex, a market-rate apartment building, a hotel, and a
commercial building with a mix of offices and retail. The area is
vibrant, full of locals and visitors. The new housing has helped to
address our housing deficit, and the residents live in walking
distances to services, primary employment centers, and transit.
3. Lastly, we used assessment grant funds to redevelop a former
auto repair shop into the University of Oregon's Innovation Hub, a
space that anchors the region's entrepreneurial ecosystem. Funds also
supported the redevelopment of a 60-year-old parking garage into a new
pavilion under construction right now, that will be a permanent and
all-weather home for our Farmers Market, providing economic support to
small farmers across the region.
These examples of successful projects underpin the real value of
this program. It is an exceptional federal tool because it is focused
and well managed with clear expectations and straightforward
objectives. The program helps cities be more fiscally sound, through
redevelopment of existing, underused sites and reduces pressure for
cities to grow out. And as you know within this committee's charge,
transportation and infrastructure investments are costly and tend to
increase a community's greenhouse gas emissions, while also not
addressing the core elements of housing affordability and access to
services.
Which leads me to share my thought on why this Brownfields
Assessment Grant Program supports climate and equity. As a member of
the Climate Mayor's Steering Committee, a member of Mayors and CEO's
for Housing Investment, and a newly appointed member of the EPA's Local
Government Advisory Committee, I believe this program provides cities
the means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through incentivizing
reuse of urban sites (build up, not out). It advances housing equity by
providing public and private developers the means to address derelict
properties and reduces the stigma for redevelopment within underserved
communities. It is a tool that supports environmental justice efforts
where polluted sites can be addressed to the benefit of the neighbors,
which disproportionally are low income and communities of color.
In a bipartisan world, the Brownfields Assessment grant program has
broad support from conservative and progressive voices. This is an
effective tool. While the infusion of Brownfields funding in the
Infrastructure Bill will make a big impact, there are always more
communities seeking a grant than there are grant funds available.
Additionally, assessment funds are a great initial support, but to move
a contaminated site to productive use requires remediation funding.
To better support cities in our efforts to transform contaminated
sites and keep the cost of redevelopment low, thereby allowing for more
types of projects that are accessible by low income populations; I ask
this Committee to engage the Biden Administration and EPA Leadership to
increase the number and size of both the assessment and the remediation
grants to local governments as soon as possible.
Thank you for allowing me the time to share Eugene's experience and
place into context the value of the Brownfields Assessment grant
program. I would be remiss if I did not also mention the extraordinary
support that EPA staff has always provided within this program. Our
Region 10 contacts and staff at the national headquarters have always
ensured that local governments are informed, supported, and kept
engaged on the program opportunities and implementation.
Thank you for your service to our great country.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Ms. Vinis. It is a very welcome
report that you have given, and we will now proceed to Mr.
Goldstein.
You may proceed, sir.
Mr. Goldstein. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and
subcommittee members. My name is Michael Goldstein. I am the
managing partner of the Goldstein Environmental Law Firm, a
principal in the environmental redevelopment venture Goldstein
Kite Environmental, a charter member and former president of
the Florida Brownfields Association, and chair of the National
Brownfield Coalition's Public Policy, Redevelopment Incentives,
and Regulatory Partnerships Committee. It is an honor to be
here today, providing testimony, and the coalition thanks you
for the opportunity.
My remarks today are presented in my capacity as a
representative of the coalition, and informed by three decades
of experience assisting businesses, local governments, and
community stakeholders reuse contaminated sites. Much of this
work occurs in communities of color disproportionately burdened
by human health risks, financial disinvestment, failing
infrastructure, inequitable access to medical facilities and
fresh produce providers, and the crush of economic
gentrification and climate gentrification.
In a letter sent to the Nation's Governors this past
Thursday and referring to the bipartisan Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act, the EPA Administrator stated, ``the
law's investment in water is nothing short of
transformational.'' We concur, and we are grateful for the $1.5
billion investment in EPA's Brownfields Program.
The money will be catalytic, and the delivery vehicle for
much of the remediation that occurs over the most impaired
water resources and the most disproportionately impacted
neighborhoods across the land. EPA currently estimates, as we
have heard, that every dollar it spends on brownfields
revitalization leverages $20.13 in additional spending.
Accordingly, Congress' commitment to brownfields should inject
over $30 billion into the country's portfolio of impaired,
underutilized properties.
As impressive as this outcome is, our lived and
professional experience tells us that the need in communities
across the country is greater still, likely by at least two-
thirds. So, we encourage an even higher magnitude of investment
in brownfields funding at the community level through EPA's
competitive grant process, especially insofar as such grants
can be targeted to accelerate restoration of drinking and
surface water for consumption, irrigation, and recreation.
We are broadly supportive of the administration's Justice40
initiative, which we believe will and should direct the
windfall of Federal resources to overburdened and marginalized
communities. We encourage swift completion of the applicable
regulations and commencement of funding at the earliest
practical time.
We also ask this committee to focus the executive agencies
under its oversight to place an emphasis on concentrating
resources on impaired sites that drain economic opportunity
from neighborhoods, and acutely impair water resources and
water infrastructure with lead, PFAS, and other contaminants of
concern giving rise to cancer risk and developmental
impairment.
For over 15 years, the coalition has advocated for
reauthorization of the brownfields redevelopment tax incentive,
which allows parties conducting voluntary cleanup on sites
subject to redevelopment to deduct corresponding costs in the
year they were incurred. Accordingly, we offer our unqualified
support for H.R. 4427, the Brownfields Redevelopment Tax
Incentive Reauthorization Act. This legislation of history as a
guide will likely result in a massive public investment in the
remediation of water resources, and the enhancement of water
infrastructure.
There is a unique opportunity to utilize current and future
increased investment in brownfield cleanup and reuse to
increase training and funding opportunities in the new green
economy for the unemployed and underemployed. We encourage the
subcommittee to consider a major increase in resources for such
environmental workforce training programs and future
legislation, especially as such training can provide the many
tens of thousands of new workers across the country who will be
needed to improve the Nation's water quality and water delivery
infrastructure, and impaired sites undergoing remediation and
redevelopment.
The coalition would like to see the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, with its vast expertise and experience in Civil
Works projects involving remediation, take a much more active
role in the Federal brownfields partnership. This subcommittee
should undertake an analysis of this technical and funding
support that the Corps can provide directly to developers and
local governments in need of such assessment when tackling
brownfield projects that will result in remediation of water
resources and/or enhancement of water infrastructure.
We also encourage the committee to explore ways in which
the Corps can be directed to develop, with broad stakeholder
input, a meaningful brownfields action agenda patterned on such
long-range plans issued previously by U.S. EPA.
Finally, the coalition strongly affirms that a cornerstone
of creating equity for those living in environmentally
overburdened and economically disinvested communities is access
to affordable housing. Additional targeted funding for such use
should be among the highest of Congress' concerns, as it often
involves remediation of water resources and enhancement of
water infrastructure.
To this end, the subcommittee should consider legislation
that would increase the 4 percent and 9 percent low-income
housing tax credit to 6 percent and 12 percent, and create a
one-time, low-income housing tax credit in the amount of 80
percent of the cost of land acquisition to develop affordable
housing on brownfield sites requiring remediation of water
resources.
Thank you very much.
[Mr. Goldstein's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael R. Goldstein, Esq., Chairman, Public
Policy, Redevelopment Incentives, and Regulatory Partnerships
Committee, National Brownfields Coalition
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Michael Goldstein. I'm the
Managing Partner of The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm, a principal
in the environmental redevelopment venture, Goldstein Kite
Environmental, founder of The Goldstein Brownfields Foundation, a
charter member and the first president of the Florida Brownfields
Association, former Chairman of the Miami-Dade County Brownfields Task
Force, and Steering Committee Member of the National Brownfields
Coalition and Chair of its Public Policy, Redevelopment Incentives, and
Regulatory Partnerships Committee. The National Brownfields Coalition
is a non-partisan alliance of public interest organizations, academics,
as well as public and private sector professionals who raise awareness
about, as well as develop and advocate for policies and practices that
support the remediation and redevelopment of brownfields nationwide.
The Coalition is jointly managed by Smart Growth America and the Center
for Creative Land Recycling. We advocate for protecting public and
environmental health sustainably and equitably, by removing or
containing contaminants in the estimated 400,000 to 600,000 brownfields
sites across our great country. By working across sectors and fields,
practitioners and advocates are able to better confront environmental
contaminants and return these lands to productive use.
It is a singular privilege and honor to be here today providing
testimony to the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment
on the key national polity issue ``Promoting Economic and Community
Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in the Revitalization and Reuse
of Contaminated Properties.'' The National Brownfields Coalition thanks
you for the opportunity.
My remarks today are presented in my capacity as a representative
of the National Brownfields Coalition and informed by three decades of
experience assisting businesses, local government, and community
stakeholders remediate, redevelop, and reuse contaminated sites. Much
of this work--difficult, challenging work--occurs in communities of
color disproportionately burdened by human health risk, financial
disinvestment, failing infrastructure, inequitable access to medical
facilities and fresh produce providers, and the crush of economic
gentrification and climate gentrification.
In a letter sent to the nation's governors this past Thursday and
referring to H.R. 3684, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and
Jobs Act (``IIJA''), EPA Administrator Michael Regan stated, the
``law's investment in water is nothing short of transformational.'' The
National Brownfield Coalition concurs. And we are grateful for the $1.5
billion investment in US EPA's Brownfields Program over a five-year
period beginning in 2022 as a result of that legislation. We believe
that this money will be catalytic and the delivery vehicle for much of
the remediation that occurs of the most impaired water resources in the
most disproportionately impacted neighborhoods across the land, urban
and rural. EPA currently estimates every dollar it expends on
brownfield revitalization leverages $20.13 in additional spending.
Accordingly, Congress' commitment to Brownfields in the IIJA should
inject $30,195,00,000.00 into the country's portfolio of impaired,
underutilized properties. As impressive as this outcome is, our lived
and professional experience tells us that the need in communities
across the County is greater still. So we encourage an even higher
level of investment in Brownfields funding at the community level
through EPA's competitive grant process, especially in so far as such
grants can be targeted to accelerate restoration of drinking water and
surface water resources for consumption, irrigation, and recreation.
The National Brownfields Coalition is broadly supportive of the
Administrations' Justice 40 initiative, which we believe will and
should direct a windfall of federal resources to overburdened and
marginalized communities. We encourage swift completion of the
applicable regulations and commencement of funding at the earliest
practical time. We also ask this Committee to focus the executive
agencies under its oversight to place an emphasis on focusing resources
on impaired sites that drain economic opportunity from neighborhoods
and acutely impair water sources and water infrastructure with lead,
PFAS, and other contaminants of concern giving rising to cancer risk
and developmental concerns.
For over 15 years, the National Brownfields Coalition has advocated
for reauthorization of the Brownfields Redevelopment Tax incentives,
which allows parties conducting voluntary cleanup on sites subject to
redevelopment to deduct corresponding costs in the year they were
incurred. Accordingly, we offer our unqualified support for HR 4427,
the Brownfields Redevelopment Tax Incentive Reauthorization Act of
2021. This legislation, if history is a guide, will likely result in
massive public investment in the remediation of water sources and
enhancement of water infrastructure.
There is a unique opportunity to utilize current and future
increased investment in brownfield cleanup and reuse to increase
training and funding opportunities in the new green economy to the
unemployed and underemployed. We encourage the Committee to consider a
major increase in resources for such environmental workforce training
programs in future legislation, especially as such training can provide
the thousands of new workers across the country who will be needed to
improve the nation's water quality and water delivery infrastructure at
impaired sites undergoing remediation, redevelopment and
revitalization.
The National Brownfields Coalition strongly affirms that a
cornerstone of creating equity for those living in environmentally
overburdened and economically disinvested communities is access to
affordable housing. Additional targeted funding for acquisition,
remediation, and reuse of contaminated sites for affordable, workforce,
and attainable housing should be among the highest of Congress'
concerns as such development often involves remediation of water
sources and enhancement of water infrastructure. To this end, this
Committee should consideration of legislation that would accomplish the
following:
increase the 4% and 9% Low Income Housing Tax Credit
(``LIHTC'') under Sec. 42 of the IRS Code to 6% and 12% for affordable
housing built on brownfield sites requiring remediation of water
resources and/or enhancement of water infrastructure,
provide for a Stepped Up Basis under Sec. 42 of the IRS
Code of between 130% to 150% for affordable housing built on brownfield
sites requiring remediation of water resources and/or enhancement of
water infrastructure depending on their location outside of or within
Difficult Development Area and Geographic Areas of Opportunity zones;
enact a new, one-time LIHTC in the amount of 80% of cost
of the land acquisition to develop affordable housing built on a
brownfield site requiring remediation of water resources and/or
enhancement of water infrastructure; and
pass an enhanced tax incentive (e.g., a further stepped-
up basis either to current cap with shorter hold time or up to 20% or
25% with same hold time) for redevelopment of brownfield sites for
affordable housing in Opportunity Zones located in EJ communities
requiring remediation of water resources and/or enhancement of water
infrastructure.
Finally, the National Brownfields Coalition would like to see the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (``ACOE''), with its vast expertise and
experience in civil works projects involving remediation, take a much
more active role in the Federal Brownfields Partnership. This Committee
should undertake an analysis of the technical and funding support that
the ACOE can provide directly to developers and local governments in
need of such assistance when tacking brownfield projects that will
result in remediation of water resources and/or enhancement of water
infrastructure. We also encourage the Committee to explore ways in
which the ACOE can be directed to develop, with broad stakeholder
input, a meaningful Brownfields Action Agenda patterned on such long-
range plans previously issued by US EPA.
The National Brownfields Coalition thanks the Committee for its
consideration of these remarks.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Goldstein, for your
testimony, and we will now proceed to Ms. Bodine.
You may proceed.
Ms. Bodine. Thank you, Chair Napolitano and Chair DeFazio,
Ranking Member Rouzer, and members of the subcommittee, for the
opportunity to testify before you today on promoting economic
and community redevelopment and environmental justice in the
revitalization and reuse of contaminated properties.
I am currently a partner with Earth & Water Law. I
previously worked on the Superfund and Brownfields Programs,
both as staff of this subcommittee, and as staff of the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee.
I also have previously served at EPA, in what is now the
Office of Land and Emergency Management, as well as the Office
of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, both of which offices
have significant roles in implementing these programs.
I am here in my personal capacity. So, my goal today is to
help the subcommittee understand EPA Superfund and Brownfields
Programs. Now, my written testimony goes into detail about how
both of these programs have been tremendously successful in
helping communities adversely affected by contamination. But I
just want to use my time to highlight a few points.
First, from an EPA perspective, it is always preferable to
use other people's money to secure cleanups. That leaves EPA's
dollars for orphan sites. And EPA has authorities. They can
encourage people to clean up property by using the incentives
and seed money provided in the Brownfields Program. EPA can
force cleanups, using the liability provisions of the Superfund
statute. And then, finally, EPA can facilitate cleanups through
the settlement agreements, the prospective purchaser agreements
with redevelopers at both brownfields and Superfund sites.
These agreements provide liability protection.
Remember, brownfield sites are, by definition, sites that
pose less of a risk than your Superfund national priority
sites. And by definition, these are sites that are not required
to be cleaned up under other EPA programs like RCRA corrective
action. That means the Brownfields Program doesn't use
liability or regulation to get cleanups, it uses incentives.
And without private investment, those cleanups wouldn't happen.
EPA does not select brownfield remedies, and cleanups at
brownfield sites are governed by State law. EPA's grant
agreements include requirements that cleanups be protective of
human health and environment, comply with all State and Federal
laws, and meet Superfund standards, where relevant and
appropriate.
In contrast, the Superfund Program is federally directed.
At the national priority sites, EPA decides which sites are
cleaned up, and what the remedies should be. And EPA, at the
NPL sites, has authority to use Federal dollars to do the
cleanups, whether or not there is a private party involved.
However, just like brownfields, EPA doesn't control land
use at any redevelopment of a property, whether it is
brownfields, whether it is Superfund. That is a local
government decision. People like Mayor Vinis and other local
government officials are the ones who make those decisions.
Now, both brownfields and Superfund are very sensitive to
environmental justice issues. If you look at EPA's grant
criteria for brownfields, their criteria include factors like
whether the grant will identify and reduce threats to children,
pregnant women, minority or low-income communities, or other
sensitive populations; the extent to which the grant provides
for involvement of the local community in making decisions
about the cleanup and the future use of the property; and then,
of course, whether or not there are disproportionately high
adverse effects related to exposure to hazardous substances.
