[Senate Hearing 117-656]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-656

      STAKEHOLDER VIEWS ON THE BROWNFIELDS PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 28, 2022
                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
  
  
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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
51-973PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023          
        


               COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                  THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland         SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West 
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont                 Virginia 
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island         Ranking Member
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts      KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois            CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan            RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama
MARK KELLY, Arizona                  JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
ALEX PADILLA, California             ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
                                     DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
                                     JONI ERNST, Iowa
                                     LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina

             Mary Frances Repko, Democratic Staff Director
               Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director

                            C O N T E N T S

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                                                                   Page

                           SEPTEMBER 28, 2022
                           OPENING STATEMENTS

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware..     1
Capito, Hon. Shelly More, U.S. Senator from the State of West 
  Virginia.......................................................     3

                               WITNESSES

Goldstein, Michael, Managing Partner, Goldstein Environmental Law 
  Firm...........................................................     6
    Prepared statement...........................................     9
Buschur, Brad, Project Director, Groundwork Lawrence.............    14
    Prepared statement...........................................    17
    Responses to Additional Questions from Senators:
        Carper...................................................    21
        Kelly....................................................    21
Pouncey, Gerald, Chairman, Morris, Manning, And Martin, LLP......    23
    Prepared statement...........................................    26
    Responses to Additional Questions from Senators:
        Carper...................................................    28
        Kelly....................................................    29
Carico, George, Director, West Virginia Brownfields Assistance 
  Center, Marshall University....................................    31
    Prepared statement...........................................    33
    Responses to Additional Questions from Senators:
        Carper...................................................    36
        Kelly....................................................    37
        Sullivan.................................................    38

 
      STAKEHOLDER VIEWS ON THE BROWNFIELDS PROGRAM REAUTHORIZATION

                              ----------                              


                     WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
                 Committee on Environment and Public Works,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee, met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in 
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper 
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
    Present: Senators Carper, Capito, Cardin, Whitehouse, 
Padilla, Sullivan, Ernst.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 
            U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

    Senator Carper. I call this hearing to order. Good morning 
one and all, Senator Capito, good to see you. To our staffs, 
thank you for helping us put this important hearing together.
    Today we are going to discuss the Environmental Protection 
Agency's Brownfields Program as we begin to work on the 
program's reauthorization. For nearly three decades now, the 
Brownfields program has proven to be an important source of 
help for communities forced to contend with the long-term 
impacts of hazardous waste and other types of contamination. 
The program provides Federal assistance for communities to 
clean up contaminated lands, to revitalize the areas and 
rededicate the land to productive centers of civic and economic 
activity.
    We most recently reauthorized appropriations for this 
program with strong bipartisan support about 5 years ago, I 
think it was 2018. So it is time now to review the State of the 
Brownfields Program, and to examine what works well, to 
identify potential ways to update the program so it can best 
meet the evolving challenges that communities face. I like to 
say, everything I do I know I can do better. That includes our 
oversight of this program and the way this program operates 
throughout the Country.
    Fortunately, we have four distinguished witnesses joining, 
actually three this morning, and a fourth remotely. We have 
three distinguished witnesses joining us in person, and another 
remotely. They each possess decades of hands-on experience 
working with communities, working with State and local 
governments, private developers on brownfield sites across our 
Country.
    Mr. Goldstein is joining us remotely. Mr. Carico, Mr. 
Buschur, and Mr. Pouncey are here. Thank you all for joining us 
today. Senator Capito will in a minute introduce George Carico, 
a fellow from West Virginia. We have already had a chance to 
chat.
    We look forward to hearing from each of you. Before we do, 
I will deliver the history of this important program. The EPA's 
Brownfields and Land Revitalization Program began in 1995 with 
the purpose of cleaning up thousands of lower-risk 
pollutionsites across our Country known as brownfields. The 
program provided seed money and technical assistance to State 
and local authorities working with private developers to 
revitalize these brownfields, transform them. In other words, 
the program took the adversity of pollution and turned it into 
an opportunity for economic development and growth.
    Since that time, the program has grown both in scope and in 
impact. In 2002, Congress codified the program into law, 
authorizing EPA to assist with assessments, remediation, with 
job training, and site planning. In our most recent 
reauthorization of the program in 2018, we also broadened the 
types of assistance that could be provided and expanded 
eligibility for the program.
    The benefits of this program have proven themselves time 
and time again. According to EPA, the Brownfields Program has 
assisted in the assessment of over 35,000 contaminated 
properties and cleanups of over 2,300 sites across our Nation, 
probably in every State. The agency also reports that every 
dollar of Federal assistance leverages over $20 of non-Federal 
money for revitalization. This has contributed to the creation 
of over 180,000 jobs since 1995. That is a lot of jobs for a 
little State like Delaware, and even for a big State like West 
Virginia.
    We have seen the positive impacts of the program first-hand 
in Delaware. Since the program began, the First State has 
received millions in grants, helping to revitalize areas such 
as our riverfront along the Christina River in Wilmington, 
Delaware. Once a shipbuilding site turned toxic site, it is a 
site right close to our train station. If we go back to World 
War II, about 60, 70 years ago, 10,000 people worked along the 
Christina River close to the train station, for about a mile 
either way. Ten thousand people, mostly women, building the 
ships that helped win the war in World War II.
    When the war was over, we ended up with a toxic site. The 
question was what to do about it. What we have done about it is 
replaced it with something called the Wilmington Riverfront. It 
is a thriving place to live and work and we have a lot to thank 
with respect to the Brownfields Program and this wonderful 
outcome. Many Americans may remember that also as a place that 
President-Elect Biden proclaimed a victory after the election 2 
years ago.
    So as we consider brownfields reauthorization, this 
committee should examine whether specific opportunities exist 
to further strengthen this program. I believe this 
reexamination should include building upon the program's 
existing capacity and resources, however, to help local 
authorities with area-wide and regional planning of brownfields 
remediation. Increased support for planning will ensure that 
communities are better able to maximize the benefits of 
projects.
    As our Nation continues to grapple with the adverse impacts 
of climate change and extreme weather, I am reminded of that 
today in thinking of our neighbors and friends in Florida, who 
are getting a terrible punishing from the hurricane that is 
working its way up the coast.
    But the Brownfields program should also encourage 
sustainable revitalization projects. By doing so, we can 
support community efforts to become more resilient to climate 
change while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
    In addition, the program should incorporate environmental 
justice principles and practices to ensure that the people and 
communities negatively affected by local land pollution can 
fully participate in the benefits of brownfield revitalization. 
Finally, as we consider ways to improve the Brownfields 
Program, we should ensure that the program not only assists 
communities with financial and technical burdens of 
revitalizing contaminated lands, but also encourages 
stakeholders to fully engage with residents during the planning 
and execution of projects.
    Let me close by reiterating that now is the right time to 
explore and revisit improvements to this vital program. Last 
year, we provided EPA with a threefold increase in funding for 
the Brownfields Program under the Bipartisan Infrastructure 
Law, which this committee, Senator Capito knows, we literally 
helped to write in this room. We need to ensure that the 
program can use these additional resources to the greatest 
effect in assisting our cities, our towns, our communities, and 
our tribes.
    I look forward to our discussion today and the work that 
lies ahead of all of us. Again, we welcome all of our witnesses 
in person and remotely.
    Let me turn now to Senator Capito for her remarks. Thank 
you.

        OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, 
          U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

    Senator Capito. Thank you, Chairman Carper. I want to thank 
you for holding the hearing to talk about EPA's Brownfields 
Program. I want to thank all the witnesses for being here with 
us today.
    It is a rare occasion when an EPA program enjoys strong 
bipartisan support along this committee's dais, as we know. 
Since first being authorized in 2002, the Brownfields Program 
has become a resounding success story for our economy and the 
environment. Since we are on the east coast and developed a lot 
earlier, we have a lot of these older sites in both of our 
States.
    Brownfields are pieces of property where redevelopment is 
complicated by the presence of hazardous contamination. A large 
variety of contaminated properties are potential brownfields 
sites. Common examples are abandoned factories, landfills, and 
former gas stations, dry cleaners. We had an issue with a dry 
cleaner actually in our State.
    These underdeveloped properties line the streets of what 
once were bustling industrial, commercial, and agricultural 
areas across our Nation, discouraging investment in job 
creation, reducing local tax revenues and harming property 
values. Rather than viewing these properties as a stain on our 
community, the Brownfields Program recognizes the vast untapped 
economic potential these contaminated sites can have, after 
they have been successfully remediated.
    Since the program's inception, $36 billion in brownfields 
grants funding has been allocated to local communities, 
creating about 192,000 jobs. In addition, EPA's Brownfields 
Program is one of the most effectively leveraged financing tool 
across the entire Federal Government, providing a return of 
more than $20 for every $1 contributed by the EPA.
    Brownfields grants serve as a valuable financing tool for 
local communities and private investors by providing reliable 
funding and facilitating long-term re-use planning. The grants 
help incentivize private sector participation by reducing 
financial risks, and shielding developers from potential 
liability under CERCLA.
    In order to be successful, the Brownfields Program relies 
upon the establishment of effective public-private partnerships 
where all parties have a vested interest in the long-term 
restoration of a contaminated site. These partnerships help our 
local communities enjoy the benefits of economic development 
for decades to come.
    While we all recognize the successes of brownfields, we 
must acknowledge, as the Chairman did, that improvements are 
needed. This is particularly important if we are to maximize 
that return on the $1.5 billion investment the program received 
from the IIJA. For example, Congress appropriately intended 
brownfields grants to be awarded on a competitive basis. 
However, rigorous and complex application requirements remain a 
continued source of confusion within the program. Applicants 
typically have only 60 days to compete and submit an 
application from the date EPA announces another year's round of 
grant solicitations.
    The short timeframes and complicated requirements often 
lead to situations where rural communities are unable to 
compete with their larger, urban counterparts due to a lack of 
resources. Unlike larger cities and urban centers, local 
municipalities typically are operating on a shoestring budget 
and lack the good fortunate of having multiple full-time grant 
writers on their staff. This makes it an uphill battle for our 
rural communities when they try to compete. As Mr. Carico told 
me earlier, you lose points quickly. He says he has had 
projects that have been 92s that have not made it. So you can 
see how competitive it is.
    Discrepancies in staff resources and experience impede 
rural communities from competing on a level playing field, 
ultimately leaving many promising rural brownfield development 
opportunities unrealized in disadvantaged areas that really 
need them most. Until you can clean that and remediate, you are 
not going to get any development around it.
    EPA deserves credit for recognizing that there is a 
problem. One way the agency has attempted to address the issue 
is through the establishment of the Technical Assistance to 
Brownfield communities program, otherwise known as TAB. There 
are six recipients of TAB funding, and I understand the 
Morgantown office in West Virginia is a TAB-funded place, 
referred to as TAB providers, with each being assigned to a 
specific region in the Country.
    TAB providers serve as an independent resource, assisting 
applicants with expert technical assistance and guidance to 
help them better navigate the brownfield application process. 
They serve an important role in facilitating more grant 
applications in small and rural communities that lack their own 
grant-writing capacity.
    So we are privileged to have with us today someone who has 
worked with the TAB program and also has worked in West 
Virginia for many, many years, and that is George Carico. 
George serves as the Director of the West Virginia Regional 
Brownfields Assistance Center at Marshall University. He has 
devoted his entire career to the brownfields arena, helping to 
bring much-needed funding to our State and the region.
    Mr. Carico, I want to recommend you for the high praise the 
West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Centers often receive from 
the broader brownfields stakeholder community. Thank you. Your 
forward-looking and innovative approach to maximizing rural 
participation in brownfields grant opportunities should be a 
model for other rural areas in the Country. I look forward a to 
hearing about the work you have undertaken in rural areas to 
facilitate economic redevelopment and community vibrancy.
    We are also joined by Gerald Pouncey, thank you, Chairman 
of the Morris, Manning and Martin Law Firm, with decades of 
experience in the acquisition and redevelopment of hundreds of 
brownfield properties. Mr. Pouncey will provide this committee 
with a much-needed perspective from the developer side.
    Mr. Pouncey's past work was praised by EPA as a best 
practice in brownfield redevelopment. He continues to receive 
numerous accolades, having been honored as the environmental 
lawyer of the year in 2017, and is one of Atlanta's 500 most 
influential leaders. Thank you for coming today.
    I look forward to hearing about how private sector 
participation in the Brownfield Program is so important to 
long-term success. I want to thank everybody for being here. It 
is an important hearing.
    Chairman Carper, I will yield back to you.
    Senator Carper. Thanks you very much, Senator Capito.
    I want to add, a lot of people, they watch what goes on in 
Washington and they think we never agree on anything. You are 
welcome to a committee today where we actually work across the 
aisle remarkably well. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that 
the President signed into law 10 months ago, the most far-
reaching, transformative infrastructure legislation in the 
history of the Country, we reported it out, the roads, 
highways, bridges portion unanimously. We reported out the 
water and wastewater, flood part unanimously. We reported it 
out, and that really became the foundation on which the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was built.
    More recently, we passed out unanimously WRDA, water 
resources development legislation for the Senate. We have done 
similar things with recycling legislation this year. More often 
than not, we find the middle and work toward getting stuff 
done. I am a practical politician, recovering Governor, and 
Senator Capito is very much a practical politician. We are both 
West Virginians at heart.
    So it is a pleasure to work with her, her team, and we are 
delighted that you are all with us today.
    In terms of introductions, Senator Capito has already that 
for a couple of our witnesses. I would add to that Mr. 
Goldstein, who is an environmental law attorney and leader in 
brownfield development joining us from Florida. He is the 
founding chairman of the Florida Brownfields Association. I 
know Mr. Goldstein wanted to join us in person, but Hurricane 
Ian has prevented his travel. We are glad he can join us over 
WebEx, which I understand he is literally doing from the middle 
of the hurricane.
    My parents lived the last 30 years of their lives in 
Clearwater. I think they are under the gun there today. So we 
are thinking of them and the neighbors up and down the Gulf 
Coast.
    Mr. Brad Buschur, Brad, nice of you to join us. He is the 
Project Director for the Groundwork Lawrence, in Lawrence, 
Massachusetts, where I understand you have led a number of 
brownfield redevelopment within that particular area.
    Mr. Pouncey, we have had comments already from Senator 
Capito. The chairman, I said to him before, we are both 
chairmen. You can never have too many of them.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. He is Chairman of the Morris, Manning and 
Martin Law Firm in Atlanta, Georgia, which along with Mr. 
Goldstein's firm is a member of the National Brownfields 
Coalition. I understand you are the principal author of 
Georgia's new brownfields legislation as well. So it will be 
interesting to hear the insights you will provide.
    Finally, our friend from West Virginia, Mr. Carico, who is 
the Director of West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center at 
Marshall University, Thundering Herd, and We Are Marshall, 
which assists communities across West Virginia on brownfields 
redevelopment. I told him before we started, Senator Capito, 
that my sister is a proud graduate of Marshall and a bunch of 
my cousins as well. About every 10, 20 years, they just knock 
somebody off in college football. Michigan State about 15 years 
ago, and earlier this year, Notre Dame. My sister and cousins 
are hard to live with when that happens. But I will get through 
it, and so will they.
    Our thanks to each of you for joining us. Mr. Goldstein, we 
are going to lead off with you. Again, thank you for connecting 
with us in this very difficult and trying time in Florida. 
Please proceed.
    Thank you.

