[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                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                               
 
             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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    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
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    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:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \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.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
      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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    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.
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    \1\ http://ceet.upenn.edu/target-communities/target-communities-
west-philadelphia/
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    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.
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    \2\ http://media.inquirer.com/storage/special_projects/
Philadelphia_lead_risk_map.html
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    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.
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    \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.
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    \4\ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1274229/
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    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
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      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.
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    \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]