Both the Brownfields Program and the Superfund Program have
authorities and have tools to help community members be
involved. They have grants that go to local community groups,
and then they have a contract that provides independent
technical assistance to local community groups.
As may be obvious, when sites are cleaned up, property
values do increase, and I cite studies in my written testimony.
Both programs also lead to jobs and tax revenues. Chair DeFazio
cited some very impressive statistics about the leveraging that
the Brownfields Program provides. And so, I am not going to
repeat the studies that are in my written testimony.
I want to conclude by reiterating that these programs are
well designed to encourage private investment. If you are
looking at changes, please don't lose sight of that; don't make
changes that will then drive away private investment, and then
you won't have those impressive leveraging statistics that
Chair DeFazio quoted.
I would submit that both programs are doing an excellent
job right now of securing health and economic benefits to local
communities. Thank you.
[Ms. Bodine's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Susan Parker Bodine \1\, Esq., Partner,
Earth & Water Law LLC
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\1\ Former Senior Counsel and Subcommittee Staff Director, House
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Water
Resources and Environment; former Assistant Administrator, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response (now Office of Land and Emergency Management); former Chief
Counsel, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; former
Assistant Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office
of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. This testimony is on behalf of
myself, not any organization.
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Chairman Napolitano, Ranking Member Rouzer, and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to testify today on
promoting economic and community redevelopment and environmental
justice in the revitalization and reuse of contaminated properties. I
am currently a partner with the firm Earth & Water Law. I previously
worked on Superfund and Brownfields legislation while serving on the
staff of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. I also previously
implemented these programs while serving as an Assistant Administrator
of two different EPA offices, the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency
Response and the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
My goal today is to help the Subcommittee understand EPA's
Superfund and Brownfields programs. As I will discuss, both of these
programs have been tremendously successful in helping communities
adversely affected by contamination.
EPA's Brownfields Program
Congress authorized EPA's brownfields program in January 2002 in
title II of the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields
Revitalization Act (P.L. 107-118). That law authorizes funding for
environmental assessment and cleanup on property ``the expansion,
redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or
potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or
contaminant.'' It also authorizes funding for property that otherwise
meets the definition of ``brownfield'' and is contaminated with
controlled substances, petroleum or petroleum products, or is mine-
scarred land. As amended by the 2018 Brownfields Utilization,
Investment, and Local Development (BUILD) Act (Division N of P.L. 115-
114) both governmental and nonprofit entities are eligible for funding.
Brownfields grants provide ``seed money'' that can leverage other
investment. According to EPA's Justification of Appropriations
Estimates for Fiscal Year 2022 (relying on EPA's ACRES database), as of
April 2021, brownfields grants have led to more than 142,000 acres of
idle land made ready for productive use and more than 176,800 jobs and
have leveraged $34.5 billion in private investment.
Brownfields grants can be used for programs to inventory,
characterize, assess, and conduct planning related to one or more
brownfield sites or for the remediation of contaminated property. A
grant recipient may use up to 5 percent of the grant for administrative
costs. In addition, a local government that receives a brownfields
grant can use up to 10 percent of those funds to monitor the health of
populations and to monitor and enforce institutional controls. The
BUILD Act raised the cap on some individual grants.\2\
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\2\ Grants for site assessment are now authorized up to $500,000
for community wide grants ($2 million if a state or tribe) and up to
$350,000 for individual sites. Grants for site remediation can be up to
$650,000. New (BUILD Act) multi-purpose (planning, assessment, and
remediation) grants are authorized up to $1 million.
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Congress has established ranking criteria for EPA to evaluate grant
applications. Those criteria include both potential to stimulate
additional investment \3\ and economic development as well as criteria
directly related to environmental justice, including the extent to
which the grant would address or facilitate the:
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\3\ According to EPA's grant guidelines: ``Leveraging may be met by
funding from another federal grant, from an applicant's own resources,
or resources from other third-party sources. This form of leveraging
should not be included in the budget and the costs need not be eligible
and allowable project costs under the EPA assistance agreement.''
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reduction of threats to human health and the environment,
including threats in areas in which there is a greater-than-normal
incidence of diseases or conditions;
the needs of a community that has an inability to draw on
other sources of funding for environmental remediation and subsequent
redevelopment of the area in which a brownfield site is located because
of the small population or low income of the community; and
the identification and reduction of threats to the health
or welfare of children, pregnant women, minority or low-income
communities, or other sensitive populations.\4\
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\4\ CERCLA 104(k)(6)(C).
EPA's Brownfields program funds job training cooperative agreements
to allow members of the community gain jobs associated with grant
funded activities. EPA also funds a contract for the Technical
Assistance to Brownfields Communities Program. This contract pays for
independent sources of technical assistance for communities, at no cost
to them. It helps low-income, underserved, rural, and small communities
address their brownfields.
Grants awarded by EPA's Brownfields Program provide communities
across the country with an opportunity to transform contaminated sites
into community assets. For example, Brownfields Program grants have
been shown to increase local tax revenue and residential property
values. According to EPA's 2020 Year in Review, a study of 48
brownfields sites found that an estimated $29 million to $97 million in
additional local tax revenue was generated in a single year after
cleanup. This is two to seven times more than the $12.4 million EPA
contributed to the cleanup of these sites. Another study found that
property values of homes near revitalized brownfields sites increased
between 5 percent and 15 percent following cleanup.
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.
EPA's Superfund Program
Congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund) in 1980. The Act
authorized federal agencies to respond to releases of hazardous
substances. This authority was supported by taxes levied on chemicals,
petroleum and corporate environmental income, a trust fund to receive
those tax dollars (subject to appropriation), rules for how those funds
could be spent, rules for selecting remedies, and an extensive
liability system.
The 1986 Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act added remedy
selection rules related to compliance with applicable and relevant and
appropriate state standards as well as requirements for increased state
and local involvement in remedy selection. For example, the 1986
amendments added section 117 to CERCLA, setting out requirements for
public participation in remedy selection and authorizing technical
assistance grants to help community groups obtain technical assistance
to help them participate in remedy selection and other Superfund site
processes. EPA calls these Community Assistance Groups or ``CAGs''.
Superfund is one of only a handful of EPA programs that is carried
out federally--states cannot be authorized or delegated to carry it
out. That means EPA decides which sites get funding and selects the
remedies. While EPA does not decide land use, it does take reasonably
anticipated future land use into account when selecting remedies.
Community groups have input into this process. In addition to the
technical assistance grants for community groups EPA also funds a
contract for the Technical Assistance Services for Communities Program.
Like the Brownfields technical services program this contract provides
independent technical assistance for communities to understand and
participate in the Superfund process. EPA also uses this contract to
fund the Superfund Job Training Initiative to provide free cleanup
related training and employment opportunities for people living in
communities affected by Superfund sites. Many of these are
Environmental Justice communities. Nationally, about 400 of people have
received training. For example, in 2020, 20 people living near the San
Gabriel Superfund Site in La Puente and Industry, California, graduated
from this training program. Eighty percent of trainees have been placed
into cleanup related jobs upon completion of their training.
Like the Brownfields program, Superfund monies may only be spent
for authorized purposes, i.e., responding to a release of a hazardous
substance through removal and remedial actions. Superfund dollars
cannot be used for ``betterments.'' For example, Superfund dollars
cannot provide upgraded housing or infrastructure. Superfund cannot
improve property beyond what is needed to address hazardous substance
exposures to bring it to a higher and better use.
Superfund's liability provisions were amended in title I of the
2002 Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act
(P.L. 107-118). These amendments were intended to liability protections
for bona fide prospective purchasers, contiguous property owners, and
innocent landowners. The liability protections for municipalities were
clarified in the 2018 BUILD Act.
The Superfund program has always been funded though annual
appropriations and so competes with other programs for federal dollars.
Most of the annual Superfund appropriations are used to fund EPA staff.
The majority of the dollars used for actual cleanup comes from private
parties who are responsible for cleanup costs under CERCLA's liability
provisions. According to the 2020 Superfund Accomplishments Report,
through 2020 private parties have funded over $46.3 billion in
cleanups. EPA has recently established policies to speed up
negotiations with responsible parties, to accelerate the benefits of
cleanup. EPA also has taken steps to speed up the resolution of
disputes with other federal agencies at federal facility sites.
The Superfund taxes expired at the end of 1995, but the chemical
excise taxes were reinstated recently in the Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act (the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill or ``BIB'').
Significantly, the BIB also included a provision that directly
appropriated all taxes deposited into the Superfund Trust Fund. Before
the BIB, any Superfund taxes that were collected were appropriated into
the Superfund Trust Fund but were not necessarily appropriated out of
the Fund and made available to EPA. As the Superfund Trust Fund is part
of the Unified Federal Budget Superfund taxes could offset any federal
spending. That changed with the BIB. Under the BIB, going forward every
tax dollar collected is automatically appropriated both into and out of
the Superfund Trust Fund and is made available to the EPA Superfund
program to be used for the purposes authorized in CERCLA. Those taxes
can no longer offset other spending (including the spending authorized
in the Build Back Better (BBB) bill).\5\
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\5\ The CBO score for the BBB counted the proposed reinstatement of
the petroleum Superfund taxes as an offset for the spending proposed in
that bill because the score was prepared before the BIB became law.
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Like the Brownfields program, the Superfund program provides
economic as well as public health benefits. A 2013 study conducted by
researchers at Duke University and the University of Pittsburgh found
that residential property values within three miles of Superfund sites
increased between 18.7 and 24.4 percent when sites were cleaned up and
deleted from the NPL.\6\ According to EPA's 2020 Superfund
Accomplishments Report, in 2020, EPA collected economic data on 632
Superfund sites that had been redeveloped. At those sites there are
9,900 businesses operating that employ 227,000 people who have earned
$16.3 billion in income.
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\6\ Shanti Gamper-Rabindran and Christopher Timmons. 2013. ``Does
cleanup of hazardous waste sites raise housing values? Evidence of
spatially localized benefits,'' Journal of Environmental Economics and
Management 65(3): 345-360.
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EPA also encourages private investment in cleanups by providing
either ``comfort letters'' or ``prospective purchaser agreements'' to
new owners who are afraid of incurring liability if they get involved
in the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated property. For example,
at the Conroe Creosoting Superfund Site in Conroe, Texas, EPA entered
into a prospective purchaser agreement that paved the way for the
cleanup of the property and its redevelopment into a Home Depot
distribution center that will create hundreds of construction jobs and
at least 50 direct permanent jobs, adding more than $80 million into
the local economy.
In San Jose, California, two former asbestos containing landfills
have been turned into an office park, trails, and open space, providing
economic, recreational, and social benefits to the community. In April
2019, the corporate headquarters of Hewlett Packard Enterprise opened
on the property, employing over 1,000 people. The new facility includes
sports fields, a gym, cafeteria, and an open roof-top area.
In Medley, Florida, the former Pepper Steel & Alloy Site was vacant
for 20 years, even after it was cleaned up. EPA worked with a local
company on an agreement to address liability concerns. Several
companies have now purchased site parcels for redevelopment including a
custom boat manufacturing and sales facility that added 100 jobs in the
community.
In St. Louis, the Carter Carburetor Superfund site was contaminated
with PCBs and TCE. Located next to a Boys and Girls Club, the site was
the subject of significant community concern about potential exposures
to area children and residents. Now the site's remedy is complete and
the property will be transferred to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater
St. Louis which will facilitate the development of a golf training
facility for youth on the property by a local nonprofit. EPA also is
helping the City of St. Louis Land Reutilization Authority restore
pollinator and bird habitat on part of the site.
Additional Examples of Locally Driven Remediation and Revitalization
In 2020, Region 1 launched a new initiative to support remediation
and reuse of historic mills. Leveraging Brownfields funds, Opportunity
Zone incentives, Superfund removal program assistance, and other
technical assistance programs, historic mills around the region are
being rebuilt to provide new housing, jobs, and industries. In
Biddeford, Maine, reuse of historic mills saw $10 million in EPA funds
generate over $224 million in private investment.
In Portland, Maine, EPA Brownfields grants facilitated a series of
successful waterfront revitalization projects. At Thompson's Point, a
former railyard, $1.8 million in Brownfields funds leveraged over $30
million in additional private investments in redevelopment, opening the
door for several new enterprises and providing the community with an
ideal new location for the Children's Museum and Theatre of Maine. In
2020, EPA joined the Maine Port Authority to tour the site of a planned
new cold storage and seafood processing facility where a former
manufactured gas plant had operated for several decades.
The City of Orlando, Florida partnered with federal, state, and
local stakeholders at the former Naval Training Center (NTC) Orlando.
Having served as an Army and Navy air training facility since the
1940s, this 2,000-acre site closed in 1999 under the Base Realignment
and Closure program. The team's efforts in promoting public and private
investments resulted in a renewed area consisting of a mixed-use,
master-planned community, industrial facility, and recreational spaces.
Due to collaborative efforts, the former NTC Orlando site has become an
economic asset to the City of Orlando and the partnership between
agencies was awarded an EPA 2020 National Federal Facility Excellence
in Site Reuse Award.
In Austin, Texas, a property was evaluated using an EPA Brownfields
site assessment that cleared the way for the property to be donated for
a Salvation Army shelter for Women and Children in Austin, Texas.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Evans-Fintube site was contaminated with
asbestos, PCBs, and lead. It is currently owned by the Tulsa
Redevelopment Authority. After the City of Tulsa received an area-wide
planning Brownfields grant from EPA, redevelopment is finally occurring
on this property through about $23 million in private investment.
In Des Moines, Iowa, EPA recently negotiated a settlement agreement
among the liable parties and the City of Des Moines under which the
City will take ownership of the now cleaned up Dico site (also known as
the Des Moines TCE Superfund Site) and direct its reuse.
EPA's Region 8 focuses many of its targeted brownfields assessment
on tribal lands. The assessments cleared the way for non-profit
organizations to develop affordable housing and food banks, and new
community gardens, including urban gardens in the Denver area and a
vegetable garden at a tribal assisted living facility. EPA Region 8
also focuses its cleanup grants on tribal lands. In June 2020, the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe completed the cleanup of asbestos and mold
contamination at the Old Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North
Dakota. The tribe used a $200,000 EPA Brownfields grant to pay for the
cleanup. The tribe will safely demolish the building to make way for
redevelopment.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Ms. Bodine. It is nice to see
you, and we will now proceed to Dr. Wilson.
You may proceed.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you to the chairs and esteemed members of
this committee for this opportunity to provide testimony.
My name is Dr. Sacoby Wilson. I am an associate professor
at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. I direct
the Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and
Health. I am also a former member of the National Environmental
Justice Advisory Council, but I am still a cochair of the
Justice40 Work Group, and I have some comments related to
Justice40 as part of this testimony. And I am also a new member
of EPA's Science Advisory Board. I am here providing testimony
in my role as associate professor.
As has been already stated, when you think about issues of
environmental justice, we are talking about how some
communities, due to race, ethnicity, income, class, and
geography may be overburdened by unhealthy land use and
environmental hazards. In this case, we are talking about
brownfields and Superfund sites. And so, in my testimony I want
to, for those of you that you have access to the testimony, I
just want to highlight a document that is in a link in my
testimony about the brownfields distribution in this country,
based on race and ethnicity, based on percentage of people of
color, and based on per capita income.
If you look at census block groups with EPA-funded
brownfield properties, the poverty rate is 21.7 percent--this
is from 2019--compared to the poverty rate at the census block
group level across the country being 14.9 percent. If you look
at the percent of people of color in those census block groups
that have the EPA-funded brownfield property, that is 41
percent, compared to census block groups nationwide of 38
percent. If you look at per capita income in those block groups
where you have a EPA-funded brownfield property, the per capita
income is $26,642--again, that is in 2019--compared to
nonbrownfield census block groups of $38,712.
So, you see disparities in the distribution of these
properties. If you look at the characteristics of brownfield
sites, when you look at the population around 0.5 miles and 1
mile around these brownfield sites, what you see, it is more
people of color. You see more low-income folks, you see more
linguistically isolated, and you see people less likely to have
a high school education.
And so, when you think about the distribution of
facilities, it is also potential--some of these brownfields may
have contamination that could impact human health. In one study
in Baltimore, they found that, in areas near brownfield zones,
there were higher mortality rates due to cancer, lung cancer,
respiratory disease, major causes of health disparities,
influenza, and pneumonia. That may not be due to the brownfield
itself, but it is due to the cumulative burden of hazards that
may be in those neighborhoods that are hosting brownfields. So,
you have to take into account the cumulative impacts of other
uses that create exposure conditions that lead to exposure
disparities, and conditions that lead to health disparities.