    STATEMENT OF MICHAEL R. GOLDSTEIN, ESQ., THE GOLDSTEIN 
                     ENVIRONMENTAL LAW FIRM

    Mr. Goldstein. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Carper, 
Ranking Member Capito, and members of the committee.
    My name is Michael Goldstein. I am the Managing Partner of 
The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm, a principal of Goldstein 
Kite Environmental, the past president of the Florida 
Brownfields Foundation, and chair of the National Brownfields 
Coalition's Public Policy, Redevelopment Incentives, and 
Regulatory Partnerships Committee.
    The Coalition, jointly managed by Smart Growth America and 
the Center for Creative Land Recycling, is a non-partisan 
alliance advocating for equitable remediation and redevelopment 
of brownfields nationwide. It is an honor to participate, thank 
you for this opportunity.
    My remarks today are informed by three decades of 
experience assisting businesses, local governments and 
community stakeholders remediate, redevelopment and re-use 
contaminated sites. Other witnesses today will no doubt speak 
to the magnificent Brownfields Grant Program administered by 
EPA, which has transformed how environmentally challenged and 
marginalized communities think about pollution, where they 
live, work, pray, and play.
    EPA's Brownfields Program and the funding that Congress has 
increasingly made available beginning in the mid-1990's has 
given the voiceless a voice and the powerless agency. This 
program is constantly evolving, innovating and reinventing. In 
terms of a regulatory strategy, it is as close to perfect as 
one could possibly want.
    Of course, the program is animated by the people who 
implement it. So I also want to take a moment to acknowledge 
and celebrate EPA staff in the Brownfields Program and the 
Superfund Redevelopment Program. If there are harder-working, 
more committed professionals in the environmental arena that 
make a difference in the millions of Americans every single 
day, I haven't met them yet.
    Turning to our substantive recommendations, the Coalition 
encourages this committee to double down on the boldness of the 
Federal Brownfields Program by adding to the resources that are 
currently available, not just enhancing those on the books. We 
need to add more tools to the toolbox by one, innovating 
legislatively with respect to financial resources, and two, 
providing additional mandates to certain Federal agencies to 
increase the regulatory firepower that communities and 
stakeholders can tap into.
    On the financial side, we recommend three new discrete 
funding opportunities. First, as part of a reauthorization 
bill, renew the Federal Brownfield Tax Deduction. Before it 
expired in 2011, this incentive allowed a party who voluntarily 
cleaned up contaminated property to deduct its cleanup costs in 
the year incurred. A report prepared by the Coalition showed 
that Section 198 of the Tax Code reduced remediation costs by 
one-third to one-half. Before sunsetting, it was used more than 
625 times in more than 40 States.
    Second, we strongly recommend the creation of a Brownfields 
Loan Guarantee Program. This program would combine the aspects 
of the DOE Loan Guarantee program with the New Markets Tax 
Credit Program to leverage many billions of private sector 
dollars for early stage bridge financing of redevelopment 
projects that are considered too risky for conventional 
lenders. In my professional experience, there are countless 
projects that fail in the concept stage because they are caught 
in an unwinnable position. They are not loan-worthy until the 
environmental risks are cleared, but the environmental risks 
can't be cleared until loan funding becomes available.
    Third, Brownfields Reauthorization is an elegant and timely 
vehicle to combat the affordable housing crisis in this 
Country. So we are recommending a significant expansion of the 
way in which affordable housing is funded at the Federal level. 
To that end, we would like to see an increase of a 4 percent 
and 9 percent low-income housing tax credit under Section 42 of 
the IRS Code to 6 percent and 12 percent for affordable housing 
built on brownfield sites, a stepped-up basis under Section 42 
of the Tax Code of between 130 percent to 150 percent for 
affordable housing built on brownfield sites, and a huge game 
changer: a new, one-time LIHTC in the amount of 80 percent of 
the cost of land acquisition to develop affordable housing 
built on brownfields.
    On the agency resources side, Mr. Chairman, we believe 
there is a much more active role that at least three agencies 
under this committee's jurisdiction can play in support of 
brownfields revitalization: the Federal Highway Administration, 
the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Economic Development 
Administration. Each of these agencies is deeply resourced, 
experienced, and credentialed, but to date has been 
functionally absent in the Federal brownfields arena.
    First, through reauthorization, Congress should direct FHA 
to provide technical and financial assistance including grant 
funding for brownfield redevelopment projects that are transit-
oriented, that invest in environmental justice neighborhoods, 
that provide multiple transit options, and that reduce the 
distance, the cost, and the impact on climate of connecting 
people from home to school or work and all points in between.
    Second, the Army Corps likely has the largest working 
storehouse of environmental data and information regarding the 
remediation technologies in the Country. Access to this 
information should be readily available to stakeholders 
everywhere.
    Relatedly, the Corps could and should publish guidance 
documents regarding lessons learned, involving cleanup of 
common contaminants at brownfield sites, as well as emerging 
contaminants like PFAS. The Corps' rich experience with coastal 
communities creates tremendous opportunities for disseminating 
climate change-focused brownfields strategies. Also relatedly, 
we would like to see a brownfields grant program administered 
through the Corps that emphasizes climate change, sea level 
rise, acute public health risks, and environmental justice.
    Finally, Mr. Chair, through reauthorization, Congress 
should expand on EDA's mandate to promote sustainable job 
growth and the building of durable regional economies in two 
ways. First by directing that EDA convene a national public-
private summit on brownfields economic policy and priorities, 
and second, by directing the creation of a standalone 
brownfield grant program that pulls from EDA's existing funding 
appropriations and repackages them to be utilized for a 
combination of cleanup, public health, job creation and job 
training activities with an emphasis on climate stewardship, 
energy security, and creative, affordable, and transit-oriented 
housing.
    The National Brownfields Coalition thanks the committee for 
its consideration of these remarks and I look forward to 
responding to any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Goldstein follows:]

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    Senator Carper. Thank you so much for that thoughtful 
testimony. I would say to the witnesses who are here, one of 
the things I look for in hearings, as Senator Capito knows, is 
where is there consensus among the witnesses. Mr. Goldstein has 
laid out quite a list there. I am interested in seeing what you 
agree with, and maybe a couple of areas where you don't. That 
would be helpful.
    OK, thanks, Mr. Goldstein. We wish everyone down there in 
Florida our very best. We are here to help.
    Mr. Buschur, you are up. We are delighted that you are able 
to be here in person. Please proceed.

