[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 63 (Wednesday, May 14, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2652-H2653]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              BROWNFIELDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Maloney] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MALONEY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from 
Connecticut [Mr. Shays] for introductory remarks.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. 
Maloney]. We have collectively between us 10 minutes and we would like 
to take this opportunity to talk about legislation that the gentleman 
from Connecticut, the Fifth Congressional District, and I have 
introduced dealing with old industrial sites, abandoned sites that are 
not in productive use in urban areas. These sites, called brownfields, 
are the issue that we intend to address tonight and, in fact, address 
in our legislation.
  There are about 500,000 brownfield sites around the country in urban 
areas. These sites are old industrial areas that are basically lying 
fallow. Legislation that the gentleman from Connecticut and I have 
introduced attempts to address this issue. I would just say before 
yielding back to my colleague for a longer statement, in the city of 
Bridgeport, CT, last year the Clinton administration provided a grant 
of $200,000 for us to inventory all these old industrial sites called 
brownfields. This $200,000 was leverage for another $2 million that 
helped us categorize, inventory, and begin to clean up these sites on a 
unified basis.
  This was an initiative primarily of the Clinton administration backed 
by Congress. Our legislation seeks to add from the $36 million 
appropriated by

[[Page H2653]]

the administration and Congress an additional $50 million to begin to 
categorize, classify, and clean up these sites.
  At the center of this legislation is the gentleman from Connecticut 
[Mr. Maloney] who has time now and I will have later so we can have a 
dialog. I would thank the gentleman for allowing me to make this 
introduction and tell the gentleman that it is really a pleasure to 
work with him on a bipartisan basis to begin to help do this very 
important thing, bring businesses back into urban areas to create jobs 
and to pay taxes by helping to clean up these sites.

                              {time}  1630

  Mr. MALONEY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  I thank the gentleman for his help and cooperation, his partnership 
with me in bringing forward this legislation. It is deeply appreciated.
  Mr. Speaker, breathing new economic life into Connecticut's 
communities and stimulating growth across our Nation is my top priority 
in the U.S. Congress. I strongly believe we can stimulate economic 
growth by cleaning up contaminated industrial sites and returning them 
to productive use. This process, known as brownfields cleanup, allows a 
community to turn a barren site, once unusable by business due to 
concerns of sky-high cleanup costs, into valuable land that can be 
fruitful for years to come.
  What is genuinely attractive about this process is that the entire 
community shares in the benefits: Area businesses acquire new land for 
investment. Connecticut families have new jobs. Cities and towns gain 
tax revenue. Local homeowners enjoy increased property values. And 
everyone benefits from a cleaner environment.
  Turning brownfields into productive properties will have a 
substantial positive impact on Connecticut's future prosperity and on 
the prosperity of every other State in the Nation as well.
  Currently, due to contamination, hundreds of thousands of industrial 
properties across the country are idle, and some actually have negative 
land value because of excessive cleanup costs.
  The Naugatuck Valley, located in my district in Connecticut, was 
known as the Brass Valley because of its tremendous level of metal 
fabrication industry. Today, however, it is home to 20 percent of the 
brownfields sites listed by the State of Connecticut Department of 
Environmental Protection.
  While the Naugatuck Valley was once a booming industrial area, it is 
now the home of a shrinking job base, abandoned industrial sites, and 
chronic economic challenges with unemployment rate that hovers at 
nearly 10 percent.
  The gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] and I have introduced 
bipartisan legislation that will aggressively address the situation and 
help communities like those in Naugatuck Valley thrive again. The 
Brownfield Economic Revitalization Act of 1997 empowers communities and 
residents to identify local contamination and provides them with the 
resources necessary to attract private investment.
  By working with the EPA and the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, towns and community organizations will have the ability to 
pay for site assessment, will have access to redevelopment grants and 
revolving loan funds, and will be able to leverage State, local, and 
private funds for redevelopment and job creation.
  The act will also allow qualified taxpayers and businesses to deduct 
cleanup costs in the year incurred, a major new tax incentive.
  I would like to share with my colleagues the success of the Waterbury 
Mall cleanup, which is a model of how cleaning up a brownfield is worth 
each and every dime.

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