And there have been studies that have shown differential
burden of brownfields based on race, ethnicity, and income. One
study by Adam and Keeler, which is in my testimony, found that
brownfields were much likely to be located in people of color
communities and especially poor communities than in higher SES
locations. What is important to note here, they also said that,
when you look at the initial assessment and planning phases in
the cleanup process, you see that, in communities of color, the
process was slower to clean up, compared to noncommunities of
color that hosted brownfields. So, I just wanted to put those
points out there.
Now, to transition to my role as a member of NEJAC, I think
it is very important for us to use screening tools like U.S.
EPA EJScreen, the new Justice40 tool that has been built, to
make sure that we are identifying, prioritizing, and
microtargeting communities who have the most need of these
investments.
So, we want to make sure that we look at the issues of
cumulative impacts, and we look at the issues of differential
access to health-promoting infrastructure, whether it be food
infrastructure, or whether it be housing infrastructure. And to
do that well, we need to be using the best available screening
tools, we need to be able to map these communities, and then
make sure that investments are getting to these communities,
and having guardrails to make sure those who have been
disinvested and left behind actually are able to get access to
the resources, and the access to job opportunities, and the
access to economic opportunity structures which other members
of this panel will talk about next.
So, I will pass the mic. Thank you.
[Mr. Wilson's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Sacoby Wilson, M.S., Ph.D., Associate Professor,
Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health, School of Public
Health, University of Maryland, and Director, Center for Community
Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) defines a
brownfield as ``a property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of
which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a
hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.'' Brownfield sites
include abandoned industrial facilities, warehouses, and other
commercial properties such as former gas stations and dry-cleaning
establishments. The USEPA estimates that more than 450,000 brownfields
exist in communities across the US. While most brownfields are located
in depressed rural and urban neighborhoods, some studies have
documented the presence of brownfields in suburban areas as well.
Litt and Burke (2002) categorized brownfields into three zones,
based off of hazard potential, and examined population health within
each zone in Southwest Baltimore. They found that communities living in
the most hazardous brownfields zone, when compared with communities
living in the least hazardous brownfields zones, experienced
statistically higher mortality rates due to cancer (27% excess), lung
cancer (33% excess), respiratory disease (39% excess), and the major
causes (index of liver, diabetes, stroke, COPD, heart diseases, cancer,
injury, and influenza and pneumonia; 20% excess).
Few studies have examined racial and socioeconomic disparities near
brownfield sites. For example, McCarthy found that brownfield sites in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin are generally concentrated in census tracts with
higher percentages of African-American, Hispanic, and low-income
populations, than compared to the city average. Another study assessed
racial and socioeconomic disparities at brownfield locations in the
Detroit region and found that brownfields were disproportionately
located in poor neighborhoods and communities of color. Adam and Keeler
(2012) found that brownfields were much more likely to be located in
people of color communities and especially poor communities than in
higher SES locations. Adam and Keeler also found that sites located in
communities with larger proportions of people of color move through the
initial assessment and planning phases of the cleanup process more
slowly than their counterparts in other neighborhoods, even while sites
located in comparatively poorer areas progressed more quickly. Thus,
while the collocation of environmental disamenities and lower
socioeconomic status populations seems to be a factor of both race and
poverty, the inequitable remediation of these disamenities appears to
based on race, not on poverty. There appear to be environmental justice
and equity issues in both burden and remediation--communities are not
going green together. This differential cleanup and greening could lead
to gentrification, the displacement of residents who live near
facilities, particularly vulnerable residents.
Before remediation efforts, brownfields may damage their host
communities by polluting the local environment, making the host area
appear dangerous, and hosting illegal activities such as dumping and
drug sales. Several studies, for example, have shown the presence of
heavy metals in brownfield sites. Health threats associated with urban
pollution are exacerbated for people living near contaminated parcels,
such as brownfields, but there are various health consequences to urban
residents exposed to contaminants found at brownfields. These health
complications include cardiovascular risk, low-level lead exposure,
pulmonary risk, perinatal and infant mortality, low birth weight, and
noise pollution. The remediation of brownfields can address public
health threats posed by hazardous and toxic contamination. These
threats can be circulated through various exposure to and from drinking
water, ingestion (soil issues), inhalation (air quality issues), dermal
(absorption issues), breast milk (prenatal and postnatal issues), and
human activity (produce use and residential issues). The cleanup and
redevelopment of brownfields are issues that will affect the poor,
working-class individuals, and communities of color. The prospects of
cleanup and redevelopment may have economic benefits. However,
expedited cleanup and redevelopment may come at the community's
expense--environmental, social, economic, and public health harm--given
the environmental unknowns of brownfields and the sensitive populations
living in affected areas.
1.2. Action Steps
Maantay and Maroko (2018) provide recommendations for preventing or
at least minimizing the impacts of environmental gentrification. Above
all, greening efforts and urban sustainability initiatives need to
incorporate social equity goals as a major component of any project.
Government needs to significantly contribute to the effort towards
social equity by instituting and implementing policies that stabilize
communities and prevent rapid gentrification, by means of affordability
protections for residents and businesses; anti-gentrification rental
controls; accommodations within zoning ordinances to prevent new
development inappropriate to the existing context of the neighborhood
and encourage conscious restorations and rehabilitating of existing
older housing stock, and financial incentives for homeowners and
landlords to do so, with built-in protections for existing residents;
mixed use zoning and human-scaled buildings; smaller development
projects at scattered sites rather than large mega-projects; new
housing types geared toward existing populations of families (larger
dwelling units, fewer studios and one bedrooms); limited equity ``co-
operative'' housing; incorporating ``nature'' more seriously into all
urban planning.
Recommendations from Wilson, Mujahid, and Hutson (2008):
Public health, urban planning, and environmental law must
work together to understand how zoning reform can be used to decrease
inequitable development, metropolitan fragmentation, and health
disparities in urban environments.
Following the model of economic development zones,
communities that are overburdened by unhealthy land uses should have
the opportunity to create healthy community zones that place limits on
the number of noxious land uses and pathogenic, health-restricting
facilities.
Region-wide focused organizations such as metropolitan
transportation organizations (MTOs) or association of governments
(e.g., Association of Bay Area Governments) should focus on better
regional governance and coordination of social services, development,
infrastructure, transportation, housing, and protection of open space.
Pass land bank legislation similar to that passed in the
State of Michigan in 1999 that led to the establishment of the Genesee
County Land Bank (GCLB) to stabilize neighborhoods and revitalize the
City of Flint and surrounding areas.
Development of Environmental Preservation Districts
(EPDs) that would be modeled on historic districts created through the
Federal Historic Preservation Act. These districts will help empower
communities to have more control of land use, zoning and planning
initiatives in the Environmental Preservation Districts.
Green planning and zoning should be implemented in
underserved urban neighborhoods. There are many examples of green
zoning and planning initiatives in places like Boulder, Chicago,
Portland, and Seattle to name a few. The greening process should go
beyond buildings and include open space, public transit, and support of
urban agriculture and farmers' markets, and green jobs.
Smart growth and new urbanism for all, not just
advantaged populations. Social justice and equity have to be at the
core of all ``smart growth'' and ``new urbanism'' projects.
Cities should expand the use of conditional use permits
(CUPs) as the foundation for local ``healthy zoning'' initiatives
(e.g., Los Angeles' use of CUPs to control alcohol outlets).
Resources
supporting-ej-through-brownfields-10-13-21-508-compliant.pdf (epa.gov)
[https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-10/supporting-
ej-through-brownfields-10-13-21-508-compliant.pdf]
Uncovering the historic environmental hazards of urban brownfields /
SpringerLink
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1093/jurban/79.4.464]
How Planning and Zoning Contribute to Inequitable Development,
Neighborhood Health, and Environmental Injustice (liebertpub.com)
[https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/
env.2008.0506?casa_token=
c30SiJVTEGIAAAAA:-ZrnxRKkmM7_p0hREPihlp97yNX3iF855NCnm8BkQ4_
1cKA1aBFAguJYMkODuLR931VbcJBjbRGIPg]
Superfund Remediation and Redevelopment for Environmental Justice
Communities May 2021 Report (epa.gov)
[https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-06/documents/
superfund_
remediation_and_redevelopment_for_environmental_justice_
communities_may_2021_report.pdf]
IJERPH / Free Full-Text / Brownfields to Greenfields: Environmental
Justice Versus Environmental Gentrification (mdpi.com)
[https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2233]
Proximity of Urban Farms to Hazards With and Without Heavy Metal
Contamination in Baltimore, Maryland / Environmental Justice
(liebertpub.com)
[https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/
env.2020.0036?casa_token=p4DK
36NqVecAAAAA:GpPJZazg1aOUhYbo-sV-gP2dA2EDbx9KQQ2ssi50qf37
LjYkpn9ab6iYNNM5Fqozl5qC-Qtmc8mofA]
Proximity of Urban Farms to Contaminated Sites in Baltimore, Maryland
(uwpress.org)
[http://lj.uwpress.org/content/40/1/
17.short?casa_token=iQaqxyI_CegAA
AAA:Imzxk9Fg85NLHbVKt7O0gFi84bavOdNgcQaV_dCU85FVBwcp
Rghd7stqRkpx5U8zg3-otdmb]
Combating Environmental Injustice: Environmental Benefit Districts
(EBDs) as a Solution to Create Just, Equitable, and Sustainable
Communities / by CEEJH Center / Medium
[https://ceejh.medium.com/combating-environmental-injustice-
environmental-benefit-districts-ebds-as-a-solution-to-create-
a90b400cb886]
Going green together? Brownfield remediation and environmental justice
/ SpringerLink
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11077-012-9155-9]
luskin-justice40-final-web-1.pdf (ucla.edu)
[https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/
luskin-justice40-final-web-1.pdf]
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you for your testimony, Dr. Wilson.
I would be interested to know if you have made studies after
remediation, how that has changed the tone of the community.
Mr. Shabazz, you may proceed.
Mr. Shabazz. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member Rouzer,
Committee Chair DeFazio, all the committee members, fellow
panelists. Thank you for this opportunity to present today, and
it is my pleasure.
My name is Jerome Shabazz. I am the founder and executive
director of JASTECH Development Services, Inc., a not-for-
profit organization in Philadelphia, and the Overbrook
Environmental Education Center. I am also privileged to serve
on the EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council,
as with Dr. Wilson; the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection's Citizen Advisory Council;
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's
Environmental Justice Advisory Board; and the municipal
Environmental Justice Advisory Commission here, in
Philadelphia.
The purpose of my testimony today is twofold: one, to share
with this committee some of my organization's success with
collaborative community partnerships that improved
infrastructure and health at the neighborhood level; and two,
the ideas of what is needed to promote an equitable and
sustainable system for continued infrastructure and economic
improvement, particularly in the most vulnerable communities of
our Nation.
Since our organization's founding in 1997, our mission was
clear: to promote environmental and climate justice, use
environmental resources as a means to improve public health,
establish green career options, and sponsor programs that
promote and conserve the built and natural environments where
our constituents live, work, and play.
In 2002, JASTECH applied for and received technical support
from the EPA to establish the Overbrook Environmental Education
Center. This is a neighborhood-based center that is committed
to removing barriers to public access of information to advance
the quality of life for residents living in urban settings.
Our work was guided by three primary principles of service:
one, environmental stewardship; nonformal education for all
ages; and three, the removal of derogatory impacts in the
community regarding health. We work with a variety of
stakeholders. The community that we work in is roughly 43,172
residents, 95 percent of them African American.
Reporting tells us that this Overbrook neighborhood that we
work ranks 38 out of the 46 neighborhoods in Philadelphia. This
neighborhood has derogatory impacts that can be identified in
the health of our citizens.
The other factors that we are really concerned about in
this community--the University of Pennsylvania's Center of
Excellence in Environmental Toxicology indicated that aging
housing stock, deteriorating infrastructure, and brownfields
also pose an ongoing environmental health hazard for this
Philadelphia community.
The adverse health impacts facing Overbrook and other West
Philadelphia neighborhoods include asthma, lead poisoning, and
chemical exposure from former industrial sites. The asthma rate
in Philadelphia is two to three times higher than any other
county in Pennsylvania. Even the EPA's EJScreen tool for
regional environmental indicators indicate that this particular
community has higher than average percentiles across the city.
One of the primary points that I really wanted to address
is how the aspects of the work that we are doing is not just
impacting environment, but it is impacting people. The
properties that we are working on, in terms of remediation, are
adjacent to 61 residential properties where approximately 183
people coexist with this degradation, blight, and decay, and
they have been doing this for over 50 years.
So, imagine a child that smelled, breathed, and witnessed
blight, and how these conditions shape their perspective on
life and community. Think about the life cycle of that person,
that young person who grew up with their whole world view and
sense of community being associated with trash and blight,
pollution, and debris.
One of the factors that we want to talk about as a
potential solution to all these issues is establishing
community capacity-building centers that can enable us to
process and demonstrate what a multilevel community support
system would look like around brownfields, to go to this idea
from brownfields to greenfields, and to utilize this whole idea
of knowledge building and capacity building and communities to
do so.
It is an important aspect of our work to go beyond just the
physical sense of eliminating properties and also work on the
[inaudible] development of communities' development around this
work, their capacity to apply for resources, their capacity to
apply for grants, their capacity to understand and assess the
issues that are affecting their neighborhoods.
I want to look at this work and talk about brownfields at a
neighborhood level in a way that we are able to access all of
our community members throughout the United States. Thank you.
[Mr. Shabazz's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jerome Shabazz, Founder and Executive Director,
Overbrook Environmental Education Center and JASTECH Development
Services, Inc.
Good morning Chairman (Peter A.) DeFazio, and distinguished members
of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. It is my honor
and pleasure to present testimony at today's Subcommittee on Water
Resources and Environment for ``Promoting Economic and Community
Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in Revitalization and Reuse of
Contaminated Properties.''
My name is Jerome Shabazz, and I am the founder and Executive
Director of JASTECH Development Services, Inc, (JASTECH) and the
Overbrook Environmental Education Center (Overbrook Center). I am also
privileged to serve on the EPA's--National Environmental Justice
Advisory Board, the PA Department of Environmental Protection's--
Citizen's Advisory Council (CAC) and, the PA DEP's Environmental
Justice Advisory Board (EJAB). (JASTECH is an acronym for Juveniles
Active in Science, Technology and Health).
The purpose of my testimony today is two-fold: 1) to share with
this committee some of my organization's success with collaborative
community partnerships that improved infrastructure and health at the
neighborhood-level, and 2) to discuss our ideas on what's needed to
promote an equitable and sustainable system for continued
infrastructure and economic improvement--particularly in our most
vulnerable communities.
Since our organization's founding in 1997, the mission was clear--
promote environment and climate Justice; use environmental resources as
a means to improve public health; establish green career options; and
sponsor programs that protect and conserve the built & natural
environments where our constituents live, work, and play. In 2002,
JASTECH applied for and received technical support from the EPA to help
establish the Overbrook Environmental Education Center (Overbrook
Center). The Overbrook Center is a neighborhood-based center committed
to removing barriers to public access of information to advance the
quality-of-life for residences living in this urban setting. Our work
was guided by three primary areas of service: (1) environmental
stewardship, (2) non-formal environmental education (for all ages), and
(3) the removal of derogatory impacts on community health. We were also
committed to serious collaborative partnerships with government,
academia, non-profits, citizen scientist and others, to secure
resources for the neighborhood and to promote environmentally friendly
behaviors that reduce pollution and contamination of our local
waterways, land, and air.
Our mission began to materialize though public outreach and
education efforts in the Overbrook community--in 2002, we embedded in
the local life-science class at Overbrook High School at 59th and
Lancaster in West Philadelphia. Working with the school's principal
Yvonne Jones, we created project-based learning opportunities for
students to ``learn-by-doing'' and encouraged them to take inventory of
their neighborhood's environmental systems. This helps students to
visualize strategies for the future. We also engaged their parents in
environmental safety and awareness sessions, on topics such as green
stormwater infrastructure (GSI), lead safety awareness and combined
sewer overflows (CSO). Overbrook High school is locally known for its
famous alumni such as, basketball great, Wilt Chamberlain; Actor Will
Smith; and Astronaut Guion ``Guy'' Bluford.