    STATEMENT OF BRAD BUSCHUR, PROJECT DIRECTOR, GROUNDWORK 
                            LAWRENCE

    Mr. Buschur. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, and 
members of the committee, thank you for giving me the 
opportunity to testify today on the Environmental Protection 
Agency's Brownfields Program. I represent Groundwork Lawrence, 
where I am a project director responsible for leading the 
organization's environmental improvement programs.
    Groundwork Lawrence is a community-based organization 
working to create a high quality built and natural environment 
by renovating existing parks, creating new recreational 
opportunities, and stewarding Lawrence's three rivers. We 
transform vacant and contaminated properties into parks and 
green spaces to support healthy active lifestyles.
    We are part of a network of independent locally based 
Groundwork Trusts in 25 cities and 18 states. Trusts are 
established with support from the National Park Service, the 
Environmental Protection Agency, and local stakeholders. 
Groundwork Trusts deploy a collaborative, community-wide and 
people-centered approach in the development of greenspaces and 
the restoration of the environment in the city, ensuring all 
stakeholders are invested in the project.
    I am speaking to you today, on behalf of Groundwork 
Lawrence, about the organization's work in the city of 
Lawrence, Massachusetts. Located 30 miles north of Boston, 
Lawrence is a planned industrial city founded in the early 
1840's. Central to the city's rise as a center of textile and 
paper production is the construction of the Great Stone Dam 
along the Merrimack River, which diverted water to the north 
and south canals to provide power to the mills along its banks.
    Lawrence quickly became known as the immigrant city. By 
1910, 90 percent of the city's 80,000 residents were either 
first-or second-generation Americans, and the city had become 
the largest manufacturer of worsted woolen textiles in the 
world. However, by the end of World War II, deindustrialization 
was in full force as mill owners moved their capital and 
employment out of Lawrence to lower cost regions.
    The challenges associated with Lawrence's 
deindustrialization are significant. Abandoned mills are 
impacted by polyaromatic hydrocarbons, petroleum, chlorinated 
solvents, arsenic, lead, PCBs, and cadmium. A wave of arson and 
abandonment in the 1980's left vacant housing lots potentially 
contaminated by lead and asbestos.
    Multiple trash incinerators formerly located in Lawrence 
have all been shuttered, but they left behind soils 
contaminated with dioxins from burning plastics and medical 
waste. The city's densely populated neighborhoods frequently 
abut industrial and commercial areas, exposing residents to 
contaminants by direct contact or inhalation of vapors via 
migration from soil into indoor air.
    Many of Lawrence's contaminated properties are small and 
interspersed throughout residential areas and present potential 
risks to human health for the homes and businesses surrounding 
them. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection 
lists 332 identified sites with environmental constraints 
spread across Lawrence's seven square miles.
    Today the city is an economic and cultural center of the 
Merrimack Valley with over 90,000 residents, 80 percent of whom 
are Latino. The city has benefited from hundreds of millions of 
dollars of private investment in the redevelopment of its 
historic mills that now provide market rate and affordable 
homes for residents.
    Unlike many older urban areas, the city has a young and 
growing population, fueled by the influx of Caribbean 
immigrants who bring new energy, businesses, and dreams. In a 
city notorious for ethnic tensions, there is growing momentum 
behind the city's broad-based community revitalization efforts, 
a hard-working and entrepreneurial community, a high-
functioning nonprofit sector, and renewed community vitality 
with the election of Mayor Brian DePena who recently led a tour 
of the city's brownfield redevelopment targets.
    Since 1996, the city of Lawrence has received $3.65 million 
in EPA Brownfields Program funding. The city has successfully 
utilized these grants to bring forth substantial economic 
benefits including leveraging $12 million in State and Federal 
funds and $51 million in private funding to assess, cleanup, 
and redevelop complex industrial properties and the creation of 
more than 200 construction jobs as well as an additional 200 
permanent jobs. This is related to the Union Crossing project.
    Lawrence currently has two active brownfield cleanup grants 
to support redevelopment of the largest remaining parcels in 
the city. The most challenging project is the Tombarello Site, 
a 14-acre former recycling facility abutting residential 
properties and a school with extensive PCB contamination.
    The other project is the Merrimac Paper Site, comprised of 
27 interconnected dilapidated buildings encompassing over 1.3 
million square feet. Built in 1866, the site has become a 
perennial fire hazard placing first responders and public 
health at risk.
    Both properties have benefited from actions taken by the 
EPA Brownfields Program prior to the city taking ownership. 
EPA's Region I Emergency Planning and Response Branch undertook 
significant remedial actions to address imminent public health 
risks created by private property owners.
    Groundwork Lawrence has been fortunate to support the 
city's efforts to reclaim brownfields to provide residents with 
access to recreational opportunities within neighborhoods where 
the poverty rate, income levels, and sensitive populations are 
drastically higher than the rest of the State. Central to this 
work is the creation of the Spicket River Greenway. Over 12 
years, Groundwork and the city created six new riverfront parks 
and connected them with a 3.5 mile long shared-use path 
providing residents with close-to-home high-quality parks. EPA 
Brownfield Program funding supported remediation of four of the 
new parks by providing $600,000 of the over $10 million 
required to create these projects.
    Additionally, the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the 
Community Development Block Grant programs are vital to 
supporting the creation of these spaces.
    As this committee undertakes reauthorization of the 
Brownfields Program, Groundwork Lawrence recommends evaluating 
three areas of the program. The statutory limit placed on EPA's 
cleanup grants is $500,000 per parcel which is a significant 
amount of money, but offsite disposal and transportation costs 
have increased dramatically over the past 5 years.
    Another item future legislation should address is making 
building demolition an eligible cleanup expense. Uncontrolled 
demolition of buildings through fire or neglect is often the 
source of environmental contamination placing public health and 
the environment at risk.
    Most importantly, future legislation should require strong 
community engagement to ensure all impacted residents have a 
strong voice in the redevelopment process of brownfields.
    Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Buschur follows:]

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    Senator Carper. Mr. Buschur, thank you very much.
    Now, we are going to turn to Mr. Pouncey. Please proceed. 
Welcome.

  STATEMENT OF GERALD POUNCEY, CHAIRMAN, MORRIS, MANNING, AND 
                          MARTIN, LLP

    Mr. Pouncey. Mr. Chairman, Senator Capito, members of the 
committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today.
    This is a very personal issue to me. I grew up in a textile 
mill village in central Alabama, where my family and I worked 
either in the mills or the surrounding manufacturing facilities 
around those mills. Both of those mills are now closed and 
abandoned. So I am very sensitive, Senator Capito, to some of 
the questions and issues you raised about how we redevelop in 
some of these rural or not-so-urban areas which suffer from the 
same concerns about brownfields that you suffer from in the 
metropolitan areas that Mr. Buschur mentioned.
    In discussing brownfields, it is important to understand 
the consequences of the failure to clean up these sites. In 
large measure, these properties have either been, as in the 
case with the mills that I mentioned, completely abandoned, or 
in some instances, they are severely underutilized, meaning 
they are operating on a skeletal crew, to avoid intentionally 
certain EPA permitting requires kicking in once they are 
closed.
    They become significant safety hazards, particularly to 
young children, as an attractive nuisance. They represent a 
threat to the communities in that condition. The serve as a 
magnet for crime in many instances. They also constitute an 
environmental risk to the surrounding communities simply 
because of deteriorating buildings very often containing a 
number of hazardous substances, asbestos is one that comes to 
mind immediately, and the contamination that exists in the soil 
or the stormwater.
    What I don't think we have focused on, and I am going to 
take a little bit of a departure from the first two witnesses' 
comments, is the challenges that we have to redevelop these 
sites, particularly from a private perspective. These 
brownfield sites require a significant upfront investment in 
capital and in cost. Very often, the testing that you do to 
determine if the site is even viable for redevelopment can cost 
five to ten times what you would do if you are developing a 
greenfield.
    Similarly, you are making that investment with no certainty 
that you are going to realize on the ultimate redevelopment. 
Very often, those test results may say that the redevelopment 
is not viable because of the level of impacts that exist at 
that site.
    So we need to recognize that challenge for a private 
developer coming in and making this investment, that he is 
putting a significant amount of his working capital at risk 
with no certainty, in fact with some real odds to realize on 
that risk. I will come back to that in a few minutes in terms 
of the financial incentives that we have created.
    The second difficulty, and I say this both as leading a lot 
of brownfields redevelopment efforts across the Country but 
also personally doing some redevelopment in these areas as 
well, is there is an inherent delay in cleaning these sites up 
before you start the redevelopment. And there is an inherent 
additional cost that must occur with respect to that cleanup 
after you purchase the property. So it is not just the 
investment you make before you buy it, it is the investment you 
make after you buy it for purposes of cleanup. I will come back 
to that in a minute as well.
    So the question becomes, how do we create the incentive 
that encourages the private sector, either on its own or 
jointly with the public sector, to redevelop these sites. I 
would offer that one of the most effective ways to do this is 
to move these sites to State brownfield programs that exist in 
all of your States and in many of the States of the committee 
members. I will give you one example of the effectiveness of 
those State brownfield programs.
    Mr. Chairman, you mentioned that I was the author of the 
Georgia Brownfield Law, which we actually began implementation 
of that law in 2004. Since that law was implemented just in the 
State of Georgia, over 1,300 properties have gone into that 
brownfield program. Almost 800 properties have achieved cleanup 
under that program. That is a private incentivized program for 
cleanup. It has been effective not just in the metropolitan 
areas of Georgia; it has been effective in the rural areas of 
Georgia.
    The reason, like most programs, it provides two things that 
are critical. No. 1, it provides a financial incentive to 
conduct that cleanup. You are able to recover your cleanup 
costs back from your property taxes. So if I spend a million 
dollars on cleanup, and my property, because of the 
redevelopment, has increased in value, I am able to recover 
from that increase in value my cleanup cost. We are also able 
to monetize that, which means that if I sell the property 
later, my buyer will also then benefit from that offset in 
taxes that I can recover that sum from my buyer. That is a 
major incentive which has, quite frankly, underwritten a lot of 
these deals that otherwise would not have occurred.
    The second protection it provides, which is common with a 
lot of the State programs that I have discussed, is a liability 
protection. Senator Capito, you mentioned that earlier. That 
is, if I am a buyer who had no responsibility for the 
contamination, I didn't even own the property when the 
contamination occurred, and I am agreeing to come in and 
conduct a State or federally approved cleanup, if I don't have 
certain liability protections that attach to me in doing that, 
I have no incentive to come in and perform that cleanup. Most 
of the States have recognized that and introduced these 
liability protection provisions, some broader than others, that 
give you protection, and quite candidly, and perhaps even more 
importantly, give your lenders protection, so that I am able to 
get the financing necessary to fund those projects.
    That also is important when we are dealing with rural 
redevelopment or small-town redevelopment, as well as urban 
redevelopment, is being able to get the financing resources.
    The other item that I would note, and I will pause for a 
moment because in anticipation of my testimony over the last 2 
weeks, I have spoken with the heads of several brownfield 
programs across the south, individuals with whom I deal on a 
weekly basis. I have asked them what is the biggest issue for 
them in terms of their ability to even more successfully 
implement these brownfield programs. For them, honestly, it is 
funding for the grant programs. The States, we talk about where 
we can invest this money, in assessments, in cleanup, and I am 
about to come back to your cleanup issue as well.
    Senator Carper. I do mean to say, your time is expired. But 
I am not going to cut you off. But we have other witnesses, and 
we have to ask you to wrap up.
    Mr. Pouncey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will tie this up 
really quickly. The predominant comment by all these brownfield 
programs has been, we need the funding to keep these programs 
active. Some of them are fee-based. But the fees don't cover 
all the costs of the program. That is the predominant concern 
that I hear among those brownfield programs.
    Finally, I would note an item that my co-witness mentioned 
earlier, that is, there has been a lot of money spent in these 
grant programs on assessment. But the real price, the real cost 
is on the cleanup side. So raising the limit on the funds 
associated with cleanup is absolutely imperative in terms of 
allowing these programs to move forward. If there is one thing 
I can point to, and I think that is a great comment, but that 
is a burden when you get to the front door but you can't get in 
the front door because you don't have the funds to do the 
cleanup.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Pouncey follows:]

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    Senator Carper. Thank you very, very much for that 
testimony, all of it.
    Mr. Carico, you are on. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE CARICO, DIRECTOR, WEST VIRGINIA BROWNFIELDS 
             ASSISTANCE CENTER, MARSHALL UNIVERSITY

