[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 60 (Thursday, April 29, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E819-E820]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              INTRODUCTION OF THE BROWNFIELDS CLEAN-UP ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. WILLIAM J. COYNE

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 29, 1999

  Mr. COYNE. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation which 
would make the existing tax incentive for cleaning up brownfields 
permanent.
  Brownfields are vacant industrial or commercial sites. There are more 
than 400,000

[[Page E820]]

such sites across the country. Brownfields cause economic blight by 
crowding out new businesses, preventing the creation of new jobs, and 
reducing municipal property tax revenues. They reduce the value of 
surrounding property and they can be public health problems.
  Brownfields sites often require environmental remediation before they 
can be redeveloped and returned to productive use. At the very least, 
the prospect of significant remediation costs often discourages the 
redevelopment of such sites.
  The 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act established a provision for expensing 
brownfield clean-up costs in certain targeted areas--empowerment zones, 
enterprise communities, EPA brownfields pilot project sites, and census 
tracts with high poverty rates. This provision can be an important tool 
for encouraging the clean-up and redevelopment of unproductive 
brownfield sites.
  Unfortunately, however, the existing provision only allows expensing 
for expenditures or costs incurred between August 6, 1997, and December 
31, 2000. That is too short a period of time for many potential users 
to take advantage of it. Consequently, I believe that this provision 
should be made permanent. The Administration shares that view and 
proposed making the provision permanent in the budget request that it 
submitted to Congress in February.
  Today Congressman Rangel and I are introducing legislation that would 
make the brownfields expensing provision permanent. Enactment of this 
legislation would provide much-needed help to many of the economically 
distressed communities across the country that are currently burdened 
with one or more brownfields sites. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor 
this important legislation.

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