The Overbrook neighborhood has a population of roughly 43,172
people, and its geography is an important part of this commentary--
Overbrook is located in an environmental justice neighborhood in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The City of Philadelphia with a population
of 1.5 million people, produced the Health of Philadelphia
Neighborhoods 2019 report, and ranks the Overbrook area as 38 out of 46
in terms of negative health outcomes in neighborhoods. An estimated 45%
of residents have been diagnosed with hypertension, 43% have adult
obesity, and 18% have diabetes. Hypertension, obesity, and diabetes are
diseases that can be managed and prevented through diet and exercise.
Greater than normal incidence of disease and adverse health conditions
are identified in this community. According to the University of
Pennsylvania's Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology, the
`aging housing stock, deteriorating infrastructure, and brownfields
also pose ongoing environmental health hazards in West Philadelphia
\1\. The adverse health impacts facing Overbrook and other West
Philadelphia neighborhoods include asthma, lead poisoning, and chemical
exposure from former industrial sites. Asthma rates in Philadelphia are
2-3 times higher than other counties in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ http://ceet.upenn.edu/target-communities/target-communities-
west-philadelphia/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Overbrook, 14% of residents have asthma, a rate that is
significantly higher than 11% for Philadelphia. Cancer incidence and
death rates for Pennsylvania are greater than the national averages,
and the rate of cancer incidence among West Philadelphia residents is
5.6%, slightly higher than Philadelphia's average rate of 4.9%. Over
89% of homes in Overbrook were built before 1978, the lead risk
exposure is in the mid-to-high lead levels \2\. In this area data shows
that 4.7-6.8% of all children's blood lead levels (BLL) was higher than
the Center Disease Control (CDC) designated ``reference level'' of > 5
g/dL (Milgram per deciliter). Many of our health challenges are
exacerbated in Overbrook by poor access to fresh food produce,
programming that promotes healthy nutrition and safe open green space
for physical activity.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ http://media.inquirer.com/storage/special_projects/
Philadelphia_lead_risk_map.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even the EPA's EJ Screen tool's, regional environmental indicators
in air quality (PM 2.5), Ozone, NATA Diezel PM, NATA Cancer Risk, NATA
Respiratory HI, Traffic Proximity, Lead Paint Indicator, and Superfund
Proximity are at or above 75 population percentiles for this community.
Overbrook is a disproportionately impacted, low income, high poverty
neighborhood. The median income of $37,768 is lower than Philadelphia's
median income of $43,744. The unemployment rate (before the COVID-19
situation) for Overbrook (16.5%) was over double that for Philadelphia
(7.7%). We expect the rate of unemployment has been strained even more
through the COVID-19 situation. It is worth highlighting that a
significant portion (31%) of the households in Overbrook have limited
digital access which makes it difficult to access resources or search
for employment. Over 26% of Overbrook residents must commute over an
hour to work because of the limited employment opportunities available
locally. All of these health indicators are threats to sensitive
populations and are in many ways reflective of conditions in the
region.
According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, ``2021 State of the City''
report, Philadelphia is one of the ``poorest'' largest cities in the
U.S., with 23.3 percent of our residents living in poverty, we're only
surpassed by Detroit, Michigan with 37.9% of its residents living in
poverty.
Social-economic conditions were not always the communities' problem . .
.
Historically, Overbrook was a vibrant community. In the 1940's, the
Overbrook neighborhood in the West District of Philadelphia was a
bustling industrial and residential community. Situated close to the
Pennsylvania's Railroad's `Main Line' trains, the neighborhood appealed
to middle class families who wanted easy access to Center City
Philadelphia, but did not want to live there. Lancaster Avenue, the
commercial corridor running through the neighborhood, was part of the
Lincoln Highway (Route #30) and is one of Philadelphia's 165 state
highways. This route was the first highway in the country and ran east
to west from New York to San Francisco, passing through Philadelphia.
The transportation options made Overbrook an ideal neighborhood for
housing and commercial developments. Over time, the neighborhood became
more racially diverse as African American families settled in West
Philadelphia (963 acres total) during the Great Migration (1916-1970).
Overbrook is a mixed-use zoned area where residential homes coexist
with aging industrial infrastructure.
However, by the 1970's things started to change as the economy took
a downturn. Textile, metal manufacturing, and electronic production
factories in Philadelphia started to shut down, taking with them much
needed jobs. Unemployment and poverty increased. Those who were able,
moved to the suburbs in search of new employment opportunities. African
American residents were unable to do the same because of discriminatory
housing and employment practices \3\. As factories shut down, stores
closed, and buildings became desolate, the Overbrook neighborhood, like
other neighborhoods in West Philadelphia, saw the rates of poverty and
unemployment increase during this time. There is a 10-block stretch on
Lancaster Avenue which has the largest sector of industrialized zoning
(60%) in West Philadelphia. The neighborhoods have yet to recover from
economic collapse. In the 1980's, Lancaster Avenue was the commercial
corridor address for retail shopping and a grocery store that was a hub
for families in Overbrook and adjoining neighborhoods. The grocery
store (an A&P supermarket) closed down in the 1980s and since then,
there has not been another grocery store serving this community. The
absence of grocery stores in the community has made this area a food
desert where less than 5% of households are within a half mile from
grocery stores. The Overbrook community is to this day battling to
overcome the state of historic and systemic decay--due to bad policies
and in some cases outright racism and injustice that set the stage for
the decay of this community.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/african-american-
migration/
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On top of these historic burdens, COVID-19 ravaged the city in
other ways as well. According to The Pew foundation's--2021 State of
the City report, drug overdose deaths, already historically high, rose
to record levels, with approximately 1,200 Philadelphians dying, up
from 1,150 in 2019. Over 500 homicides were reported for the year, the
most since 1990 and a 40% increase over the already high 2019 numbers.
Experts attributed these trends, seen in varying degrees in other
cities, at least in part to the social disruption and despair that 2020
brought: One factor appears clear, much of the violence the city
reported was concentrated in neighborhoods with high rates of pandemic-
related deaths and job losses. Unemployment more than tripled from 5.9%
in February to 18% in June, averaging 12.2% for the year.
Our discussion today is about 5 points:
Community-level Economics,
Community Redevelopment,
Environmental Justice
Revitalization
The Reuse of Contaminated Properties.
How did we make a difference
Our inspiration came from a student at Overbrook High School--She
asked, ``Mr. Shabazz, why is there so much more trash and decay in my
neighborhood?''--I answered, ``we may have to become the solution that
we seek--If you want to make a difference, we're here to help!''--that
was 16 years ago. With technical support from the EPA 15 years ago and
a 2021 Brownfields Cleanup grant, the Overbrook Center is positioned to
cleanup and repurpose 2 acres of brownfields on the Lancaster Avenue
commercial corridor in West Philadelphia, three blocks from Overbrook
High.
However, the bigger point here is that--these properties are fence-
lined and adjacent to 61 residential properties, where approximately
183 people had to coexist with this degradation, blight, and decay for
over 50 years! Imagine the child who smelled, breathed, and witnessed
this blight--how did these conditions shape their perspective on life
and community? Think of the life cycle of a person, a young person who
grew up with their whole sense of what's normal and acceptable as trash
and noise-pollution, dust, and discarded waste in their back yard. This
is a `Fence-Line' community where only a fence divides neighbors from
the hazard, and their worldview is one that co-exists with--not
manages, pollution and waste.
The two parcels that we're cleaning are located on the 6100 block
of Lancaster Avenue. One parcel is a 1-acre property frontage that runs
along Lancaster Avenue in a mixed-use area. The lot is rectangular and
consists of a vacant building and fenced-in yard. A wooded area exists
within the southwest fence line of the property, and there is a
partially paved area within the lot. There were 3 buildings on the
site: the largest was previously occupied by the A&P supermarket, and
more recently, the Philadelphia Building Supply Company, which operated
a building supply business providing items such as gravel, sand, stone,
concrete, brick, and other building supplies. Our environmental
assessments for this parcel determined the presence of arsenic, lead,
cadmium, chromium, copper, thallium, and vanadium associated with the
building materials. Arsenic and lead were found in a storm gate, iron
and lead in the heating oil tank area, and lead in the wooded area.
Exposure to lead can cause anemia, neuropathy, chronic renal disease,
reproductive impairment, and slow growth or development in children.
Arsenic exposure can cause dermatitis, skin cancer, and lung cancer
\4\. Evaluators have concluded that contaminants represent potential
threats to human health related to the future use of this site.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1274229/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second parcel is commercial real estate in a mixed-use
neighborhood. A vacant single-story garage exists on the property, and
a large concrete slab. The lot was previously a filling station,
motorcycle repair facility, auto repair shop and auto storage facility.
The environmental assessment for this parcel concluded the presence of
semi-volatile organic hydrocarbon-related compounds (SVOCs) in soil
samples. We know that SVOC exposure can cause cancer and reproductive
disorders, nervous system damage, and immune system disruption. Removal
of contaminants is necessary to accommodate an urban farm and
stormwater plan. Expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of the properties
may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous
substance, pollutant, or contaminants. These vacant buildings are an
illustrative example of disinvestment in the community.
Gradual progress is not always cost prohibitive--For less than a
$500,000 investment, JASTECH has leveraged twice those resources to
remove 30 tons of debris, installed a stormwater bioretention system
that collects 70% of its stormwater on-site, installed an orchard and
two high tunnel greenhouses.
The Overbrook section is seven blocks west of the Philadelphia
Federal Opportunity Zone (PFOZ). Philadelphia has 82 of the 8,700
census tracts around the country designated as Opportunity Zones, and
this cleanup project will support the city's Opportunity Zone goals to
encourage dense mixed-use, mixed-income development, enhance the
pedestrian environment on commercial corridors, and create a greater
sense of place. The Overbrook Center's plan to establish an urban farm
and fresh food market, will increase food access in West Philadelphia,
and ultimately improve health outcomes for residents of Overbrook and
the entire West Philadelphia district (including the West Philadelphia
Opportunity Zone). The planned Farm, Center and Market will improve the
pedestrian environment and nurture a positive sense of place for the
community.
Today, our Overbrook Center is primed to expand its services to the
community and support its mission even further through a radical
remediation and redevelopment project using these neighboring
brownfield sites. The US EPA defines a brownfield as a property, where
the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by
the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant,
or contaminant. It is estimated that there are more than 450,000
brownfields in the U.S. These longstanding brownfields in West
Philadelphia, are just a small example of community redevelopment
opportunity to clean-up and reinvest in properties that will increase
local tax bases, facilitate job growth, utilize existing
infrastructure, take development pressures off of undeveloped open
land, and both improve and protect the environment, once remediated.
Our planned improvements will stimulate economic development in
Overbrook, and the Opportunity Zone, through job creation and workforce
development. Workers are needed to staff the urban farm, training
center and fresh-food market. The approach to workforce development
that will be employed, will focus on creating career pathways,
recruiting, and hiring locally, providing training, and coaching to
support professional growth for employees. Residents and businesses in
and around the district will benefit from the economic growth and
workforce development outcomes of this project. The opportunity zone
will benefit from increased customer traffic and an increased tax base
with rising employment.
The Overbrook Center has already leveraged existing resources and
has secured a Master Plan for the site redevelopment. The first phase
of the project called the ``Overbrook Farmacy'', began this past summer
with preliminary Blight Clean-up along Lancaster Avenue. This is an
initiative supported by the Natures Conservancy and the PA Department
of Community and Economic Development. These sites re-imagined by
Viridian Landscape Studio, Meliora Design Engineers, SMP Architects and
Cloud Gehshan Design, will be transformed into ecologically stable and
healthy ``Greenfields''.
The existing building, a former garage, on the second parcel will
be remediated and reused as a workshop for storing farming materials,
processing fresh produce, and conducting training and demonstrations
for the community. To incorporate energy efficiency, the high tunnel-
greenhouse in the urban farm will use a solar-powered generator for
lighting and irrigation pumps. The entire 2-acre campus will be
transformed into a green-space that: increases access to healthy food;
nature-play; multigenerational climate and environmental education;
workforce development and employment--all the while improving
individual and environmental health outcomes for residents of this
Overbook community. Our Philly style ``Green New Deal'', underscores
how much sustainability can inform tangible solutions to issues
plaguing this community and others like it across Philadelphia.
Collective Learning through Demonstration and Mitigation
These brownfields in Overbrook will also become a beacon of what
Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) best practices and intentional
sustainable planning can achieve. The Overbrook Farmacy project will
include the ``Nature Works Building'', that will feature a green roof
garden, creative training space, and will also be home to a ``Climate
Monitoring Lab'' and ``Science Shop'' that will provide opportunities
for involvement in community-based science. Complimenting this, will be
an ``Underground Utility Infrastructure'' interpretive exhibit that
educate on the community's water systems, the Delaware and Schuylkill
River Watersheds, and stormwater inlets that show how litter and non-
point source pollution (NPS) affects our waterways. This is to bring
attention to infrastructure and utilities beneath our feet, that
typically go unrecognized. The building will be encompassed by outdoor
classrooms and green recreational spaces. Each component serves as an
interactive approach to inform environmental issues, while offering
solutions and restoring connections to nature. It's not all just
aesthetics here, the physical site demonstrates what it's like to have
a living, functioning example of what climate mitigation and
environmental justice looks like in your community. Particularly when
it's influenced, by the people . . . for the people.
What's in Store
This Overbrook Farmacy project will expand the Overbrook Center's
physical and organizational capacity to respond to community and
climate needs in a variety of ways: Play + Learn + Grow. Our goal is to
provide the necessary interventions that address the intersectional
issues plaguing the Overbrook community and local environment, using
this sustainability focused ``Third Place'', as a model of sustainable
community design. There are many moving parts to the project that will
come together to address current community needs and the future impacts
that climate change will have on Philadelphia, specifically in
vulnerable communities like Overbrook.
The primary objective of this work is to eliminate contamination
and exposure to environmental harm that this community is regularly
exposed to. The second objective is to redesign this site to function
with a healthy intersectional integrity that compliments Environment +
Public Health + Community. An intentional and critical dynamic of our
work purports that ``by repurposing how the former brownfield sites are
being used, we are essentially, re-purposing the quality of people's
lives.'' In a time where climate anxiety is at an all-time high, using
sustainability to inform solutions to these community issues will prove
to be not just promising but materially effective, an empowering
development for residents of this community to bear witness to its
success.
As part of this multi-acre site, at least 50% will remain open
space. The `nature-play area' will be a sensory rich green space built-
up, in a restored woodland, with native plants, and a playground
integrated into the landscape. It will also act as a `cooling center'
and provide splash grounds for residents to cool off in, during the
summer's increasingly brutal heat. The recreational aspect of our
design pays serious attention to cultivating individual well-being,
behavior, and community health. The Overbrook Center design supports
recreation as re-creation, relaxation, and improved behavior health.
This is especially beneficial for communities like Overbrook. The
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
(2021) suggests that increased access to green spaces and recreation
has the potential to reduce violent crimes and gun violence, two crises
the city has been grappling with. This type of resilience hub has real
potential to be adapted to create similar oasis across our city and
country--community by community. The Overbrook Center understands that
by providing a community with the resources and infrastructure it needs
to empower itself, and improve its public health internally, it
provides the social stability, and opportunity to effect corrosive
intersectional issues for transforming itself.
Cultivating Community Health from the Inside Out
Our learning outcomes in this process, has demonstrated the need
for multi-levels of community support. As we review our internal
process in transforming the Overbrook Community from a community of
``Brownfields'' to ``Greenfields'', we know that there was a tremendous
amount of talent and support that enabled our work to succeed. We've
learned that the concept of knowledge infrastructure touches on a
significant point about the need for environmental knowledge and
``Community Capacity-Building Centers''. One of the concepts that we
are attempting to convey is the importance of creating new forms of
knowledge infrastructure, defined as the networks of people (policy
makers, researchers, industry representatives, community members,
community leaders), who shape how decisions are made about
environmental problems, so that these networks recognize and address
power dynamics across different places and stakeholders. Especially in
the case of regional or global environmental problems, it will be
important to create knowledge infrastructures, that ensure that local
communities don't lose interest or feel disconnected from the
intersectional concerns related to Environment + Public Health +
Community. Building knowledge infrastructures to delineate the values,
relationships, and power dynamics among different actors that produce
knowledge is essential.
One example that comes to mind in the context of brownfields
redevelopment is the question of who has a say in how brownfields are
redeveloped, and who benefits from their redevelopment. For instance,
is the process of brownfield redevelopment based on a comprehensive
neighborhood development plan that is community driven, versus a more
site-by-site initiative led by developer interests (recognizing that
there are many other types of scenarios in between these two as well).