    Mr. Carico. Thank you, Senator Carper, and Senator Capito. 
I really appreciate the opportunity to be here.
    I am George Carico. I am Director of the West Virginia 
Brownfields Assistance Center at Marshall University. I am here 
today to offer our experience on the value and importance of 
redeveloping brownfield properties and show our support for 
continuation of the Brownfields Program and offer some input on 
how this valuable program can be strengthened.
    Our Brownfields Assistance Center works in conjunction with 
the Brownfields Center at West Virginia University. These 
centers were established in 2005 by State legislation to assist 
communities and organizations across West Virginia in 
redeveloping brownfield properties for new and productive use. 
We have seen first-hand the importance of EPA brownfields 
funding, how these investments have resulted in strengthening 
of local and regional economies while adding new community 
vibrancy and resiliency to our cities and towns.
    Reutilizing brownfield properties for new commercial and 
industrial businesses, residential use, government, and 
recreational use has been quite prosperous for several 
communities, and it is our goal to see more successes, 
especially in our smaller communities and rural areas. West 
Virginia is just like most States, we have thousands of 
brownfield properties, found in all sizes and conditions. These 
properties can be quite challenging to redevelop, primarily due 
to the environmental hazards they contain, or are perceived to 
contain. Properly assessing and, if needed, remediating 
environmental hazards is vital to transforming these properties 
into new, productive use while ensuring the future safety of 
human health and the environment. EPA brownfields funding is 
providing this vital component.
    Since 2005, our Centers have seen a wide variety of 
successful brownfield projects. EPA states they have invested 
approximately $41 million in brownfield funding in West 
Virginia, resulting in an estimated $1.6 billion in leveraged 
funds, and creating about 5,400 jobs in our State. While I can 
provide dozens of examples, I will quickly focus on three 
different but important projects to illustrate this success.
    The first one is the Shepherdstown Library. Shepherdstown 
is one of the oldest towns in West Virginia, and they were in 
dire need of a new library building, as the old building was 
way too small and they had inadequate parking, lots of issues 
there. The most suitable location that could provide enough 
space was identified at the edge of their town. Decades ago, 
that was the former town dump. The site was fully assessed, and 
corrective actions were conducted. In July of this year, the 
town celebrated its new library.
    Second example is the Huntington Fire Station. This 
brownfield site consisted of a former gas station and a dry 
cleaner facility. Brownfield funds were utilized to assess the 
property, identify the hazardous contaminants in the soil and 
groundwaters. The site was entered into the West Virginia 
voluntary remediation program. Just recently, a certificate of 
completion as issued. Now a new and strategically located fire 
station is under construction.
    The last example I will give you is the Beech Bottom 
Industrial Park. A steel mill operated here for decades along 
the Ohio River. After closing and sitting vacant for many, many 
years, brownfield funding was used to assess and remediate the 
site. In August of this year, it was announced that an electric 
pontoon boat manufacturing company will be the first tenant on 
part of the property, providing 100 new jobs and investing $5 
million into the facility there.
    These are again just a few examples of projects where EPA's 
brownfields investments have played a critical role. If this 
funding were not available, most of these projects would not 
have happened. This funding gets environmentally impacted 
properties ready for new use, clearing the way for other 
funding streams to be utilized that will result in successful 
projects.
    While we have a lot of success stories, we have many, many 
more sites that still need attention, especially in our smaller 
communities and our rural areas, where the number of brownfield 
properties may be less but are equally as important. Due to 
limited capacity and resources, it is much more difficult for 
these smaller communities to compete against the larger cities 
and urban areas. Successfully applying for brownfield grant 
funding and meeting all the requirements can be a daunting 
challenge for these communities. They are often at a 
disadvantage to successfully compete.
    In closing, I will say this. The EPA has numerous programs 
that are of tremendous value and importance to the U.S. We, 
like many others, we consider the Brownfield Program to be 
their crown jewel. Some changes to the competitive process 
should be considered to make it easier for smaller communities 
to compete. But the Brownfields Program is definitely a true 
champion.
    I thank you, and look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Carico follows:]