Non-profit and community-based organizations are also very challenged
to participate in planning efforts, even when the planning effort is
directly aligned with the mission and interests of their organization.
Non-profit funding is often very limited, and often depends on grant
funding tied to specific programmatic activities, and reporting metrics
that may not anticipate the specific challenges related to planning
efforts under consideration. Non-profits are often expected to be the
go-to organizations for community input across many local planning
efforts, without being compensated for their expertise or time. In
these cases, there needs to be an Equity Resource Partner, who can
consider longer-term financial support over the life of the project, so
non-profits can officially prioritize the effort among all the other
demands on their staff time. Scope-based support will allow the non-
profit to participate more deeply by taking the time to fully research
the topics, build cross-sector relationships during the process, and
conduct education and capacity building among their constituency.
The Community Capacity-Building Center concept has the ability to
accommodate a range of structure mechanisms that provide equity
supports, enabling community members and non-profits to engage in the
planning and redevelopment process. Communities living near brownfields
or industry centers, can suffer disproportionate environmental and
health impacts from their geography, proximity to transportation, and
related industrial operations. Disproportionate impacts on near-
brownfields, or post-industrial communities are often the result of
long-term policy and land use siting decisions across various levels of
decision-making that placed some communities directly in harms-way.
Without interventions or support, environmental impacts could be
negative by adding to long-term cumulative burdens, or positive by
providing benefits to the community that reduce or mitigate negative
impacts and improve overall quality of life. Many vulnerable
communities, despite being interested and motivated to engage with
their area non-profits are often excluded and challenged to participate
due to lack of resources and capacity to support their effective
engagement.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you very much, Mr. Shabazz. That was
excellent testimony.
Mr. Lopez, you may proceed.
Mr. Lopez. Thank you, Chair Napolitano, for the invitation
to share with you all today.
I am participating in this subcommittee hearing virtually
from the ancestral homelands of the Tongva, Kizh, Gabrieleno,
specifically the community of East Los Angeles.
I also want to acknowledge my grandfather, Ricardo Jesus
Gutierrez, who helped lay the groundwork with the Mothers of
East L.A. Santa Isabel, that makes me qualified to speak before
you today. He passed just a week ago.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak from the perspective
of the experiences of our communities when it comes to the
revitalization and reuse of contaminated lands, with a focus on
threats, opportunities, and the importance of engaging
communities.
My name is mark! Lopez, and I am a member of East Yard
Communities for Environmental Justice. I also currently serve
as the Eastside community organizer and special projects
coordinator.
East Yard is a movement based in the communities of the
Eastside, Southeast Los Angeles, Long Beach, and surrounding
communities. We focus on building well-informed and well-
equipped self-advocates for the self-determination of our
communities. We recognize that many of the harms our
communities have historically faced and continue to deal with
are because of the planning of public agencies and private
entities without our consent or involvement, intentionally and
unintentionally.
It is important to understand that toxic cleanup can
actually reproduce harm. Federal investment in the cleanup of
contaminated sites isn't the end of the story for our
communities. While this type of reinvestment has the potential
to boost economic opportunity and community cohesion, it can
also just reopen real estate for the development of new toxic
facilities. Seaport and inland port communities across the
country are especially vulnerable, given the takeover of our
communities by large-scale warehousing.
Job-dense career hubs have been transformed into indoor
parking lots, with low-wage temporary work, driving up real
estate costs, while robbing our communities of economic
opportunity, and contaminating us with thousands of toxic truck
trips a day. In some cases, we have even had to fight off
``lowest hanging fruit'' projects that threaten to
recontaminate cleaned up sites, in order to ensure the
development of community assets are prioritized.
In some cases, cleaning up contaminated sites can lead to
whole new problems. High amounts of public investment without
community protections can result in the displacement of
existing communities, both residents and the local businesses
they sustain. Private investment typically follows public
investment to exploit the revitalization intended for existing
communities, but instead only prioritizes profit at the cost of
community cohesion. This is why many have called for ``better
neighborhoods, same neighbors.''
Through the Lower L.A. River Revitalization Plan, a 21-mile
stretch of communities riddled with contaminated sites
identified by U.S. EPA region 9, we have been able to develop
the Community Stabilization Toolkit, which includes community
benefits agreements, inclusionary housing policies, locally
owned business support, no-net-loss housing policies, rent
control ordinances, community land trusts, and workforce
development.
Federal funding requirements can make these community
stability programs and policies a requirement for funding, or,
at the very least, include them in scoring criteria for funding
applications in order to contribute to community stability,
instead of threatening it.
And to drill down on local targeted hire and workforce
development, we cannot underestimate the value of people
cleaning up contaminated sites in their own neighborhoods. For
one, this is a direct monetary investment in the community
through targeted hire of local residents who are impacted by
toxic contamination, as well as an investment in the economic
future of communities through workforce development.
There is an opportunity here to utilize the historical
harms in communities to generate careers for those most
impacted and infuse dollars directly into communities
immediately. This is what we have seen with the Exide cleanup
in my community. Not only has the State's Workforce for
Environmental Restoration in Communities program trained and
certified community members to, literally, remove poison from
our communities, shovel by shovel, but these workers have taken
extra responsibility to call out the behavior of bad actors
amongst contractors, who seek to cut corners to maximize
profit, or operate with a culture of racism, sexism, and sexual
harassment.
And all of this is possible through community partnership.
Local jurisdictions have limited capacity and authority. The
rail yards between Exide and our homes remain contaminated
beyond the reach of the State agency because of Federal
jurisdiction, which means, every time the wind blows, our
community is threatened.
We also face limited vision and followthrough of local
jurisdictions because of turnover of staff and elected
officials. Meanwhile, the memory of our communities allows us
to look into the past before freeways cut up and displaced our
communities, railroads changed the character of our
neighborhoods, and toxic facilities poisoned generations of our
families. We have had to build up and defend our communities,
fill gaps, and build bridges between agencies, because we are
committed to fighting for life. Thank you.
[Mr. Lopez's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of mark! Lopez, Eastside Community Organizer and
Special Projects Coordinator, East Yard Communities for Environmental
Justice
Thank you Chair Napolitano for the invitation to share with you all
today. I am participating in this Subcommittee hearing virtually from
the ancestral homelands of the Tongva, Kizh, Gabrieleno, specifically
the community of East Los Angeles. I also want to acknowledge my
grandfather, Ricardo Jesus Gutierrez, who helped lay the groundwork
with the Mothers of East LA Santa Isabel, that makes me qualified to
speak before you today. He passed a week ago. I appreciate the
opportunity to speak from the perspective of the experiences of our
communities when it comes to the revitalization and reuse of
contaminated lands with a focus on threats, opportunities and the
importance of engaging communities.
My name is mark! Lopez and I am a member of East Yard Communities
for Environmental Justice. I also currently serve as the Eastside
Community Organizer and Special Projects Coordinator. East Yard is a
movement based in the communities of the Eastside, Southeast Los
Angeles, Long Beach and surrounding communities. We focus on building
well informed and well-equipped self-advocates for the self
determination of our communities. We recognize that many of the harms
our communities have historically faced and continue to deal with are
because of the planning of public agencies and private entities without
our consent or involvement, intentionally and unintentionally.
Toxic Cleanup Reproducing Harm?
Federal investment in the cleanup of contaminated sites isn't the
end of the story for our communities. While this type of reinvestment
has the potential to boost economic opportunity and community cohesion,
it can also just reopen real estate for the development of new toxic
facilities.
In sea port and inland port communities across the country we have
witnessed over the last decade as warehouses occupy large areas of
commercial and industrial zoned property. What were once job dense
career employment hubs have transformed into what are essentially
indoor parking lots with low rates of labor for the area they occupy,
and typically provide low wage temporary jobs. These types of
developments rob our communities of economic opportunity, and on top of
that subject us to tens of thousands of toxic truck trips daily,
concentrating truck emissions in our communities and in our lungs.
In some cases, when public dollars are used to clean up toxic sites
but there is a lack of public agency follow through, our communities
are threatened with losing a potential community asset in favor of the
``lowest hanging fruit,'' which is typically not in the interest of
community health and well-being. In one instance in the City of
Maywood, after over a decade of cleanup and groundwater monitoring to
ensure the threat of toxic exposure was appropriately addressed, the
community was shocked to find that what was intended to become public
park land in one of the most park poor areas of Los Angeles County was
instead going to become a private parking lot for a business down the
street. After millions of dollars of public investment, the plan was
now to lay down blacktop asphalt and subject the newly cleaned up site
to leaking motor vehicle fluids that would threaten to recontaminate
the land. It required community intervention to pause the development
and return to the original plan, which now includes grass fields,
trees, benches, gazebos and BBQ grills adjacent to the LA River.
With federal dollars going to clean up contaminated sites, we must
ask, what is the purpose? To reduce harm? To prevent further harm? To
address historical harm? For our communities, if a new development
isn't providing a solution to an existing problem it is most likely
contributing to an existing problem.
Community Stability
In some cases, cleaning up contaminated sites can lead to whole new
problems. High amounts of public investment without community
protections can result in the displacement of existing communities,
both residents and the local businesses they sustain. Private
investment typically follows public investment to exploit the
revitalization intended for existing communities, but instead only
prioritize profit at the cost of community cohesion. This is why many
have called for ``better neighborhoods, same neighbors.''
Through the Lower LA River Revitalization Plan, initiated by
California State Bill 530, over a dozen jurisdictions and community
members met for two years to create a vision for the redevelopment of
the last 21 miles of the LA River. This is an area plagued with
economic divestment and legacies of industrial contamination, as was
studied through the US EPA Region 9's Targeted Brownfields Assessment
of the I-710 corridor which parallels the Lower LA River.\1\ In the
Lower LA River Revitalization Plan we recognized the threat to
community stability that future investment can cause. Because of this,
we identified multiple policies and programs that will help contribute
to community stability ahead of the redevelopment. The Community
Stabilization Toolkit \2\ includes:
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\1\ https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/region9/waste/ust/
710corridor/index.html
\2\ https://lowerlariver.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Community-
Stabilization-Toolkit.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Community benefits agreements
Inclusionary housing policies
Locally owned business support
No net loss housing policies
Rent control ordinances
Community land trusts
Workforce development
With federal funding, there is an opportunity to ensure some of
these community stabilization tools are requirements, and others where
the scoring criteria for funding applications can award points to
applicants where these programs and policies are in effect or will be
activated in the future development of contaminated sites cleaned up
with federal dollars. In this way, cleaning up contaminated sites can
contribute to community stability, instead of threatening it.
Local/Targeted Hire and Workforce Development
We cannot underestimate the value of people cleaning up
contaminated sites in their own neighborhoods. For one, this is a
direct monetary investment in the community through targeted hire of
local residents who are impacted by the toxic contamination, as well as
an investment in the economic future of communities through workforce
development. There is an opportunity here to utilize the historical
harms in communities to generate careers for those most impacted and
infuse dollars directly into the communities immediately.
Here in my community, this is what we pushed for, contributed to
and have witnessed with the Exide lead smelter clean up. The Exide
plant in Vernon contaminated over 10,000 residential properties in East
LA and Southeast LA. The cleanup will exceed $1 billion, and along with
lead being removed from the soil at our homes, we are seeing our own
neighbors do the work with pride and joy. The California Department of
Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) developed the Workforce for
Environmental Restoration in Communities (WERC) program.\3\ This
workforce development program has trained and certified impacted
community members who are now in the field 5 or 6 days a week literally
removing poison from our communities shovel by shovel. Residents
cleaning up their own neighborhoods carry a special sense of
responsibility to do the job and do it right. This is has helped with
holding contractors accountable who have attempted to cut corners to
maximize profits. Local cleanup workers have also contributed to
addressing the hostility of racism and sexism prevalent in construction
culture. It isn't perfect, but this is where the importance of
community partnership also plays a role.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ https://dtsc.ca.gov/workforce-for-environmental-restoration-in-
communities-werc/
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Community Partnership
Often when cleaning up contaminated sites, it will be the case that
communities have been aware of the site, studied the impacts of the
site, raised the visibility of the site, and even advocated for the
cleanup. Even if this isn't the case, it is essential to develop
partnerships with communities. In my experience, local jurisdictions
have limited capacity, being under resourced and under staffed. Local
jurisdictions also tend to experience more turnover of staff and
elected officials. Local jurisdictions often have limited power, as is
the example with Exide, where over 3,000 homes have already been
cleaned up, but the two giant railyards between the Exide site and our
neighborhoods have yet to be tested because they fall under federal
jurisdiction. This means every time the wind blows we fear toxic Exide
dust deposited on the rail yards is blowing in our front doors.
Regardless, community groups tend to have a longer-term vision and
longer-term commitment than a local jurisdiction could possibly have.
For the Exide site for example, I was the third generation in my family
fighting for the facility to close, and I know my daughters will have
to carry the responsibility to ensure the full cleanup of our
communities. Our communities can look back to the time before the
freeways displaced our homes and cut up our neighborhoods, before the
railyards transformed the character of our communities, and before the
toxic facilities poisoned us. This means our communities can look into
the future, when these problems no longer exist. Our communities don't
exist in a vacuum or in silos in the ways many public agencies do,
which means we are often building bridges and making connections
between public agencies to fill gaps and maximize impact. We are here
for the long run and look to federal cleanup dollar to address
historical harm without creating future harm. You can count on us
because we are FIGHTING FOR LIFE!
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Lopez, for your insightful
testimony. And our condolences to you for your loss of your
grandfather.
And Mr. Goldstein, I also share condolences on your recent
loss of a family member.
Now we will move on to Member questions. Each Member will
be recognized for 5 minutes. If there are additional questions,
we may--not sure--have additional rounds, as necessary. I
recognize Mr. Rouzer.
I will let you go before me.
Mr. Rouzer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Bodine, let me start with you. So, what balance between
Federal, State, and local government roles do you see as being
most effective in the redevelopment of brownfields or other
contaminated sites?
And along those lines, what can State and local governments
do that the Federal Government may not be so well equipped to
do?
Ms. Bodine. Thank you, Congressman Rouzer, for that
question.
When we are talking about the Brownfields Program, as I
pointed out earlier, you are talking about sites that are not
the national priority sites, and so they are being cleaned up
under State programs. The cleanup standards are under State
programs. And, as is always true, the local governments control
land use, they control what the redevelopment is.
EPA's role is to provide seed money. And, you know, the
statistics that Chair DeFazio quoted are incredibly impressive
about how successful that seed money has been, and then
encouraging private investment.
And I have to say Dr. Wilson cited some very impressive
statistics that came from an EPA summary from September of this
year that points out that EPA's Brownfields Program which--
Mayor Vinis lauded the staff, and I would echo that, the staff
there are fantastic--they are already directing the grants to
areas with high poverty rates, high minority populations, low
per-capita income. So, the statistics that he cited were the
ones where EPA funded communities. So, you see that direction,
because that is, as part of the grant guidelines, which
Congress sets, the grant criteria. Those are all
considerations.
What is important is for EPA to provide the tools, like the
job training tools that Mr. Lopez talked about, and the
community participation tools that I talked about with the
various community assistance grants that are provided. But EPA
doesn't make the decisions. They provide all of these tools in
the brownfields arena, and then it lets the local governments
make the decisions, it lets the private investors come in.
Mr. Rouzer. In talking about grants, kind of along those
lines, but a different form, tax credits in the Jobs Act, I am
thinking about the tax reform from a couple of years ago,
Senator Tim Scott had legislation that was included in that,
basically, tax credits for opportunity zones for those who
invested in very low, economically distressed areas.
Has there been any overlap or are tax credits a good
leveraging tool, as well as grants, for private investment?
I was just curious about your thoughts on that.
Ms. Bodine. Yes, there has been some--EPA has reported some
very high successes of, essentially, marrying up the brownfield
grants, and having them in areas where there are also the
opportunity zone tax credits, which are, of course, based on
low income, and that has been extremely effective, as EPA
reported, I think, in their end-of-year report last year, that
marrying up those two programs together has resulted in very
high investment.
Mr. Rouzer. Good to know.
Mr. Shabazz, based on your experiences in your respective
communities, how can investors be better incentivized to go
into lower income and other underserved communities and invest
in those areas? We have touched on that a little bit, but I
want to get your thoughts.
Mr. Shabazz. Well, we talked a little bit about the tax
credits. We always see these opportunity zone experiences that
incentivize developers to come into the process. But I think
what we are looking for is, from a community base, is a more
collaborative experience, where an investor would embody
themselves within a community in such a way that it is not just
a one-and-done experience. I think there needs to be some kind
of incentive, fiscal incentives, where infrastructure within
neighborhoods at a neighborhood level is realized by way of the
investment.
So, our objective is to create these collaborative
partnerships, where there is a fiscal agent that is
incentivized to participate within the process at a
brownfields, but doesn't necessarily walk away from the
experience, but allows an infrastructural experience to stay
behind, so that the communities can continue to grow, grow
their own capacity. I think capacity building is a major part
of that experience.
Mr. Rouzer. My time is expired, Madam Chair, or about to in
6 seconds, so I yield back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Rouzer, and I have a
question for all witnesses.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law appropriated $1.5
billion, so that should take care of some of the needs of most
of the areas that need contamination remediation, although it
is not enough, as my colleague and I were talking. We will
always ask for more, because there are so many areas that need
cleanup. But will it help address the backlog of critical
assessment, and cleanup work, and speed up protecting human
health and the environment?
But how can we assure that the remediated properties are
helpful, beneficial to the community and minorities, and don't
create gentrification?
Anybody.
Ms. Vinis. I am happy to jump in. To begin with, I think we
definitely have a list of projects that we would continue to
invest in with this additional money, so it does help us move
forward on our plans.
We have, as many cities do--well, what we have is a former
State highway that has become part of the city now, but it is
an uncomfortable mix of industrial and residential. It has a
brownfield. It could use investments, so we use it in that way.
We have also in our brownfields work in the developments
that I cited--I cited two of them--our city council, by policy,
established sites for affordable housing. So, we are focusing
on using these development opportunities to help get ahead a
little bit of our housing crunch, and particularly providing
more affordable housing for our community.
And one of those sites was--we are redeveloping for a
farmers market--we are in an agricultural breadbasket. It is
really important that we support our local farmers with a year-
round market. So, we have been very directed, and I think that
is the value of having these partnerships, where EPA provides
these funds. But, as Susan Bodine has pointed out, we have the
capacity locally to create those zoning requirements and those
policy directives to ensure that----
Mrs. Napolitano. That is when you have a great city
council.
Ms. Vinis. We do have a great city council.
Mrs. Napolitano. Anybody else?
Mr. Wilson. Can I chime in? Yes, really important points
there.
So, I think, when we look at bringing in--I think public
health and equity have to be really kind of key tenets that we
follow in doing this work.
And so, there is this whole issue of the food, energy,
water nexus, and what I mean by that is, how do we build an
infrastructure to move from unjust infrastructure to a just
infrastructure?
We talked about affordable housing, right? We have issues
in many of our communities because--you think about the
brownfields, and the builtscape, impervious surfaces. We think
about the issue of climate change. It is an issue of heat
islands, plus the issue of runoff, stormwater runoff. Bringing
in systems where we are actually using the brownfields and
other hardscape to create new community ecosystems, where you
provide greater access to food and housing, reduce the urban
heat island issue, which would reduce heat morbidity and heat
mortality for many of our cities, and also, you deal with the
stormwater issue. I think you have to have a combination of
looking at these kinds of urban sustainability initiatives.
And then zoning really matters. Zoning matters. California
passed SB 1000 a few years back to make sure that environmental
justice principles were in the comprehensive plans. We have to
have some better engagement with our local authorities around
zoning and put in green zoning. And really, a big part of this
work, when we do all this investment in communities, if we are
not addressing expulsion, if we are not addressing green
gentrification, we are not doing our job. And that is a huge
part of the work that we have to think about in the planning
process.
As Jerome said, that is why we have to have more meaningful
involvement and engagement, and authenticate other
communities----
Mrs. Napolitano. But you have got to educate the
communities first----
Mr. Wilson. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano [continuing]. To be involved, and how to
get involved, and that is something that we don't do.
Mr. Wilson. Exactly. I will pass the mic, but the community
engagement part is really important, to make sure you have
antigentrification in the beginning of the process. And it
can't be at the back. It has to be at the front end. Thank you.
Mr. Goldstein. Madam Chair, this is Michael Goldstein.
First of all, I would like to endorse and affirm the comments
made by the mayor and by Dr. Wilson. They are right on point.
I would like to offer a friendly amendment in this regard.
The overriding concern, the abiding concern that we always have
in the brownfields context with expulsion, with gentrification
can be addressed, or can start to be addressed through the
doubling down of the brownfields lifeblood, which is funneling
limited public-sector economic incentives to the private
sector.
In State of Florida, the State puts its thumb on the scale
for affordable housing by providing an increased corporate
income sales tax credit tied to cleanup, as well as a sales tax
refund in construction materials for affordable housing.
So, what I would suggest is that this subcommittee consider
taking a look at the existing financial incentives, and new
financial incentives, such as, perhaps, a Federal brownfields
loan guarantee program, enhanced opportunity zone incentives,
enhanced affordable housing, low-income housing tax credit
incentives, as I suggested in my testimony, and tying those new
incentives and enhanced existing incentives to a greater sense
of responsibility and equity----
Mrs. Napolitano. Mr. Goldstein, my time is up.
Mr. Goldstein [continuing]. By developers.
Mrs. Napolitano. Would you mind very much submitting it to
the committee?
Mr. Goldstein. I am sorry?
Mrs. Napolitano. Would you mind submitting that suggestion
to the committee?
Mr. Goldstein. Absolutely.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Goldstein. And, Madam Chair, if I may, in the last 30
seconds, specifically tying these enhanced incentives and new
incentives to, as Dr. Wilson pointed out and the mayor pointed
out, an increase in affordable housing, perhaps also in
microlending, in job workshops, in preservation of cultural
resources in the U.S.----
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Goldstein [continuing]. And the creation--and--thank
you, ma'am.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you very much. I am sorry, but my
time ran way over.
Mr. Mast, you are on, please.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Chairwoman, I appreciate it. And I
want to speak directly to Ms. Bodine.
It is good to see you again. I know we had the opportunity
to speak recently, and I just was amazed with your depth of
knowledge about a host of issues, given your background in the
work that you have done. It raised, as I was preparing for this
hearing, several questions about the Superfund Program and
brownfields, and how they could relate to an environmental
issue in the State of Florida.
And as many on this committee have heard me deal with
constantly, I know that you have done a lot of work on
Everglades restoration and Lake Okeechobee during your time
working in Congress. And, as you are aware, Lake Okeechobee is
an ecological disaster. Its water is too toxic to be sent into
the Everglades. We know that there are tons and tons, layers of
muck and fertilizer that are just sitting on the bottom of Lake
Okeechobee and its canals out of there. These nutrients, they
fuel, very literally, toxic algal blooms that are extremely
toxic.
And then you layer on top of those layers of fertilizer and
toxic algal blooms another issue, and that is--let's take
Roundup as one of the largest lawsuits in history, in our
country, the Roundup lawsuit, and, literally, tens of thousands
of gallons of glyphosate, or Roundup, are sprayed year after
year after year into these waterways of Lake Okeechobee.
And so, it is in that I want to say, what are the criteria
for chemicals and hazardous substances being put on the EPA's
list of hundreds of chemicals?
And where do you see those issues with Lake Okeechobee
playing into this?
Ms. Bodine. Thank you, Congressman. You are asking me a
FIFRA question, which, obviously, regulates pesticide products.
There has been a lot of back-and-forth, I think, on glyphosate,
and I am not necessarily up to speed on exactly where that is,
where the registration of that is.
But as you were speaking, I was thinking about something
that hadn't ever occurred to me before, which is, is there an
overlay between the issues with Lake Okeechobee and, of course,
with the Northern Estuaries, and is there an opportunity with,
perhaps the Brownfields Program, to lend assistance to that?
And that is something I would have to think about and get
back to you for the record. But there may be, because, of
course, those are hazardous substances, they are released, they
are causing environmental exposures and contamination. And so,
based on that, I would think that, yes, that would be eligible.
And certainly, as I pointed out in my testimony, those
programs provide an enormous number of tools to local
governments, as well as to local community groups, to
participate in processes and to understand. So, the technical
assistance and technical expertise that they provide can be
huge assets, as well, to help people engage with the agencies
on a suite of issues.
So, I would ask that I get back to you for the record on
the more substantive response.
Mr. Mast. Yes, I know you will. Obviously, you have not
been bashful about speaking to folks, which is greatly
appreciated. And so, in that, I think it is an interesting way
to frame this conversation, when you consider the Corps of
Engineers releasing toxic waters over 100 times greater than
what the EPA said is too toxic for humans to come in contact
with, essentially doubling down on creating a new brownfield
year after year after year, a new Superfund site, year after
year after year. And so, in that I would appreciate anything
further you have on that.
For any of our other witnesses here, there is still a
minute remaining of my time. If you have a comment, I am
certainly happy to hear it, and I will give--if anybody wants
to pipe in.
And if not, I will yield back at that point. Are there any
other comments on this?
I will take that as a no and, Madam Chair, I will yield my
time back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Mast, for your comments.
And Ms. Johnson of Texas, you may proceed.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And
thank you also to the ranking member for holding today's
hearing on the efforts to address brownfields and other
contaminated properties.
I would like to begin by giving a big shout out to
recognize our chair, Mr. Peter DeFazio, whom I have had the
honor to work with throughout my 30 years in Congress on this
committee, and his leadership has been tremendous, and we wish
him well with the future. I look forward to working with him
another year.
In my congressional district in Dallas, I worked diligently
to obtain funding for a brownfield redevelopment project known
as Victory Park in the downtown area. It was transformed from
the Brownfields Program from an industrial wasteland populated
by an old paint factory in a meatpacking area, and now is a
multibillion-dollar, mixed-use development that offers retail
shops, restaurants, office space, residential units, hotels,
and entertainment venues, including the American Airlines
Center, which is the home of the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas
Stars.
Victory Park, which serves today as a national model, is a
perfect example of a successful brownfields project, where a
decaying area has been converted into a vibrant economic and
cultural center that produces employment and productivity in
this depressed area.
So, I would like to ask all of the witnesses, what do each
of you believe is the number-one action item this committee and
the Congress can do to replicate successful brownfield projects
like the Victory Park in cities across the Nation?
Mr. Wilson. I will jump in really quick, just to respond
really quickly. I think there are opportunities to work, I
think, through the National Association of Mayors, and then
potentially the National Black Mayors Association, to engage
with them to see how we can take that model that you just
talked about--I looked it up online--and basically, have direct
investments into those brownfields. So, we can prioritize
brownfields in those cities, work with the mayors. Mayors can
work with the State agencies and State governments to replicate
what is done.
I will add another example to what you said. Harold
Mitchell's work with ReGenesis in Spartanburg is another
example of a community with brownfields and Superfund sites.
They now have $300 million of investments with affordable
housing, green housing, health centers, job development.
So, I think, working through the mayors association, I
think, is probably the first place to start, to make sure that
they understand these resources are available through the
infrastructure, Build Back Better, Justice40, and have a suite
of funding that can go into those communities to replicate a
Victory Park.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Well, thank you.
Mayor Vinis, do you have any comment?
Ms. Vinis. I second Dr. Wilson's comments. I think he is
exactly right, reaching out to mayors.
I will also say I am new to the EPA's Local Government
Advisory Committee, and that is a very effective committee for
reaching directly to cities, and hearing what we need in order
to implement in sharing those models. So that system already
exists, and we can make the best use of it we can.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Yes.
Ms. Bodine. If I might make a suggestion, Congresswoman, so
we have heard, both from Dr. Wilson, and from Mr. Goldstein,
and from the mayor about success stories and the tools that the
local government employed to achieve those successes. So not
all of those are within the purview of Congress.
But the committee could take on the gathering of that
information. What tools have been deployed at these various
areas, including Victory Park, that led to the success? And
then share that information, not only with the U.S. Conference
of Mayors, but also with the Local Government Advisory
Committee, as saying, ``There are some great tools out there
that you control, and here are some suggestions.''
Mr. Shabazz. Madam Congresswoman, I would like to add also,
in addition to supporting everything that Dr. Wilson mentioned,
that the regional offices of the EPA can do a better job of
formulating more extensive goals and objectives when working
with local communities.
The same way we have the Federal FACAs, there needs to be
regional goals and objectives for collaborating and fulfilling
the mission and objectives of communities. They have more
regional-based relationships, and I think they should be more
active, and held more accountable to fulfilling the overall
goals of the Agency.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Well, thank you very much. My time
has expired.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
Mr. LaMalfa, you may proceed.
Mr. LaMalfa. Thank you, Madam Chair.
For Ms. Bodine, a couple of thoughts here. And so, when we
are talking about brownfields and Superfund revitalization, et
cetera--and we have heard several comments during the testimony
here on local involvement--why is that key?
What issues do you run into if you don't have local
involvement, and it is done by outsiders?
And what would be the best way to improve that situation,
so that you are getting that local input?
Certainly, me, being from a rural area, we find a lot of
situations, whether it is fire suppression, or cleanup, et
cetera, a lot more local input would be, I think, seemingly
helpful.
Please emphasize your thoughts on that.
Ms. Bodine. Sure. Thank you, Congressman.
I agree completely that local involvement is incredibly
important. It helps protect human health and environment,
because you understand the exposures. And that is why it is
also tremendously important in the Superfund Program. You are
selecting the remedies in Superfund. EPA does that.
But in the brownfields arena, it is tremendously important,
as well. And it is one of the criteria that EPA uses to decide
where to give the grants. And that is the extent to which the
grant applicant is ensuring that there is local involvement in
both the reuse decisions and the cleanup decisions.
And so, I mean, there is a recognition, of course----
Mr. LaMalfa. Well, does it help shape the direction of what
is going to go back in there?
Let's say now--I guess that is what I am drilling down to,
is the locals probably maybe aren't worried so much about
exactly how the cleanup is done, other than it gets done, but
maybe it has to do with what is going to go in there.
Like in my area, you have mining, you have timber, wood
mills, and you have areas that may be treated timber and
treated lumber into different finished products, and had some
brownfield experience because of that.
So, is the local input--need bigger sway on what is going
to go back in there?
We have heard a lot of ideas about----
Ms. Bodine. I can----
Mr. LaMalfa [continuing]. What needs to happen in these
areas, what--please.
Ms. Bodine. Sure.
Mr. LaMalfa. What would that look like in a rural aspect?
Ms. Bodine. What EPA can do, and has authority to do, and
is within the purview of this committee's jurisdiction, is to
provide the tools for that involvement.
What EPA cannot do is control land use. That is not a
Federal function, that is not an authority under any of these
statutes. EPA doesn't control land use.
But providing that local involvement, the ability for the
local communities to participate, is key, so that their voices
are heard. But EPA can't come in and swoop down and say, ``This
is what you are going to do with your land.''
Mr. LaMalfa. Well, OK, that sounds correct, or what people
would want.
Can you emphasize a little more on the rural angle again--
industries, years ago, did things probably incorrectly, the way
we see them now, but, with this knowledge of how to do things
much more cleanly going forward, whether it is wood treatment,
or just processing timber and lumber, or the type of mining we
are going to need for the materials for more and more
electrification, things like that, what can we be doing better
to take these old sites and make them--not scare everybody to
death that we are going to start operating in the same old way,
but turn these sites back into something modernized, so you can
produce these products, going forward?
Ms. Bodine. Yes. The cleanup needs to be protective, to
your point, and it needs to comply with Federal and State laws.
And that is all a given, whether it is Superfund or
brownfields.
Mr. LaMalfa. Right.
Ms. Bodine. And then, exactly what the activities on the
land are going to be are going to be decided at the local
level. But----
Mr. LaMalfa. Do you find that if you are----
Ms. Bodine [continuing]. As I pointed out earlier----
Mr. LaMalfa. Do you find, if you are reclaiming these old
lands, there might be an easier process to have this industry
where it used to be, whereas, we know it is tough, opening any
kind of new milling facility, or related, in a new area.
Ms. Bodine. Right.
Mr. LaMalfa. Is that a better incentive to revamp the old
ones into a renewed industry?
Ms. Bodine. In fact, that is another criteria for the
brownfields grants, is the extent to which the grant applicant
wants to reuse existing infrastructure. That is the whole
greenfields versus brownfields issue. It is important.
And, as I think one of the witnesses talked about, it helps
with the climate change issues. You are not out there getting
into greenfields, you are reusing what is already there. And so
that is a consideration, as well. These are----
Mr. LaMalfa. OK, real quickly, too--I am sorry on this time
limit here.