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    Senator Carper. We have been looking forward to your 
testimony. Let me just say, you have met and exceeded, all of 
you, our hopes. I want to again commend our staffs for finding 
you and convincing you to come and join us.
    I already telegraphed my pitch and indicated one of the 
things I am looking for is finding consensus. We work well in 
this committee in finding consensus on major issues. I 
mentioned some of those earlier.
    I am going to start off by asking each of you to briefly 
respond to this. We will start with you, Mr. Buschur. I am 
interested in two areas, two ideas where you think there is 
consensus among the four of you that are important, that you 
think we should really pursue. Of all the things you have heard 
said, where are a couple of really great areas we should 
pursue? Because there is a lot of consensus.
    Mr. Buschur. I spend a lot of my time building parks. There 
is never enough money to do everything that the community 
wants. As illustrated by my testimony, EPA cleanup moneys 
provides a very small sliver of the overall amount of funding 
provided to construct these spaces. Communities are then 
obligated to maintain that engineered barrier to make sure the 
space is safe for residents.
    So the statutory limit increase is important. I would also 
go further to say that sites that remain fallow but have 
received funding from the EPA should also, previous funding for 
cleanup should also be eligible for additional cleanup funds. 
The statutory limit used to be $200,000. So I think there is 
consensus on increasing the statutory limit.
    The second area where I think, we didn't hear it from the 
individuals today, but I know listening sessions in Region 1 
really highlighted the need for building demolition to be an 
eligible cleanup expense. It is pretty wild that a mill 
building has to burn and the contaminants have to end up in the 
soils to be eligible for cleanup.
    Senator Carper. Thanks. Mr. Pouncey, just quickly, two 
areas where there is good consensus that we ought to drill down 
on.
    Mr. Pouncey. Mr. Chairman, I agree, raising the limit on 
the remediation cost component is a big issue for purposes of 
these grants. As I mentioned earlier, very often you have the 
assessed money, so you get to the front door but you can't walk 
in because you can't afford the cleanup. I would consider that 
to be a significant item, along with, as part of that, 
including demolition costs.
    The second item with which I would agree, and I think Mr. 
Goldstein may have mentioned it, that is reintroducing, 
enacting or extending the Brownfield Tax Credit which allows 
you at the Federal level to expense your costs in the year they 
are incurred from a remediation standpoint.
    Senator Carper. OK, thank you. Same question, Mr. Carico. 
What great ideas do you think there is a lot of consensus 
around?
    Mr. Carico. First, I completely agree with the cleanup 
aspects. I will add, though, one good thing, this round of 
current funding that has come up, there are actually three 
layers to the cleanup grant process, or three levels of 
funding: $500,000, $1 million, and $2 million. The higher grant 
numbers, the funding numbers are a reduced number of grants. 
There probably need to be more in that higher level. But it is 
good to see that that is advancing, because it is costing a lot 
more to remediate sites.
    Second, I want to give a big amen to the demo side. Finding 
demolition money is always a very, very difficult one.
    The third one I would add is, the complexity of the 
application process for small communities with their limited 
capacity and their resources, it is very daunting and 
challenging for them. It is very hard to compete against the 
larger cities and urban areas. So putting in some items that 
could help them to where they can compete on a little bit more 
level playing field would be a great benefit for everybody, I 
think.
    Senator Carper. Thanks for those. Mr. Goldstein, are you 
still with us?
    Mr. Goldstein. Absolutely. Following along very, very 
closely, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much.
    My first item where I see consensus starts with an 
observation that Ranking Member Capito made, and that is with 
respect to reforming the grant administrative process. It is 
overly burdensome and if we could streamline that, that would, 
I think, increase the competitiveness of not only rural 
communities but environmental justice communities who are also 
under-resourced, even though they are in urban areas. That is 
No. 1.
    And amen to the amen that we just heard on including 
demolition costs in the grant process. But the second main 
areas of consensus I see is with my brother, Gerald Pouncey, 
and that is finding a way to have EPA relinquish jurisdiction 
in sites with primary Federal enforcement, so we can get those 
sites into State brownfield programs where they can enjoy 
State-based liability protection incentives and economic 
incentives.
    In many States, including my State, Florida, the two are 
mutually exclusive. If a site is under Federal enforcement, it 
is ineligible to participate in a State brownfield program. So 
I think there is a lot of bang for the buck in looking at, 
exploring that relinquishing of Federal enforcement 
jurisdiction.
    Senator Carper. Thank you for those.
    Senator Ernst, Senator Capito has graciously offered to 
step aside and let you go ahead and ask your questions. Thank 
you for being a faithful attender of these hearings.
    Senator Ernst. Thank you. I appreciate that. I had a tough 
battle here with the chair when I got in, but I won.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. Let the record show Ernst 1, chair zero.
    Senator Ernst. I won this one.
    Thanks to all of our witnesses for being here today. We 
really do appreciate the discussion.
    The city of Des Moines has recently gained ownership of 
what is known as the former Dico site, which has been on the 
EPA's National Priority List since 1983. So Des Moines has 
actually taken a number of steps forward in collaboration with 
the EPA and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources in an 
attempt to redevelop this property.
    The goal is to house a professional soccer stadium and 
bring economic development opportunities to the community. 
However, there is always a however, sites on the National 
Priority List are not eligible for brownfields funds.
    Mr. Pouncey, in your experience, how many sites have you 
worked with that are no longer owned by that original pollution 
source, such as the Dico site in Des Moines?
    Mr. Pouncey. Many. Many. And I would offer to the entire 
committee, one of the things we have met with EPA regarding is 
the effort to get these sites off the National Priority List so 
that they can be eligible for State programs that allow for the 
items which I mentioned earlier, which is tax relief, 
potentially, which is liability protection for the buyer that 
is coming in to buy that site and redevelop that site.
    We have also introduced the concept of partial deletion, 
which means even though all the site may not be removed, at 
least the lion's share of the site can be removed from the NPL. 
So that portion would be eligible for the State program and can 
proceed to the State program.
    Senator Ernst. That is wonderful. I think you just answered 
my second question. I was going to ask if you believed it would 
be appropriate for sites who have transferred that ownership 
then to be eligible for those brownfields funds. So absolutely, 
I think we have work to do there. We are blocking a lot of 
really great economic development by not engaging with those 
properties. I really do appreciate that.
    Mr. Carico, given your experience, what steps do you think 
would be most impactful in streamlining both the brownfields 
grant application and the implementation process?
    Mr. Carico. Streamlining the process, that would be a 
wonderful step in the right direction. It is extremely 
cumbersome to put these applications together. We work with 
communities, as an example, we have been doing webinars with 
communities this past summer, telling them about the grant 
process and helping them understand this is not an easy task 
that you are about to encounter, trying to take them through 
step by step what is required in the overall application 
process.
    By being able to streamline that a little bit, there is so 
much information that is required, it gets down into things 
like health statistics, cancer rates, lung disease, all these 
different things. As EPA says, they want you to tell a good 
story with your application. You have to fit the contaminants 
that are in your community that you are looking to deal with 
against those health concerns.
    A lot of times, especially in our more rural communities, 
it is hard to get that data that can be presented. So we are 
already at a disadvantage. Then you lose points for that, 
because you can't score well in that particular category.
    We should make sure we keep more of the focus on assessing 
that property, figuring out what is there, what needs to be 
cleaned up, and then figuring out the strategy to do just that, 
then apply the cleanup grant funding to go do just that. 
Simplifying that a little bit is going to help all of us down 
the road, especially with our smaller communities.
    Senator Ernst. That is great to hear. Thank you so much. I 
do think that is important as well. Let's get on it.
    Thank you very much, Ranking Member Capito and Chairman 
Carper, thank you.
    Senator Carper. Thank you.
    Senator Cardin has joined us from Maryland, and we have 
been joined by the Senator from Alaska, Senator Sullivan, and 
by Sheldon Whitehouse. Welcome. Ben, you are recognized.
    Senator Cardin. First of all, let me thank the Chairman and 
Ranking Member for conducting this hearing. The brownfields 
legislation has been critically important. I represent the 
State of Maryland. So let me talk about Tradepoint Atlantic, 
which is one of the largest brownfield sites in the Country. 
For those who are not familiar, it was the Sparrows Point steel 
yards from the 1800's to 2012. At one time it was the largest 
steel producing facility in the United States.
    When it shuttered in 2012, there was close to $70 million 
of immediate work that had to be done to clean up the 
environment. Today, as a result of the brownfields legislation, 
this property has been reprogrammed. We now have Amazon, Home 
Depot, Under Armour, BMW, Volkswagen, we have the DOE Offshore 
Wind Initiative, as well as large railyards connecting two 
Class 1 railroads, CSX and Norfolk Southern. So it is a hub for 
economic growth for the future, transitioning from a steel yard 
production facility to its modern needs. So I am a strong 
advocate for brownfields and for the legislation that we are 
talking about today.
    I would like to focus on one aspect of it, as to how we 
could do perhaps even a stronger job. We know that most 
brownfields are located in challenging communities. These are 
older communities by definition, and have had older types of 
facilities.
    So how do we focus the legislation to be more effective in 
regard to environmental justice and helping the underserved 
communities? I welcome your thoughts as to how, as we look at 
reauthorization, how would we want to provide additional 
incentives so that we can reach those communities? Sometimes 
these brownfields sites might be kind of small, other times 
they may be large. They may be located in urban centers, they 
may be located in rural communities.
    But how do we deal with the unusual commitments to 
communities that don't have the same resources that other 
communities may have in their brownfields sites? Who is the 
first person willing to help here?
    Mr. Carico. Yes, sir, I am happy to try to answer that. I 
am in West Virginia. We have a little different setup there. We 
actually have two Brownfield Assistance Centers. Our State 
legislation put those into effect back in 2005. So it is 
actually our job to go out and work with local communities to 
help them to understand the daunting challenges of going after 
these grant funds. It is literally hand-holding 101, a step-by-
step getting them to understand what the environmental 
contaminants are all about, how do you address them, all the 
different issues that are there.
    So we are doing that in our State, and we have had a lot of 
success with it.
    Senator Cardin. Are we helping you do that?
    Mr. Carico. No, sir.
    Senator Cardin. How can the Federal Government help you do 
this?
    Mr. Carico. You have the TAB providers, the Technical 
Assistance providers that EPA has throughout the Country. I 
think there are six of them. My counterpart at West Virginia 
University is one of those TAB providers. So they work in EPA 
Region 3, for example, to do that same thing, to start 
interacting there.
    There probably needs to be a lot more work done there if 
you are going to get out to those more rural, smaller 
communities. I have to tell you, it takes a whole lot of one-
on-one meetings in order to really get them on board.
    Senator Cardin. I agree with you. So you are saying, we 
could help, the Federal Government, in providing the resources 
for technical assistance for communities that have challenges 
working through the application process for grants and 
eligibility. Can we make the grants a little bit simpler and 
more focused to make it easier for these communities?
    Mr. Carico. That would make us all happier, I can assure 
you. Again, for our smaller communities, they are really kind 
of a step behind just because it is very difficult to be able 
to pull all the needed requirements into those applications. If 
you don't score well in just one little subsection of an 
application, you probably won't get funded. As was mentioned 
earlier, we have had projects that scored 92 points out of 100. 
In school, that is an ``A'' paper, but these were not funded 
because they didn't score high enough.
    Senator Cardin. I know my time is just about out, but I 
think Mr. Goldstein might want to add something to this.
    Mr. Goldstein. I am out here in the brownfields, ether, but 
I am listening carefully and eagerly. Senator, thank you for 
your question. There are two specific strategies that the 
Federal Government can employ to address your important 
concern. One is to overly induce the private sector. Here in 
the State of Florida, the legislature has put its thumb on the 
scale for affordable housing on brownfields sites, and for 
access to health care on brownfields sites. In my earlier 
testimony, I suggested ways in which the Federal Government 
could provide heightened subsidies to affordable housing 
developers through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program 
for developers that invest in communities that need critical 
affordable housing.
    I also provided testimony regarding a brownfield loan 
guarantee which in my experience would likely move billions of 
dollars off the sidelines in private capital into rural and 
environmental justice communities, provided that you 
incentivize those loan guarantees in that fashion. So that is 
on the one end, using a broader basket of financial tools to 
overly induce the private sector, and just make it a bad 
business decision to ignore rural communities and environmental 
justice communities.
    The other leg of the approach, the second leg of that 
approach would be to super-empower those EJ communities and 
rural communities by providing them direct and unique access to 
other Federal agencies with massive resources that currently 
aren't in the Federal Brownfields arena, like the Army Corps of 
Engineers, like the Federal Highway Administration, like the 
Economic Development Administration and other agencies that 
this committee doesn't have jurisdiction over, like HUD.
    But those are two very discrete and meaningful and material 
approaches that could help you execute on that important issue 
of concern you identified: how do we help those communities 
where the current marketplace hasn't organically produced an 
incentive for private sector investment.
    Senator Cardin. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
    Senator Capito.
    [Presiding.] Thank you. Chairman Carper had to go a 
Homeland Security meeting, so he handed me the gavel, which I 
love.
    I am going to do my questioning, and start with you, Mr. 
Carico. Thank you for coming from the beautiful State of West 
Virginia.
    I think we have pretty much made the case here by everybody 
that rural areas, whether they are EJ communities or not 
characterized as such, need more capacity, need more help, and 
need maybe a different lens through which to look.
    So I am going to ask you a little bit more specific 
question. I understand that you are allowed to have 
administrative costs of 5 percent, is that correct? Is that an 
accurate figure? Should there be more, less? Does that reflect 
well on meeting the needs administratively?
    Mr. Carico. First of all, some years ago not too many years 
ago, you could not have any administrative costs. So first, it 
was great to see when EPA added that 5 percent administrative 