Ms. Bodine. Sure.
Mr. LaMalfa. Does that then qualify as gentrification or
expulsion, if you are taking an area that has had little value,
and revaluing it and something, and now that might affect
super-low-rent areas? Is that now turning into a gentrification
issue?
Ms. Bodine. I have read people call that gentrification. I
do think, though, that, when you are talking about bringing
jobs back into a community, that that is a good thing, and that
you are----
Mr. LaMalfa. Yes.
Ms. Bodine. You are increasing the tax base to the
community. That is a good thing.
Mr. LaMalfa. Yes, yes. OK, thank you for that. I am sorry,
these 5 minutes go by so fast. I appreciate it.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. LaMalfa, for your
testimony.
And Mr. Bourdeaux, you are recognized.
Ms. Bourdeaux. Thank you, Chairwoman Napolitano and Ranking
Member Rouzer, for holding today's hearing.
Since coming to Congress, I have advocated for policies
that reinvest in infrastructure and maximize existing programs,
while also being good stewards of Americans' tax dollars.
It is clear from today's testimony that the EPA's Superfund
and Brownfields Program have proven to be very important tools
for localities to revitalize and redevelop their communities.
Studies have shown that shopping malls can be successfully
repurposed and revitalized to become drivers of growth and
revenue in their community, so a slightly different issue, but
one that is very, very important in my community. Earlier this
year, I introduced the Grayfield Redevelopment and Economic
Advancement Through Effective Repurposing, or the GREATER
Revitalization of Shopping Centers Act, which builds on a
proven model of grant subsidies, in conjunction with section
108 loan guarantees to incentivize public and private
investment in abandoned and underutilized shopping malls. So,
while this is not directly about Superfunds or brownfields, the
principle is really quite similar. And the idea is that, by
investing Federal dollars in our communities, the seed money
can drive additional private investment in economic growth and
development.
Along those lines, Mayor Vinis, if you can, speak a bit
about how the Federal investments in your community through the
EPA grants have helped revitalize parts of Eugene, and talk a
bit about some of the different financing tools that are
available to partner and work with the Federal funds in order
to promote this kind of redevelopment.
Ms. Vinis. Thank you so much for that question, and I am
knowledgeable about part of this, and probably not the expert
on other parts of it, so I will answer where I can.
We have used these EPA grants. I gave three examples, and
all three--I mean, this former industrial site that we are
redeveloping that will be a park, and affordable housing,
market-rate housing, and a hotel, and restaurant space, it has
been an industrial site since the late 19th century and hasn't
been redeveloped, really, because of the anxiety of potential
investors.
It has given us an opportunity to actually connect our
downtown to the river for the first time in a way that is
accessible by walking, by biking, and just visually accessible.
It is also enabling us to build a neighborhood next to our
downtown, which is--part of our way of being able to create a
more thriving downtown is to have more people living there, and
shopping there, and, especially as we have come through the
pandemic and seen the impact. So, that is profoundly important.
And I also had mentioned the farmers market, wanting to
support our local farmers being able to sell their products
year-round to create more stability, and they provided valuable
food--again, outdoor market, through the pandemic.
These redevelopments are critically important. And I think,
as we look--and I think those partnerships, this sort of
intersection between what we do in terms of developing unused
and contaminated land, and being able to build affordable
housing, that kind of relationship with HUD, and with HUD
dollars is valuable.
Michael Goldstein's comments about increasing the capacity
to invest in housing is really a key issue for us, in terms of
being able to provide more supports.
I am not the person to answer the question on a lot of
other specific financing tools, so I will defer that to the
people on my city staff, who know what tools they have used,
and how they have been the most effective.
Ms. Bourdeaux. OK, thank you. And I just--yes, when I have
worked in these projects in Georgia, there are tax allocation
districts, or tax increment financing that could be used,
community improvement districts. There are different
partnerships with the local level. So, I am curious about how
these deals are put together.
Just briefly in the remaining time, Mr. Shabazz, can you
talk a little bit about how the Federal investment helped
revitalize your community, as well?
Mr. Shabazz. What is interesting, Representative, is that
the 2018 BUILD Act was implemented in 2019. It was only from
that time that nonprofits were able to actually receive funding
from EPA to do cleanup grants. And so, it hasn't been a long
time that nonprofits have had the ability to seek direct
funding from the EPA, in which--it reflects just a lack of
capacity that many organizations have to do so.
We have been able to benefit and leverage our EPA funding
to attract more statewide funding around infrastructural
development, around community development.
We are fortunate enough to be on a commercial corridor, and
that commercial corridor enables us to attract very specific,
targeted resources that are on the State level, designed to do
redevelopment work, and increase revenue and job opportunities
in the neighborhoods.
The other factor is, too, is that, with WHEJAC, the White
House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, it should be this
interagency approach.
Ms. Bourdeaux. Oh, I am sorry, my time has expired.
Mr. Shabazz. Thank you.
Ms. Bourdeaux. Sorry about that. My time has expired. Thank
you so much for talking about that, and I yield back.
Mrs. Napolitano. That is no problem. Thank you, Ms.
Bordeaux.
Ms. Norton?
[No response.]
Mrs. Napolitano. Ms. Norton?
[No response.]
Mrs. Napolitano. We will go forward to Mr. Stanton.
[No response.]
Mrs. Napolitano. Mr. Lowenthal?
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is for
Mr. Lopez, who, I am proud to say, provides important work to
my community, and in my district, and especially in Long Beach.
I want to reiterate what you have said, and how people who
have been exposed to contaminated sites deserve a clean and
safe environment. But they also deserve to benefit from the
cleanup, to make up for the harms that they have suffered. And
you have touched upon this, Mr. Lopez, in your testimony.
But there are two parts, two things I would like you to--
just to elaborate. Can you elaborate on your Community
Stabilization Toolkit? Let us know a little bit more about that
toolkit.
And the second part of that question is how can we, here in
Washington, work with you to make sure that frontline
communities receive the full benefits of community
redevelopment funds?
So, my first one is talk to us about that more, about the
Community Stabilization Toolkit.
Mr. Lopez. Thank you, Representative Lowenthal. When we
came together for the Lower L.A. River Revitalization Plan, we
are talking about maybe a dozen local jurisdictions, plus an
array of other agency and nonprofit leaders to really envision
a revitalization of this 21-mile stretch and corridor.
And I think, in that process, it really allowed us to
consider multiple perspectives about, essentially, unintended
consequences.
We want to do what is best. And how do we ensure that we do
that without creating gaps for our community members to fall
through, to be excluded from, or be essentially subjected to
displacement.
And so that is where we came up with the toolkit, because
what we found was, there really isn't one silver-bullet
solution to ensuring community stability. We actually need an
array of programs and policies that fit together to create
this, essentially, infrastructure, policywise and
programmatically, to ensure that community members are directly
benefiting, and aren't being harmed in the process.
And what you see here, really, is, as was mentioned before,
something that really--because the land use authority does lie
with the local jurisdiction, I think the opportunity that you
all have at the Federal level is when it comes to funding.
The opportunity to make some of these programs and policies
requirements, or, again, at the very least, part of the scoring
criteria that, essentially, could nudge or encourage local
jurisdictions to activate these policies and programs in order
to be more competitive for Federal funding is the approach that
you all can take.
And I think, as far as engaging local communities, the
reality is a lot of these contaminated sites are things that
communities have been fighting against already.
In many cases, they are brownfields because the former
toxic companies are something that community members were aware
of, that community members were working inside of, and so will
have the best perspectives on what the impacts are, and what
the solutions are.
And I think, whether we are talking about an urban context,
or a rural context, where there may not be as much community
infrastructure, I think when you look at those who are most
directly connected to the issues, you are going to find some of
the most sensible solutions for how to move forward.
And I think that is how you ensure that, because when you
encourage and you support community involvement, you are
supporting a constituency that is going to stay engaged until
beyond the execution of the actual cleanup, and whatever comes
in the future. Folks are invested all the way through.
Mr. Lowenthal. I just have a few seconds left, basically.
And I think you have touched on it, but I just want to make
sure you feel like you have fully answered it.
How do we partner together, the Federal Government and
frontline communities? What is the best way for us? You
mentioned the funding, but what else?
Mr. Lopez. [Audio malfunction] . . . looking to the regions
across the country to identify who is already active, but also
to support communities where, maybe again, there isn't existing
nonprofit infrastructure, in order to ensure that community
members have a voice in this.
And so, sometimes that is looking at communities who maybe
are new to cleanup of environmental sites, but maybe who have a
history and legacy of fighting contaminators in our communities
is where you are going to open up a lane, a new lane for a new
constituency to really infuse energy and innovation into this
area.
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you.
And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Lowenthal. I appreciate
your participation.
Mr. Stanton, you are on. You may proceed.
Mr. Stanton. Madam Chair, thank you very much. Thank you
for holding this important hearing. I want to say thank you to
all of our witnesses today. This has been a very informative
hearing.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law makes historic
investments that will accelerate the pace of Superfund and
brownfield cleanup projects across our country.
In addition, the law waives cost-sharing requirements for
both of these programs, which will help States, Tribal
communities, and localities advance projects without worrying
about having to come to the table with resources, when budgets
are already stretched so thin at the local level.
My State of Arizona has nine Superfund sites on the
National Priorities List, which means the Environmental
Protection Agency has deemed these sites as posing the greatest
threat to public health and to our environment.
Yet one of the challenges I have heard from stakeholders in
my State is the lack of staff at EPA to move these projects
forward. Region 9, which includes Arizona, has had many staff
and highly technical roles retire or depart the Agency for
other opportunities. As a result, the remediation project
managers are now carrying double, sometimes triple the workload
of Superfund sites that they were just a few years ago.
Unfortunately, this is causing delays in the reviews of
technical work and, ultimately, implementation of remedies at
these critical sites.
In order to get these infrastructure investments working as
quickly as possible, it is important that the EPA is fully
staffed at all levels.
In addition, I believe the resources provided under the law
should be prioritized for cleanup of contaminated groundwater
in the Southwest. Groundwater is a critical resource. And as
the mega-drought in the Southwest persists, it is essential
that we focus cleaning up groundwater supplies to help our
communities weather these challenges. Cleaning this groundwater
not only helps us secure our water future, it--and perhaps most
importantly--helps us better protect public health.
So, I have questions for Mayor Vinis.
Mayor Vinis, multipurpose grants under the Brownfields
Program are essential in assisting local governments respond
effectively and quickly to redevelopment needs. The Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law increases the per-grant amount
substantially, up to $10 million. Based upon experiences in
your community, how do you think this change will benefit the
program and the ability of local governments to address
brownfield sites in your communities?
Ms. Vinis. Thank you so much. I guess I could say it very
briefly, and say, ``More is always better.''
[Laughter.]
Ms. Vinis. In our local context, we are looking to have as
much--we do have a backlog. We have sites that we wish to
address. We have multiple goals that we are trying to
accomplish with these brownfields grants, in order to both
create some job opportunities, to create housing that we need,
to create an opportunity for commercial centers, the sites that
we still need to work on, our sites in which we want to see
more retail and commercial action, as well as housing.
So, those multipurpose grants enable us to sort of tie
those together. We are looking at climate goals and clean air
issues also in those neighborhoods. So that, the intersection,
and then of meeting our lower income communities, communities
of color who have been disproportionately impacted and
underserved.
So, that capacity at a local level, to be able to knit all
those goals together with a grant, are incredibly valuable to
us.
Mr. Stanton. That is great. Thank you, Mayor, very much.
Mr. Goldstein, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law waives the
cost-share for grants under the Brownfields Program. From your
perspective, how important is the cost-share waiver for helping
to advance brownfields cleanup, particularly in Tribal and
other underserved communities?
Mr. Goldstein. Well, underserved communities, Congressman,
typically have barriers to accessing any types of capital, any
amounts of capital. So, waiving of the cost-share is super
critical. It is almost existential for not-for-profits, and for
rural communities, and certainly for Tribal nations.
Getting back, Congressman, to the question you posed to the
mayor, the higher caps on brownfield grants is wonderful for
those who receive the grants. Of course, that means that there
is less money to go around, which is why you have heard a
couple of times from the witnesses that the magnitude of the
grant program should be increased, overall.
What I would like to suggest is that the easiest way to
diminish the workload on EPA is to facilitate the transition of
Superfund sites into the private sector by creating additional
incentives to encourage public-sector investment in the
acquisition of Superfund sites, so that the cleanup, the
redevelopment, the reuse devolves to the private sector and the
local government through the land use oversight process. And at
the same time, that allows EPA to step back and concentrate on
other priorities.
So, increase grant funding overall, in addition to the
caps, that is number one. Number two, create new economic
incentive programs to attract more private-sector investment,
because private-sector dollars follow public-sector dollars.
And then create an even more streamlined regulatory process to
allow the oversight of Superfund cleanups to be deferred to
State environmental agencies and local environmental agencies.
Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much. Excellent answer. I yield
back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you very much, Mr. Stanton.
Mr. Huffman, you may proceed.
Mr. Huffman. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for
convening this hearing. I want to thank our witnesses for their
perspectives on the relative success of these cleanup projects,
and how we can help frontline communities not just ensure that
they are safe from toxic contamination, but also make sure that
properties are redeveloped to provide lasting and good-paying
jobs that support communities who have been burdened by these
toxic legacies.
I represent something of a success story, to the extent
that we can use the word ``success'' when we are talking about
a Superfund site that generated emergency cleanup costs five
times higher than original estimates, with the original
responsible corporate polluter managing to pass the bill onto
taxpayers and the local community.
But nonetheless, there is a measure of success in what we
have done at the 72-acre Samoa Pulp Mill in Humboldt County.
The cleanup of caustic liquors at this site was successful.
And we certainly remain aware that we do need to monitor
and address longer term subsurface contamination threats. But,
due to the location of this facility, a commercially vibrant
harbor, many companies were eager to move into the location,
and more could be on the way. So, it is a qualified success,
thanks to the $15 million investment we received from the EPA
to clean up this site.
I realize, though, that many other communities are not so
lucky. We know that, with many polluting sites, including
landfills, toxic dumps, we are talking about low-income
communities that, for the very reason they often don't have the
political voice to push back against these projects, it is hard
for them to come forward and achieve cleanup and remediation,
even with Federal assistance. They remain derelict properties,
concentrated in areas of poverty that are challenging for
attracting new commercial development.
So, Mr. Shabazz, I appreciate your testimony, sharing with
the committee what you and others are doing in collaboration
and partnerships to ensure that these sites are cleaned up in
an equitable, sustainable fashion that works for communities
who have been hardest hit by this pollution.
You talk about the public health challenges of Overbrook in
West Philadelphia, as well as other challenges like limited
digital access.
I wonder if you could just speak a little more on how your
work and the work of others have contributed not just to
cleaning up pollution, but stimulating economic development
through job creation, workforce development, and public health
improvements.
Mr. Shabazz. Thank you very much, Representative Huffman.
The issue that we are constantly talking about in this
discussion is that there is a lack of capacity in the frontline
communities, and we need to be very intentional around creating
infrastructure to help neighbors and community members and
frontline communities, fence-line communities to have the
capacity not only to understand the issues, but to be able to
see how it matters with their participation in the issue, and
then, most importantly, what the outcomes look like for
sustainable development within communities.
From that perspective, it enables us to be able to do a
better job with planning around job opportunities and potential
infrastructural developments that would benefit the lives of
the community members that these brownfield sites are residing
within. Nonprofits are often expected to be the go-to
organizations for community input across local planning
efforts, without being compensated for their expertise and
time.
And so, what happens is that the nonprofits and the
frontline communities don't have the resources to engage in the
charrettes, don't have the opportunity to engage in the true
planning process. But if they were able to do so, what it would
do is to create this sort of knowledge capacity experience that
talks about what the needs are, moving forward.
And then we can include from the brownfields to greenfields
experiences, where we can identify some of the issues relative
to climate, to water mitigation, to heat mitigation, the heat
island effects. That only happens when community members are
involved, and the economic developments are clear. In
communities that are not wealthy communities, they need to have
the opportunity to grow and learn.
What we have been doing with Overbrook is taking our
brownfields experience to the community in such a way where
they can learn about it. We have created opportunities and jobs
around the EPA's RRP program, where the contractors learn about
the mitigation of lead and other kinds of toxic commodities.
The issue is making sure we have the capacity for communities
to get involved.
Mr. Huffman. I appreciate that, Mr. Shabazz. Thanks very
much.