cost fee. That was really good for everybody.
    From what I can tell, and this is just my opinion on the 
matter and the folks that I work with, for our larger cities 
and our larger urban areas, I think the 5 percent fee is 
actually fairly sufficient for them. They have staff, they have 
other resources, et cetera, that they can draw from.
    For our smaller communities, where they don't have that 
many resources or they don't have the capacity, et cetera, 
possibly a little bump-up to that 5 percent allowance would 
definitely be of help to them. I would also add this as a 
caution, if I could. The vast majority of the funding should 
always focus on assisting those sites, figuring out what the 
contaminants are, and all those things that are needed, 
followed by the cleanup. The primary funding should always be 
focused on that, with a secondary focus on your site 
redevelopment and planning gaps.
    Again, the 5 percent is great. Maybe bumping it up a little 
for our smaller communities would probably help them out a 
little bit more, but may not be too big an issue for some of 
the larger communities.
    Senator Capito. All right, thank you.
    Mr. Pouncey, your testimony really brings into focus the 
partnership aspect of this. You talked about the State of 
Georgia and what you are doing there. You have all talked about 
States that are active here. Then also the private developers 
aspect of this.
    So as you are looking at that, and I know you mentioned 
some tax issues that would be helpful, opening up to 
demolition. We need to do demolition not just on brownfield 
sites, but on urban areas and rural areas that just have these 
dilapidated, uncared-for properties that are havens for ill 
use, unsafe and unhealthy.
    If you are looking at how would you improve and strengthen 
those partnerships to make sure that we are maximizing all the 
benefits, and I am curious to know as well, because I did work 
on the Opportunity Zone legislation with Senator Scott, are you 
using that, can you use that in this whole universe of 
brownfield redevelopment? Has that been useful?
    Mr. Pouncey. Senator, I will address those in reverse 
order. Yes, the Opportunity Zones play a huge role in our 
redevelopment activities. I think a number of the changes that 
are proposed are worthwhile changes. We have seen census tracks 
in areas that have grown out of poverty and may no longer be 
appropriate for treatment as Opportunity Zones. But certainly, 
they provide a real incentive for patient capital to come in 
and restore and help redevelop some of these neighborhoods.
    On the public-private partnership, and perhaps let me speak 
to the grant issue first. Respectfully, we have seen many 
instances in which the grants funded testing but that testing 
really was for no specific purpose toward cleanup. As a result, 
at the end of the day, nor for redevelopment of the community 
or improvement of the community, so at the end of the day, it 
becomes a report that goes into someone's desk and sits there.
    I would propose, and we have championed in some instances, 
the local communities who are applying for or receiving these 
grants, partnering with the private sector as well. So there is 
a real opportunity, because so many times the cleanup occurs as 
part of the redevelopment itself. The dirt that is moved, the 
yellow line that is out there moving this dirt is going to be 
there whether it is construction or whether it is cleanup. It 
is just where the material is taken afterwards.
    So I do think there is real benefit in the local 
communities that are applying for or receiving these grants 
partnering with the private sector, with interested entities or 
developers that can come in and say to them, here's the testing 
we need to come in and do this development, which very often 
includes both a public and the private component to it. I would 
suggest that is one way to more effectively use or ensure the 
effective use of these funds, is having that public-private 
partnership at the outset before the assessment begins.
    Senator Carper. Thank you. Senator Whitehouse?
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Chairman. Welcome 
to all the witnesses.
    I think we can probably all agree that Superfund sites 
burning or flooding is a very bad outcome. I see heads nodding. 
For that reason, wildfire and flood risk is important in 
dealing with our existing and emerging Superfund site 
population, if you will. GAO did a report entitled EPA Should 
Take Additional Actions to Manage Risks from Climate Change, in 
which GAO found that EPA had omitted, omitted, climate change 
from its agency strategy and further, that many Superfund sites 
would be at increased risk of flooding and wildfires, and that 
obviously, if you have omitted that from your risk calculation, 
you have kind of missed the pitch.
    My question to you, and I guess I will start with our voice 
from the ether, if I may, Mr. Goldstein, is what did we lose in 
the denial years when EPA wouldn't count climate change into 
the Superfund risk factor? And have we caught up for whatever 
went wrong in those years? How prepared are we now in terms of 
a proper scientifically based accurate assessment of which 
Superfund sites face new risks from flooding and from wildfire?
    Mr. Goldstein. I think that the industry and the agencies, 
both at the Federal level and at the State level, are catching 
up very quickly. There is and has been over the last I would 
say five or 6 years a very significant effort to understand the 
remedies that are appropriate to implement for contamination in 
coastal zone areas that are acutely subject to sea rise and 
whether those remedies should continue to include encapsulation 
of waste onsite or source removal.
    This is an ongoing discussion that has technical 
implications, regulatory implications, legal implications, 
economic implications and equity implications. Not all cleanups 
are created equal, and not all cleanups are financially sourced 
reliable in the same way.
    This goes back to some of the testimony that we have heard 
in this hearing, and some of the testimony I provided, 
regarding the ability of the Federal Government to achieve 
better outcomes and better results in the age of climate change 
by putting our thumb on the scale with respect to certain 
outcomes and approaches to clean up where here specifically, 
the legislature could, Congress could prioritize source removal 
in coastal communities, the removal of all impacted 
contaminated soil or sediments, so that when waters rise from 
below or fall from above, the caps that are in place, which may 
no longer be an effective remedy, are not an issue, because the 
source of contamination has been eliminated.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you. I have a minute left, so if 
I may, let me ask the other witnesses to offer whatever 
thoughts they may have in response to those questions as 
responses for the record, put them in writing. It wouldn't be 
right for a Rhode Island Senator not to say a kind word about 
the Rhode Island role in establishing brownfields led by a 
chairman, once, of the Environment and Public Works Committee, 
John Chaffee, whose picture is right in that room as one of the 
former chairmen of this committee. And then reauthorized by his 
son, Lincoln Chaffee, years later when he assumed his father's 
seat.
    So we take a certain amount of pride in the Brownfields 
Program around Rhode Island, because it has good Rhode Island 
fingerprints all over it.
    Another Rhode Island credential that relates to this is 
that the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council at 
the University of Rhode Island has worked to improve the 
mapping of flood risk along the Rhode Island coast. We 
discovered that the FEMA mapping was absolutely horrible, it 
was terrible. If you followed the FEMA mapping, it led to 
internal inconsistencies within its own program. It produced 
results for worse storms that were lower than what was measured 
for actual less bad storms.
    How is it possible to even come up with a flood risk map 
that shows for X level of storms it is actually going to be 
better than we actually experienced for a lesser level of 
storm? It doesn't even make sense. The sloppiness of the FEMA 
process, the inconsistencies within the FEMA process, and the 
flinch that they had about looking at sea level rise because, 
oh, my God, you might have to touch on climate change, and oh, 
my God, we can't talk about that. It just created a disaster.
    The State really stepped up and has done absolutely first-
quality mapping. I encourage anybody who is in that predicament 
now to take a look at what Rhode Island did. It is called the 
Storm Tools App and Resource, is really pretty remarkable. 
Unfortunately, it tends to be coastal, but I am sure that in 
West Virginia some of those rain burst storm floods have a 
similar outcome on folks.
    I just wanted to say those thank yous to Rhode Island. Much 
appreciated.
    Senator Capito. I will thank Rhode Island as well, and I 
can speak to the 2016 flood where the maps in Rainelle showed 
that there would be no flooding, and they were flooded six to 
eight feet in these houses. If you talked to people in the 
community, they would say, oh, sure, sure they flooded, they 
would get water in their yard every spring. So they knew. But 
the maps showed no. These folks hadn't bought any flood 
insurance. So it didn't have a very happy outcome for many of 
them.
    So here is a question I want to ask everybody. We have 
talked about successful brownfields applications and projects 
that you have worked on. Have you ever had a project where you 
looked at it for a brownfield and you deemed that it would be 
not worth the effort, or something that was premature? We will 
start with you, Mr. Carico, then we will go back to the whole 
group.
    Mr. Carico. Yes, ma'am. The short answer is yes. Many times 
we interact with the community. I will give you an example, in 
the little community of Mullens, had a little project there. 
All they needed, when all was said and done, was about $30,000 
to do some asbestos abatement.
    The EPA Brownfields Program is not the route to go to try 
to get that funding. It is just way too much effort for that 
one single project. We do often sit down with, especially in 
our smaller, more rural communities, and after meeting with 
them and going through all the details, we tell them, you are 
not ready to try to get into this brownfields arena. Maybe then 
we try to help them with one particular site.
    They have a little site, it is their highest-ranking site 
they want to do something about. We try to work with them on 
that one site. That kind of gets their appetite wet and gets 
them to learn the process a little bit, and then prepares them 
to where they can move forward into the brownfields arena.
    I will let these other fellows comment as well.
    Senator Capito. Yes, Mr. Pouncey.
    Mr. Pouncey. Senator, there are two categories of sites 
that we have had to walk away from. One are sites that are on 
the National Priority List because it just takes so long to get 
those sites off the list.
    Senator Capito. That is the Superfund?
    Mr. Pouncey. It is. We had one where we spent close to 15 
years to ultimately get it off the National Priority List and 
went through four series of purchasers, because of the lack of 
patience. They just couldn't wait that amount of time to get it 
off. So that is why I think it is so important to develop 
innovative ways to get these sites off the Superfund list.
    The second is less subject to how you correct it, but it is 
simply where we are approached by a developer for a particular 
type of use and it turns out the site just wasn't appropriate 
for that use. That may be, if you are looking at a single 
family or multi-family residential development, and the cleanup 
is such that it is really only going to support an industrial 
use, or a warehouse/last mile use or something like that.
    Senator Capito. Thank you. Mr. Buschur?
    Mr. Buschur. We have two types of sites in Lawrence. We 
have scatter sites, smaller properties, smaller industrial 
properties in residential areas, then we have large properties 
with great proximity to transit, to highways, riverfront 
properties as well. The ones that are along the waterfront 
close to transit, they are going to find a private partner to 
complete that redevelopment and to really show that leverage 
that the EPA Brownfields Program is so known for.
    But when you get to the scatter sites in residential areas, 
the smaller industrial sites less than an acre with triple 
deckers or high density housing right adjacent to them, the end 
use is not very visible, and the partners with the brownfields 
expertise required to reposition these and get them back on the 
tax rolls, they are not really out there. So you are really 
relying quite frequently on somebody like a Groundwork to come 
in and do a park, or a community-based organization, community 
development corporation, that is going to take down the site 
and hopefully create some housing.
    But at the end of the day, it all requires a private 
partner who is willing to take on the risk associated with this 
redevelopment. If the market is moving fast, you are likely to 
have more traction. When the real eState market is slow, things 
tend to slow down.
    Senator Capito. Right. Mr. Goldstein?
    Mr. Goldstein. On our end, we from time-to-time experience 
many of the factors that the previous witnesses mentioned. 
Florida has been blessed with a very active economy. So that 
hasn't been a significant driver in terms of having to walk 
away from brownfield sites.
    On our end, what we find most as being too significant a 
hurdle to overcome is where the public health risk is acute, 
where there has been actual injury to public health and claims 
may be asserted or may be assertable in the future with respect 
to public health that could be absorbed by a prospective 
purchaser. That makes redevelopment very difficult.
    Senator Capito. I think Mr. Pouncey addressed that in his 
opening statement on liability issues.
    So if you have a site that you have decided, or it has been 
decided that you are not going to go forward on, is it 
remediated or does it just sit there with the contaminants? 
What happens to those sites. Do they sit there until somebody 
comes along later and tries to redevelop?
    Mr. Buschur. Until the leadership, until the political 
leadership is there, I want my staff, who has limited staff 
time, to go out and tackle this site. Within Lawrence, these 
are sites that are off the tax rolls, the cities take them for 
taxes.
    Senator Capito. It could be an old gas station or something 
like that.
    Mr. Buschur. Yes, we have a dry-cleaning site that is now a 
park. But we have former manufacturing facilities nestled 
between a river, a school, and residential areas that just 
aren't right for redevelopment, and the city is trying to 
figure out what to do with them. As Mr. Pouncey noted, you 
really need a private partner to make this happen. You can't 
just make it parking.
    Senator Capito. Thanks.
    Mr. Goldstein. Senator, if I may?
    Senator Carper.
    [Presiding.] Go ahead, please.
    Mr. Goldstein. Your question is a great one, because that 
is where we originally came into the Brownfields Program in the 
first instance in the 1990's. There were dozens and dozens of 
obstacles to clean up and redevelopment that were too high to 
surmount. Steadily, over the decades, EPA and State partners 
have been lowering those obstacles. There are not many that 
remain, but those that remain can be significant. We have just 
addressed many of those.
    That is why I return again to the suggestion that I made a 
few times where obstacles remain too significant for the 
marketplace to respond under existing conditions, the Federal 
Government should come in and change the conversation by super-
inducing the private sector to absorb risk through the use of 
loan guarantees or expand grants or expanded access to 
liability protection.
    Mr. Pouncey. Senator, if I may, one comment on that. I 
think it is a number that is very reflective of this issue. We 
have had a superfund program in Georgia since 1992. Over the 
life of that program, which now is 30 years, we have had about 
700 properties put on our State superfund list. Of those I 
think we are approaching 250 or so that have been cleaned up, 
of the 700, over a 30-year period.
    You compare that to the Brownfield Program, which is a 
private incentivized program, where we have had 1,300 
properties go into the program in just a little over half the 
time and 750 or so of those properties are now cleaned up. So 
you compare that enforcement component versus the private 
incentive component, and you see the dramatic effect is has on 
the opportunity for cleanup.
    Senator Capito. That is a good point.
    Mr. Chairman, I am going to have to say goodbye, I have 
another obligation. Thank you.
    Senator Capito. Thanks so much. Thanks for running the 
show.
    Senator Sullivan was here, but he had to leave. I don't' 
know if any of our other Republican colleagues will be able to 
join us this morning. But we have been joined by Senator 
Padilla. He is recognized for any questions or comments. Thank 
you, Senator Padilla.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you 
for holding this hearing on the need to reauthorize the EPA's 
Brownfields Program. The Brownfields Program has a long history 
of supporting safe and responsible redevelopment. Since its 
inception, it has made nearly 10,000 properties ready for re-
use, many of which are in my home State of California, many of 
which are in my hometown of Los Angeles, and many of which are 
literally in my backyard, in the neighborhood I grew up in, 
Pacoima, California. I have seen and worked in these issues as 
a State legislator, putting State government resources to 
leverage Federal resources in redevelopment. I am familiar with 
these efforts, once upon a time as a city council member, 
trying to navigate some of these cleanup efforts and effort to 
redevelop into productive use and economic benefit, often in 
underserved communities.
    Mr. Buschur, I appreciated your written testimony for 
touching on the challenges of de-industrialization. The example 
I want to focus on today is actually not in my back yard but in 
the city and county of San Francisco. The shipping industry was 
the lifeblood of San Francisco's Bayview-Hunter's Point 
neighborhood for decades. The concentration of industrial sites 
has resulted in more than 150 brownfields in Bayview-Hunter's 
Point, many of which are not further threatened by sea level 
rise. So you see a convergence of challenges here.
    The actual shipyard itself is now a Federal Superfund site 
and one of America's most polluted places. Just last week, San 
Francisco broke ground on a project that will connect 
disadvantaged communities and Bayview-Hunter's Point to the 
kind of outdoor recreation opportunities that other shoreline 
neighborhoods in San Francisco have long enjoyed. Working with 
the EPA and a diverse group of community partners, San 
Francisco is redeveloping a 13-mile corridor of green space 
with trails and parks along the waterfront.
    Redevelopment of this site would not have been possible 
without first cleaning up the contaminated soil and debris and 
structures on the property, efforts which were supported by 
EPA's Brownfields Program. Now in a few short years, thanks to 
this program, the community members in Bayview-Hunter's Point 
will be able to enjoy shoreline trails on what was once an 
abandoned and blighted former industrial site.
    This project was successful thanks to the engagement and 
support from various State and local entities. While the 
project received almost $350,000 from the EPA Brownfields 
Program, the city also leveraged separate EPA funds as well as 
other sources of funding.
    But not every environmental justice community has the same 
access to technical assistance to be able to complete projects. 
There are surely other Federal agencies that can and should be 
brought into the brownfields redevelopment projects.
    My question is for Mr. Goldstein. How should we think about 
a whole-of-government approach to funding brownfield 
redevelopment projects and improving interagency coordination?
    Mr. Goldstein. That is a great question, Senator. I am glad 
you asked it. You are absolutely right, there are other 
agencies that should be part of this conversation and should be 
providing resources. I identified three that are under this 
committee's jurisdiction in my testimony earlier this morning: 
the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of 
Engineers, which has massive resources to bring to the table 
and can absolutely partner and collaborate with environmental 
justice communities in an immediate and very material way, and 
the Economic Development Administration.
    The EPA has put out a wonderful guidance document which 
they have been doing every several years called the Federal 
Brownfields Program, which identifies aspirational brownfield 
agendas within 24 different Federal agencies and departments. 
But if you look at what is actually happening in the 
brownfields universe, really EPA is the only agency that has 
any meaningful involvement.
    So what I would suggest is a corollary to a friendly 
amendment to the testimony I gave earlier. Have EDA convene a 
national brownfields summit. Bring representatives from each of 
those 24 agencies and departments to the table, along with 
private and public sector stakeholders, State, local, tribal, 
NGO's, environmental justice, et cetera, and collectively 
identify what resources, human resources and financial 
resources, each of these agencies that are already part of the 
Federal brownfields constellation can bring to the table.
    Specific to reauthorization, which is what this hearing is 
about, again, we recommend new funding of resources be 
allocated specifically to the Corps, specifically to EDA, and 
specifically to FHWA for these purposes. Let's put our thumb on 
the scale to prioritize funding for EJ communities and rural 
communities.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up, but I would like to ask 
one quick followup question for Mr. Goldstein. Another reason 
this project was so successful is because San Francisco 
accounted for potential climate change and sea level rise 
impacts by using EPA's Brownfields Cleanup Alternatives 
checklist. For example, they chose soil excavation as the 
preferred cleanup method, as opposed to remediation, because it 
would reduce the risk of re-mobilizing soil contaminants as sea 
levels continued to rise.
    How can the EPA ensure that climate change and potential 
sea level rise are adequately considered during brownfield 
redevelopment efforts? If I could ask for a brief response and 
we will continue the conversation after the hearing.
    Mr. Goldstein. Absolutely, Senator Padilla, thank you. I am 
glad you asked that question because it gives me an opportunity 
to supplement my response to Senator Whitehouse on this very 
same issue.
    EPA is laser-focused on climate change and brownfields. 
They have released several guidance documents that are 
encyclopedic in the way in which they approach this particular 
challenge including focusing, as you pointed out, source 
removal in coastal areas as a remedy. Why is that important? It 
is important because if you leave contaminated soil in place 
and it is subject to flooding, the waters rise and soak through 
that contaminated material. Like a sponge that may contain hot 
chocolate that is wiped up from a kitchen counter, that 
material is going to leak out of the soil or the sponge and 
further exacerbate contamination in communities.
    So remedies at the regulatory level should be focused on 
source removal as the first component of a climate change 
strategy for brownfields.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will 
submit questions for the record relative to the recommendations 
and suggestion of codifying some of our environmental justice 
and equity directives into the Brownfields Program. Thank you 
very much.
    Senator Carper. Thanks so much for joining us and for your 
participation and questions.
    I have a couple more questions I want to ask before we 
break for the day. I was out of the room for a while, we all 
serve on a bunch of different committees. One my committees, 
the Homeland Security was voting on a bunch of nominations and 
legislation. I had to go, they needed somebody to show up and I 
am always happy to do that. So I missed a little bit of what 
was going on, but not too much.
    I am told, Mr. Pouncey, that you mentioned addressing 
developer liability as a way to better incentivize 
redevelopment.
    Mr. Pouncey. Yes, sir.
    Senator Carper. And I think Mr. Goldstein, I am told by my 
staff, you may have started to touch on this, some approaches 
in this regard in your earlier comments.
    Let me ask each of you to describe for us ways that this 
might be accomplished while still incentivizing health 
protection. Again, Mr. Pouncey, you mentioned addressing 
developer liability as a way to better incentivize 
redevelopment. The question would be to ask each of you to 
describe ways that this might be accomplishing while still 
incentivizing health protection.
    Mr. Buschur, would you like to go first?
    Mr. Buschur. Liability associated with ownership of 
brownfield sites is a barrier for all actors, whether they are 
trying to create parks or trying to redevelop sites. Within 
Lawrence, the State administers the brownfield program except 
for contaminants covered by TSCA. Covenants not to sue have 
been used through the State AG's office to absolve future 
owners of brownfields, particularly in certain park projects. I 
think it has been a barrier for us to act on certain park 
projects as well, to take ownership of properties when they are 
presented with us and they fit within our long-term vision for 
the city.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
    Mr. Pouncey, you may have raised this. Go ahead with any 
further comments you have, please share them.
    Mr. Pouncey. Yes, Senator. I do think that as part of the 
reauthorization there may be want to be some consideration to 
looking at a number of the States that have enacted liability 
protection and see if that can be applied to the Federal side 
as well for those brownfield buyers. I would note that there is 
still the requirement that you perform the cleanup that is 
agreed upon. That is the way to ensure the health and safety of 
those who might be impacted by liability relief.
    But I would also remind us the Superfund took a very 
remarkable approach when it was first drafted, and it has done 
tremendous things for this Country. But it did impose the 
liability upon an owner of property, whether they had caused 
contamination, whether they had owned it when it occurred or 
not.
    So I do think that is a disincentive in many instances for 
buyers as they have an opportunity to acquire this property 
versus a greenfield very often that is used to invest the 
resources somewhere else, which prevents that property from 
actually being cleaned up. So I do think liability protection 
is a tool that should be considered as part of the 
reauthorization.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
    Mr. Carico, same question. Could you describe for us ways 
that this might be accomplished while still incentivizing 
health protection?
    Mr. Carico. I want to completely agree with these gentlemen 
here. One thing in West Virginia I would add, we have our State 
voluntary remediation program. That program does provide that 
liability protection. That is oftentimes the only way you can 
really get a site to be cleaned up, ready to go, and everybody 
on the private side agrees with you. They see it, they realize 
that all the effort has been made, and that to me is one of the 
best routes to always keep in mind.
    I will agree with these gentlemen that the liability 
aspects many, many times, the site ends up just sitting there 
because of that big challenge, trying to handle that. It is a 
big hurdle that is for sure.
    Senator Carper. Thank you.
    Mr. Goldstein, I think when I was out of the room attending 
my other hearing, you may have started to touch on some 
approaches in this regard. Mr. Goldstein, if you would like to 
jump in here and share with us what I may have missed, anything 
else you want to add on this front, go ahead.
    Mr. Goldstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try and be 
brief.
    We had some discussion earlier in the testimony about the 
tension between the Superfund program at the Federal level and 
many State brownfield programs across the Country in that the 
liability protections offered under both programs were mutually 
exclusive. It was impossible in many States to take advantage 
of either liability protection incentive if you are not in that 
same program.
    So the specific incentive I would offer that I think would 
be very meaningful would be a very narrow and discrete 
amendment to the Superfund statute to CERCLA that provides that 
any party that enters into a State-based brownfield voluntary 
cleanup agreement automatically has contribution defense and 
other defenses against third party claims under Federal 
Superfund law. That way you get the best of both worlds and you 
wouldn't necessarily have to worry about EPA relinquishing its 
enforcement discretion.
    That is a very discrete and I think meaningful approach 
that could immediately be taken by Congress to expand the scope 
of liability protection available to developers who may be able 
to address their State-based legal exposure but not their 
Federal legal exposure to third parties. This butters two 
pieces of bread with one knife.
    Senator Carper. Did you say butters two pieces of bread 
with one knife?
    Mr. Goldstein. Yes. That is exactly right.
    Senator Carper. That is one of the highlights of this 
hearing. This has been a great hearing. That is one of my 
favorite aspects. Go right ahead.
    Mr. Goldstein. Then I would also reinforce the point that 
Mr. Pouncey made, and that is to ensure continued protection of 
human health and keep developers on task with respect to the 
cleanup. This is a quid pro quo environment we are operating 
in. All of the incentives, especially the liability protection 
incentives, remain viable insofar as a developer complies with 
their cleanup and public health obligations. If they fail to do 
so, the incentives are lost, including the liability protection 
incentive.
    Senator Carper. I have three or four other questions, and I 
am going to ask you to respond to them just very briefly, if 
you could. Then we will call it a morning.
    The first one deals with local engagement. Brownfield 
cleanups involve government at all levels, Federal and State 
and local. Feds provide the cleanup money, the seed money, 
through grant funding and State governments dictate the cleanup 
standards for the most part. Local governments made land use 
decisions and have ultimately control over what brownfield 
redevelopment is ultimately going to look like.
    This is critical, because remediated land has the potential 
to provide, as you know, huge benefits to impacted communities. 
We have seen it in our own communities, very close to where I 
live, and I am sure you have seen it in your own.
    A question for the panel, but especially for Mr. Buschur 
and Mr. Carico, and if other colleagues would like to comment, 
you are welcome to do that too. We will start off with Mr. 
Buschur and Mr. Carico.
    Why is local involvement so important for brownfield 
redevelopment, and how can we improve our outreach to local 
governments and individual communities impacted by brownfield 
redevelopment? Mr. Buschur?
    Mr. Buschur. Residents just want to be heard, and they want 
to know what is going on. They want to be kept in the loop. It 
is so important to keep them in the loop. I think we have all 
been to a public meeting that has kind of gone off the rails 
when residents have not been properly communicated with.
    I will just give a quick plug to Avenues for Engagement, 
and that is the Groundwork Trust Network. We reach over 6 
million people living in environmental justice communities 
across the Country, over 75 percent of whom are people of 
color. We support the cities' efforts to prepare and draft the 
cleanup and the assessment proposals by providing the 
statistics that others have referenced is so hard to access.
    Expansion of the Groundwork Network, which was created with 
support from the National Park Service and EPA, as well as 
local stakeholders, will go a long way to achieving the 
engagement goals within urban areas, but I would also say rural 
areas as well. Let's not overlook the smaller and mid-size 
cities. We are in Mobile, Alabama, we are in Atlanta, we are in 
Erie, Pennsylvania. The network is strong and can bring a lot 
of expertise to local decisionmakers.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you. Mr. Carico?
    Mr. Carico. Yes, first, great comments there. The big thing 
we have found on the local community with that local engagement 
piece is they want to be told the real story. The rumor mill 
goes around and around and around, and a lot of times they are 
misinformed about a particular property as to what it can and 
can't be used for, and then what is going on with it.
    Providing that local engagement piece, that gives them the 
opportunity where they can be heard and they can provide their 
input on what is going on on that property, how the future of 
development of it is going to affect them. Then when you do run 
into issues at the local level, that platform can then be 
addressed.
    This Brownfield Program, the way it is set up with that 
local engagement and community engagement piece, it provides 
that framework where that can be conducted. It is a great way 
to get the story out, get everybody involved, and come together 
with some consensus on how everything is progressing forward. 
That would be my comment.
    Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Carico.
    Mr. Pouncey, if you want to add to that, feel free, and Mr. 
Goldstein, if you want to add to those comments, feel free, but 
you don't have to.
    Mr. Pouncey. I think the comments by both those individuals 
on my right and left are spot on. A fundamental part of all our 