And I yield back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Huffman, for asking those
very important questions of the witnesses.
Mr. Carbajal, you are recognized.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank
you to all the witnesses that are here today.
There are several success stories of brownfields being
cleaned up, and turning from toxic, unsafe pieces of land into
something that serves the local community.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act authorizes $1.5
billion, as was said earlier, for brownfield cleanups. These
funds give communities the opportunities to improve their
quality of life by reducing health risks and expanding economic
opportunity.
Mr. Lopez, you talk about the benefits of having the
affected communities be actively involved in the cleanups and
utilizing a local workforce to invest directly in the economic
future of area communities. Can you elaborate how a local
workforce was recruited in the situation that you have
discussed?
Mr. Lopez. Yes, thank you, Representative Carbajal.
In our case, essentially, the State agency was able to
partner with a local trade school. This is an area that our
community members already look towards in order to receive the
training and certification to be able to seek better employment
opportunities.
And so, resources were dedicated to develop a pilot program
at the trade school--L.A. Trade Tech is the name of the
school--and trained cohorts of community members, essentially,
to be able to learn and understand the work; again, be trained;
and most importantly, be certified to do the work, because we
are talking about handling of hazardous substances, and
sometimes paying for this type of certificate becomes a barrier
to lower income communities being able to access these future
employment opportunities. And so, what this did is it created a
base for community members to be able to enter this employment.
The way most people found out about it was from those of us
who had been fighting to shut down this bad actor for years and
generations. And so, it was community members who were already
aware of this toxic polluter. In some cases, it was the very
people whose homes needed to be cleaned up, because lead had
been contaminating their homes for decades.
These are, again, folks who are directly impacted by the
contamination, who now have prevailing wages, sometimes double
what they were previously making in other employment
opportunities. And it really just changes the trajectory of
families in our communities, when we are able to access these
types of employment opportunities.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you very much. It has been well
documented that lower income communities and racial minorities
are disproportionately exposed to environmental harm. There are
concerns that development of brownfields can do unintended harm
by displacing the people who live there, as well.
Dr. Wilson, what steps do you think the EPA should take to
prevent residents from being displaced?
Mr. Wilson. Oh, thank you for that question,
Representative. I have been waiting to talk. I wanted to say
something, thanks for that.
What is really interesting is, as I said earlier,
antigentrification has to be part of the process. And I think,
when you look at this, redevelopment, as Jerome has said, it
has to be community-driven, everyone. We need to change the
ecosystem of redevelopment. We have to change the ecosystem of
``revitalization.'' And sometimes that word is problematic,
because sometimes, people are never vitalized.
What do we get in the system of Build Back Better? We want
Build Them Back Better, Better, if that makes sense, you all.
So, when you are talking about gentrification, bringing the
smart growth principles, having social equity--President Biden
has two racial equity Executive orders. Taking the language in
the Executive orders and making sure you have social equity in
the redevelopment, rebalancing process, and requiring that--
whether it be through economic empowerment zones, opportunity
zones, TIFs--having some additional guardrails to make sure you
don't displace.
As Mr. Lopez said--I think he said you want to make sure
you build a neighborhood better, but with the same people,
right? So how do you do that? You have to have extra
guardrails.
I would just say really quickly that, if you look at
Executive Order 14008, the whole Justice40 initiative, 40
percent of benefits should go to disadvantaged communities.
What we are saying when we use that principle: 40 percent of
these dollars, the investments and benefits--ecological,
economic, environmental, health benefits--should go to
communities that have been dumped on and left behind.
So, you have got to have guardrails. And it needs to be
community-driven, equity boards, planning boards, et cetera.
I will stop there. Thank you for the question.
Mr. Carbajal. Thank you very much.
I am out of time, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Carbajal.
Ms. Norton, you are recognized.
[Pause.]
Mrs. Napolitano. Ms. Norton, you are muted.
Ms. Norton. Yes. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Norton. My first question is for Mayor Lucy Vinis.
As the only Representative for the District of Columbia, I
work closely with our mayor of the District on infrastructure
priorities. That makes me especially interested in hearing your
perspective, as a city mayor.
Based on the accomplishments of the Brownfields Program in
your city of Eugene, Oregon, can you explain how cities can
best leverage partnerships among Federal and local governments,
private-sector stakeholders, and local residents to help their
communities take advantage of the Brownfields Program?
Ms. Vinis. Thank you so very much for that question, and I
will just say I am a former resident of Washington, DC, before
I moved to Eugene, so I have a great appreciation for the city
and your longtime leadership there.
I neglected to mention in an earlier question that two of
our brownfield projects are within our downtown urban renewal
district. We have used tax increment financing to leverage
those activities.
And I will also say that the riverfront development that I
have mentioned is actually connected to the Franklin Boulevard
transit corridor, which also received funding through this
infrastructure bill to be a multimodal corridor.
We are looking at creating a landscape in which we have
active transportation, we have transit investments, we are
investing in affordable housing, and we are creating a
landscape with both these urban renewal districts that invites
private investment, that creates a landscape that is attractive
to that private investment.
And, of course, we all know that improving the brownfields
creates a kind of a known quality of land, so that encourages
people to invest.
And I think that sort of public commitment to this array of
transportation, housing, and the quality of that land, we have
invested in that, our downtown urban renewal district, also in
broadband. So, we are trying to create a landscape that invites
development, and that has happened for us. One of these
brownfields that was former parking lots is the largest private
development we have ever had in the city of Eugene.
Ms. Norton. That is something for all of us to learn from.
Thank you for that response.
Dr. Wilson, you used a term I hadn't heard before,
``environmental gentrification,'' in your testimony. You used
it to describe racial and economic disparities that have been
documented near brownfield sites, as well as the inequitable
remediation of these sites.
Many of us are now familiar with the idea of
gentrification, but less attention is paid on how that idea
applies to the cause of environmental justice, which is why
this hearing is so important. Can you explain what
characteristics of traditional gentrification are present in
environmental gentrification, and how, if at all, environmental
gentrification is different?
Mr. Wilson. Thanks for that question. I think it is a great
question.
So, you think about gentrification, and when you have
development that occurs where property values go up, you may
have a high population of renters. Rents go up. And so, what
you have is a process of explosive zoning, planning, and
development.
When you had the waterfront redevelopment, we added new
boutique shops, and new malls that were built. You may have
some land displacement of folks. You may also have--this is a
very important point--small business displacement as well. You
don't want to forget about the small business displacement.
It is just not when you have a residential displacement.
You can have a component of small business displacement, as
well. When we had this process of revitalizing and redeveloping
of brownfields to grayfields, or brownfields to greenfields,
and with the population who lived there, those activities, who
host those brownfields, who host those Superfund sites are not
able to really be engaged in the process. And then, as I said
before, they get priced out and pushed out.
So, we have to have antigentrification measures in place in
advance of any planning of brownfield redevelopment project,
any planning of a Superfund project, any plans, when we are
doing community development, we have to have that in place.
Think about DC. Look at, obviously, your neighborhood. Look
what has happened to the Brentwood neighborhood and Wards 7 and
8. Look at the Buzzard Point community. Look in Prince George's
County. We have things that are happening.
I live in Prince George's County, Maryland, where we want
to make sure that, as we green communities, we don't price out
and push out the folks who were left behind because they had
toxic hazards there, or didn't have affordable housing, or they
had a contaminated Anacostia River. Or they may have lack of
access to food infrastructure.
I could go on and on. But thank you for the question. I
will pass the mic back.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Ms. Norton, I appreciate that.
Mr. Rouzer, do you have any further comments, sir?
Mr. Rouzer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually, I didn't
initially think that I had anything further I wanted to ask,
but I do have this thought that has hit me here, towards the
end.
One is, how do you define success? I am not coming at this
from an adversarial perspective. We have got programs that seem
to work pretty well. There is a lot of added investment that is
being made, which is good.
I am just curious, from the panelists, across the board,
whoever may want to respond, how exactly do we define success
in the construct of these programs?
And then, in terms of the greater social aspect that is
trying to be achieved here?
Mr. Shabazz. Representative, this is Jerome Shabazz, if I
could tell you----
Mr. Rouzer. Sure.
Mr. Shabazz [continuing]. A brief story of a gentleman who
was in a wheelchair when we started doing some of our cleanup
work.
He came to the back of his door, and started clapping, and
we had no idea why this gentleman was clapping, and we walked
over to him and asked him, ``Why are you clapping?''
He said, ``For 50 years I have been watching this
contamination, and I thought no one would help. I thought no
one cared enough to make a difference.''
And so, success for us is for this gentleman, not only
himself, but for his family and for his children, to no longer
have to coexist with contamination, waste, and hazards that are
derogatory to their health and to their quality of life and,
most importantly, their world view. His children, his
grandchildren grew up with dust and deterioration, and this
kind of blight that shaped their sense of what community is all
about.
Our idea, ultimately, for us as an organization, is to make
sure that we can help restore the dignity of people's lives, so
that they can have a very viable and reliable future, in
coordination with their Government, and they should expect to
be able to live in peace, and to live in a healthy environment.
And so, I think the success of these programs is not only
that outsider developers can come in and establish a more
viable, economically viable use of lands, but so that the
indigenous community members can do so themselves.
There are five tracks that are close to the properties that
we have developed on Lancaster Avenue in Philadelphia, where,
if they were redeveloped, it would represent 13 acres of land,
13 acres of land that is adjacent to properties that would not
even compare in measurement. And those people would be
displaced, outplaced, and outsourced if they didn't have any
kind of viable way to coordinate and be a part of the
developmental process in these brownfields.
So, I think, for us, the success is allowing people to live
in dignity, to be a part of the process, and to be able to grow
in place, and not have to be forced out just to be able to stay
healthy and clean.
Mr. Rouzer. Ms. Bodine, do you have any thoughts on the
matter?
[Pause.]
Ms. Bodine. Yes, sorry. In the Superfund Program, success
is the success in protecting human health and the environment
by addressing the hazardous substances. So, it is removing or
cutting off exposure to hazardous substances. That makes sites
ready and available for reuse, and the reuse can be anything
from butterfly gardens to playgrounds to industrial
redevelopment.
In brownfields, it is different. The success--statistics
that we have heard a couple of times here, including from Chair
DeFazio--the success is really in providing enough Federal seed
money to leverage the private investment. I think the stats
were something like every dollar of brownfields money results
in $20 in private investment.
EPA looks at that as a success, as well as the jobs. And,
of course, the criteria for giving those grants includes the
issues that we have talked about today, like local
participation.
And then, of course, the point--EPA, it has authorities
that allow them to bring home some of those benefits from
cleanup, like providing the job training, that is both in the
Superfund Program and the Brownfields Program, so that locals
can get, like, the HAZWOPER certification that one of the
witnesses talked about, so they can get the jobs.
So, all of that--jobs, the number of jobs is success, both
the new jobs and the cleanup jobs. The leveraging is a success.
And then, of course, eliminating the exposure to hazardous
substances is the success.
Mr. Rouzer. Thank you.
Anybody else have a thought or two?
Mr. Goldstein. Yes, this is Michael Goldstein. I would like
to affirm and amplify the comments of the prior witnesses by
saying this: success can be measured emotionally and
narratively in the way previously described, but also
numerically. And both are equally important to demonstrate to
the private sector that these types of challenging projects are
investmentworthy.
You can look at reduction in chemical types, and chemical
concentrations, as Ms. Bodine suggested; the additional number
of new permanent jobs and temporary jobs for construction;
increase in property values; the number of projects surrounding
the subject property where redevelopment has occurred; the
nature and number and types of collaborative partnerships that
occur between local stakeholders, local governments, and
private developers. We can go on. EPA does a wonderful job at
tracking these metrics to demonstrate a very meaningful return
on investment to the public and the public treasury.
And if there is one last parting observation I would make,
it is that EPA is doing a spectacular job, a sublime job, in
discharging both its responsibility and obligation as someone
who wields the construction hammer and the sheriff's badge.
They are balancing their enforcement obligation with their
redevelopment ethic in a way that is effective, and innovative,
and reassuring, and inspiring. And I think that is worthy of
being recognized, too.
Mr. Rouzer. Madam Chair, I yield back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Rouzer. That was very
interesting.
Just the same, I would like to ask Mr. Lopez an important
point.
When redevelopment does happen on contaminated sites, the
community should have a say in the redevelopment, so that it is
not another polluting facility and creating jobs that are still
polluting. Can you explain further your concern?
And if anybody wants to join in, how local coordination and
buy-in can result in successful cleanup efforts, especially in
training, I like the idea of having training classes for the
local community to participate.
And Mr. Lopez, I like all your points on the Community
Stabilization Toolkit.
Mr. Lopez. Thank you, Chair Napolitano. Here, in the Los
Angeles area, and I think in most port communities across the
country--again, inland ports and also seaports--what we are
seeing is large areas of commercial and industrial land being
purchased and utilized specifically for warehousing.
What this does at the local level, it essentially displaces
career opportunities for temp jobs that pay low wages. And
because they carry such a large footprint, that is what
prevents future development of other types of industries that
can provide careers for our community members.
Additionally, because we are looking at what are primarily
diesel trucks that are servicing these facilities, the
pollution that community members are exposed to comes with a
greater health risk.
And I think, additionally, when we are looking at this
process and kind of connecting to the green gentrification that
was mentioned earlier, it is kind of a slap in the face for
communities who have had to deal with these issues, often be
the advocates to resolve these issues, and then not be able to
get the benefits.
And so, that is what we are experiencing here, in our
communities, and I think that is where, when we measure
success, I think there are lots of metrics. But at the end of
the day, success is defined by communities, because it is
experienced by communities.
When we look at----
Mrs. Napolitano. I am sorry, but sometimes the community
cannot speak for itself, because they are not able to, because
of language difficulties. How do we overcome that?
Mr. Lopez. Yes, that is a huge issue, but that is where,
when we have a representative, when we have staff of agencies
that come from experiences from these communities--and, of
course, language access is always a priority for us--and when
we have existing community infrastructure to support each other
in cases where agencies have gaps, is where we have seen the
most success to be able to bring all constituents to the table
to have an investment and a say in what moves forward.
Mrs. Napolitano. Very good. Well, and also companies who
decide to go bankrupt to avoid financial responsibility, what
changes do we need to make to make sure they are held
responsible?
Mr. Lopez. Yes. I think, in this case, unfortunately,
bankruptcy court really privileges corporate entities at a
disadvantage to our communities and taxpayers, who often have
to come in and, essentially, pay the way.
And so I think what is really needed is earlier action from
Federal, State, and local agencies, who have the authorities
around contaminating facilities, whether it is air, water, or
land, toxics, to ensure compliance upfront to ensure that these
don't become legacy issues in our communities, but then to
create action, while the companies are still fully operating,
to ensure that this isn't an issue that we are dealing with 30,
40, 50 years down the line, once a company has been able to
restructure and sever its liabilities, which, essentially, is
contamination in our communities.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you very much.
Does anybody else have any comment?
If not, then I thank all the witnesses for all their
participation, and Members of Congress who were with us.
And I ask unanimous consent that the record of today's
hearing remain open until such time as our witnesses have
provided answers to any questions that may be submitted to them
in writing, and unanimous consent that the record remain open
for 15 days for any additional comments and information
submitted by Members or witnesses to be included in the record
of today's hearing.
And without objection, so ordered.
I am very grateful to all the witnesses and to the Members
for their participation today. I think it was quite a hearing,
dealing with one of the blights in our areas.
If no other Members have anything to add, the subcommittee
stands adjourned. And thank you very much, again.
[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
Submissions for the Record
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Sam Graves, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Missouri, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure
Thank you, Chair Napolitano, and thank you to our witnesses for
being here today.
The EPA estimates there are hundreds of thousands of Brownfield
sites in the United States, ranging from abandoned warehouses, gas
stations, inactive factories, and salvage yards.
These properties can be a waste of space--literally. That is why
Congress created the Brownfields Land and Revitalization Program in
2001.
Through this program, we have seen the revitalization of entire
neighborhoods as Brownfields properties have been cleaned up and
redeveloped for commercial and residential use, as well as recreational
and educational facilities.
As a result, the program has spurred job creation, increased tax
revenues for municipalities, and generated higher property values for
landowners in the surrounding area.
Over the last twenty years, the Brownfields program has been very
successful and is incredibly popular. I look forward to hearing an
update on the impact it has had on neighborhoods across the country.
Likewise, I am interested in hearing more about any experience our
witnesses have had with EPA's Superfund program.
Thank you, Chair Napolitano. I yield back.
[all]