redevelopment is engagement with those local communities. That 
is a fundamental part of the zoning process. I do not see very 
many developers that are successful if they don't understand 
that fundamentally.
    Senator Carper. Yes, people like to be asked. Mr. 
Goldstein, before I ask my other questions, do you want to add 
anything on this one?
    Mr. Goldstein. No, sir.
    Senator Carper. All right. One down, 14 to go.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. Maybe not that many.
    All right. We know this deals with brownfields remediation 
planning, and this would be for the entire panel, but we know 
that thoughtful planning is a vitally important part of land 
remediation and the program has been reformed to include more 
support for the planning portions of brownfields redevelopment.
    For the whole panel, what can we do in Congress to further 
strengthen Federal support for brownfields planning so that 
communities not only engage in site-by-site planning, but can 
dedicate time and resources to develop regional area-wide plans 
to land revitalization, so that authorities can develop more 
comprehensive land use goals and plans for their communities? 
That is a pretty long question. I would be happy to repeat that 
if anybody wants me to.
    Mr. Buschur, would you like to take a shot at that?
    Mr. Buschur. Sure. I have been fortunate to participate in 
an EPA area-wide planning project that looked at, it was 
probably around 10 acres, north and south of the city's main 
commercial corridors. That set the stage for the city to create 
a new urban renewal plan and hopefully in 2023 we will begin 
construction on the rail trail that bisects that planning area.
    These funds were really vital to starting to have the 
conversation not only with property owners about thinking what 
they could do for the entire district with their individual 
small parcels, but also starting the underlying zoning and 
making sure that the right overlay district is there, 
reflecting the community's interest and the overall goals of 
the city.
    Then just building support for the conversion of the 
corridor to an alternative transportation corridor. It was a 
really good project. Hopefully, the reauthorization will 
continue supporting it.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you. Again, just a brief 
comment if you have it, Mr. Pouncey. Long question. I am 
looking for a short answer.
    Mr. Pouncey. I am always careful to have EPA get involved 
in land use planning. I think that is obviously much more 
effective at the local and regional level where they are on the 
ground. But I do think that there are areas where grants can be 
incentivized in certain forms, transit being one, a great 
example of that. There are a number of other categories like 
that where there is an ability to incentivize investment 
through grants, receiving extra points or receiving some level 
of priority if they meet with those categories. Transit, once 
again, being the obvious example.
    Senator Carper. Thanks for that example. Mr. Carico?
    Mr. Carico. I will just add a quick comment to that. With 
the brownfield funding, you can use some of that funding for 
conducting planning activities. I have seen that work both, we 
have had communities that already had some things in place but 
there was some additional work done, maybe it was a feasibility 
study or market analysis or a structural analysis or whatever, 
and it turned out that their original plans were really not the 
best plans.
    So those things got changed a little bit. So I see very 
positive results that have come from that. But again, that has 
to be done at that local level. Having our brownfield funding 
to help with that is a big key. That is part of the whole 
cleanup plan, is that key right there as well.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
    Two more questions, if I could. It has been well documented 
that low-income communities and racial minorities are 
disproportionately exposed to environmental harm. We are seeing 
that in my own State, frankly, not far from where my wife and I 
live. There are concerns that development of brownfields can do 
unintended harm by displacing the people who live there. For 
example, with remediation, there can be an influx of zoning, 
planning, and privately funded new development that can in turn 
cause rents to rise above what community members can afford.
    Again for the entire panel, this question. How can we 
incentivize private entities that invest in brownfield 
development to be sure that remediated sites benefit the 
communities where they are located and create sustainable, 
long-term infrastructure improvement for community residents? 
If I could, I am going to ask Mr. Goldstein to lead off on that 
one, please.
    Mr. Goldstein. Sure, I would be happy to, Mr. Chairman. 
This is the unfortunate secret in our world, in the brownfields 
redevelopment world, the unintended consequences of 
environmental redevelopment and revitalization, gentrification. 
The opposite of gentrification is anchoring in place.
    So how do we help communities that have long been in the 
neighborhood remain in that neighborhood? We do that by 
qualifying the private sector incentives with responsibilities 
and obligations to partner with local residents and local 
organizations. We require them to take on local partners. We 
require them to provide mentoring programs, job creation 
programs, job training programs. We require them to establish 
micro-lending programs, to invest in cultural amenities and 
gathering places and the like.
    All of this could be included in what one might call 
generically an anti-gentrification plan which could be a 
condition to the award of any Federal brownfield grant.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
    Mr. Carico, same question.
    Mr. Carico. I really don't have any additional comments to 
make on that.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
    Mr. Pouncey?
    Mr. Pouncey. It is an issue. We see it, we have seen it 
dealt with at the local level. I can point to a number of 
developments that I have been involved in in Charleston, South 
Carolina, where there has been a tremendous amount of public 
involvement and comment to ensure that the local communities 
are not just informed but also involved and participate.
    I don't know the Federal role in that. Where I have seen it 
most effectively considered has been at the local level.
    Senator Carper. Good, thank you.
    Mr. Buschur?
    Mr. Buschur. Green gentrification is a concern for 
Groundwork and the work we do within the city. Displacement is 
an issue within Lawrence. There is a significant housing 
crisis, there is a significant affordability crisis.
    I was intrigued by some of the concepts Mr. Goldstein put 
forward earlier that called for enhanced low-income housing tax 
credits associated with brownfield development to actually make 
it more appealing to private sector developers to come in, 
instead of doing full 100 percent market rate housing, that 
perhaps there are other incentives that can be provided from 
the Federal Government to make sure that a certain share of 
those units created fall to those who are most unable to afford 
housing within that city.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you, sir.
    One last question. This would also be a question for the 
entire panel. The question goes something like this. Earlier, 
we discussed detailed policy issues. I want to ask each of you 
to share with us briefly your experiences on what the 
brownfields program has meant to communities you have worked 
with. Can you give us some idea of an experience or two, 
briefly, that you have gone through and how the program has 
transformed not just land but the lives of people living in 
affected communities? Something from your own experience.
    Mr. Carico, would you like to share with us a memory or 
two?
    Mr. Carico. I could actually talk for quite a while on that 
subject. I shared a couple examples in my comments earlier. One 
that is very interesting and close to me is a little project in 
Ceredo, West Virginia.
    Senator Carper. Tell people where Ceredo is.
    Mr. Carico. It is in Wayne County, near the tip with 
Kentucky and Ohio. You can see both from there.
    There is a group called the Golden Girls Group Home.
    Senator Carper. I yearn to live there someday.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. In the distant, distant future. Don't tell 
my wife.
    Mr. Carico. It is a great name, but it is a home that was 
built for young ladies that have come from horrific home 
conditions. It is a place for them to get a second chance, a 
new start.
    They get safe housing, they get counseling. They get help 
with educational assistance and work to find jobs. It is a 
wonderful program.
    They first approached me back some years ago about a 
particular piece of property and said, we hope to build our 
facility there. I did some research on it. I am an 
environmental geologist by trade, so I have a background in 
that. I did a little look and said, there are some issues with 
this project. Rather than getting into the brownfields side of 
it, I said, do you all have any other properties. They said, 
yes, we have a second location that just came up, and we think 
it could even be the better location.
    So really quick, I did a little look into that. I said, it 
is a vacant property that nobody seems to know anything about. 
I said, let's find out for sure.
    We had Wayne County EDA, they had a brownfields grant, and 
I was working with them. I said, let's do a phase 1 
environmental site assessment on the property just to see what 
the history of this site is, to make sure there are no 
recognized environmental conditions.
    They did a phase 1. At that time, I suspect that cost was 
no more than about $4,000. There were no recognized 
environmental issues on that property. That jump-started it and 
cleared the way for, I have no idea how many private investors 
that came in, the local hospitals, the local businesses, they 
all said, OK, we see you have done your homework and we want to 
be involved with this.
    Now, the facility has been built, all these young ladies go 
there, they have a place to stay. Those stories like that 
really make your day, quite frankly. And it all got started 
because we did a little background work just to make sure they 
weren't getting ready, as we say in West Virginia, to buy a pig 
in a poke, getting ready to take on something that had 
environmental challenges that they would not be able to handle.
    Senator Carper. That is a great story.
    Mr. Carico. I could tell you more, but I will stop there.
    Senator Carper. That is great.
    Mr. Pouncey?
    Mr. Pouncey. Senator, there is one particular project that 
comes to mind. Back in the 1960's, when the interstates were 
being built, when what we call our downtown connector in 
Atlanta was built, it split the east side and the west side.
    Senator Carper. It sounds familiar. There are a lot of 
places like that around the Country.
    Mr. Pouncey. All of the growth occurred on the east side. 
The only thing on the west side was a little school called 
Georgia Tech, and an area, an old 100-acre steel mill called 
the Atlantic Steel Mill. It was operating on a skeletal crew, 
so it avoided some of the EPA closure requirements. It was 
still considered to be ``operating.''
    Well, in the late 1990's, we put together a group that 
ultimately redeveloped that steel mill that had lain in its 
underutilized capacity for close to 20 years. What it did is it 
sparked so many things on the west side of Atlanta, ultimately 
resulting a bridge that now connects the east side and the west 
side of Atlanta up in that area that we call 17th Street. It 
created grocery stores in areas that had no grocery stores. It 
created affordable restaurants in areas where there was no 
place to eat. It resulted in additional schools being built. It 
resulted in significant infrastructure improvement.
    All of that was started, the seed was planted was the 
Atlantic Station redevelopment. Fortunately, we did receive 
EPA's Brownfield Redevelopment of the year back in 2000.
    Senator Carper. That is great. Wonderful story, thank you.
    Mr. Buschur. Similar to the rest of the individuals up 
here, I have several stories. One that comes to mind is the 
Manchester Street Park site, which is a former rail yard right 
on Stevens Pond in the Arlington and Malden Mills District of 
Lawrence. When we did the park, when the city and Groundwork 
did the park, all the mills were quite dilapidated. Now there 
are hundreds of units of housing around the pond and near the 
park. The rail trail is going to be built that abuts it, and 
that connects to 30 miles of additional trails. It is the 
beginning of the end of the Spicket River Greenway.
    This park serves as that hub for the hundreds of families 
that now call that mill section home.
    Senator Carper. OK, thank you.
    How about one more story, Mr. Goldstein, from you, please?
    Mr. Goldstein. There is a story that is being written right 
now, a project that is underway involving a 100-year-old site, 
which is pretty old for Miami. Miami is not that much older 
than 100 years. It is in the neighborhood called Overtown. It 
is in the southwest quadrant of Overtown, historic African 
American community that had been split in two by I-95 many 
years ago. This particular site is bordered by Booker T. 
Washington High School, which is the second oldest African 
American high school in south Florida, and adjacent to the 
Metrorail station that connects to the county's largest job 
engine.
    This particular site had sat idle for over 30 years as a 
result of a pretty horrific spill of chlorinated solvents from 
a janitorial supply company. Using the Federal Brownfields 
Program and the State brownfields program, one of our clients 
came in, acquired the site, cleaned it up, brought up a best-
in-class affordable housing developer who was able to close 
because of the affordable housing incentives offered by the 
Federal Government.
    The fact that the site is in an Opportunity Zone, the fact 
that there is State brownfields liability protection, and they 
are now going to invest $250 million in this site to build 612 
units of affordable housing and put in a fresh food grocer in 
what is currently a food desert. So you now have the 
connectivity between transit, schools, housing, and the 
county's largest job engine, which is the health district.
    This is more than just environmental science, this is 
poetry.
    Senator Carper. Thank you for that poetry.
    I wanted to ask Bill Clinton a question, he had come and 
spoken at our annual Democratic Senate retreat over at the 
Library of Congress. He spoke before lunch, and he killed it. 
He is just so good; he was delivering the stories that he told. 
I said to him, as we were going through chow line, I said, 
``Mr. President, I have heard you speak many times, but I have 
never asked you why you are so effective as a speaker.''
    He said, ``Tom, what I do is I tend to tell stories,'' he 
said, ``I tell a series of stories that put together can 
explain more complex concepts. People understand stories. You 
draw them in, they get it.'' He said, ``I like to use some 
self-deprecating humor.'' He said, ``When I do that, I am 
usually fairly effective.''
    I find that when I do those things, I am fairly effective 
as well. I think maybe the most effective part of a terrific 
hearing has been just what you closed with. Those are wonderful 
stories that we can all get our heads and our hearts around. We 
want to thank you for those, and for being here with us.
    Mr. Goldstein, to you and your neighbors down there in 
Florida, we send prayers for all of you, hoping that you come 
through this OK. There will be a lot of interest in providing 
Federal assistance and from others around the Country who are 
not government, but want to do it just because they want to be 
a good neighbor.
    Before we adjourn, a little bit of housekeeping. We have 
heard from Senators some of them want to ask more questions for 
the record, some of them couldn't join us and want to ask some 
questions for the record. We will ask our colleagues to submit 
the written questions for the record through the close of 
business on Wednesday, October 12th, and we will compile those 
questions, we will send them out to each of you and ask you to 
reply by Wednesday, October 26th of this year.
    I want to again thank our staffs, on the majority side and 
the minority side, for helping us put together a really good 
hearing on this important issue. It has been an important issue 
for a long time. Every member of this panel, Democrat, 
Republican, could tell a story, a bunch of stories that really 
would mirror what we have heard from each of you in your close.
    We want to thank our staffs for making possible this great 
hearing, for those who were able to participate on our panel, 
and our members of the committee, thank them for joining us, 
especially Senator Capito.
    All right. This hearing is adjourned. Thank you all so 
much. God bless.
    [Whereupon, at 12:09 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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