[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 132 (Thursday, October 19, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10775-S10776]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BROWNFIELDS REVITALIZATION

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I want to raise an issue that I 
believe is critical for the Congress to address before we adjourn this 
year. It is an issue on which environmentalists, the business 
community, and the labor community strongly agree. It is called the 
Brownfields Revitalization Act. I say it is called that. I have to 
explain exactly what we are talking about here.
  It is an issue upon which Republicans and Democrats agree. The 
Brownfields Revitalization Act of 2000 is a bill I introduced with 
Senator Chafee. It now has 67 cosponsors. Two-thirds of the Senate say 
this is a good piece of legislation and we ought to pass it. That 
includes, obviously, a majority of both sides of the political aisle--a 
rare example of overwhelming bipartisan support.
  Some accuse us of being a ``do-nothing Congress,'' that we are stuck 
in partisan disagreement. That can be said. But I can tell you, it 
cannot be said about this brownfields bill. We ought to pass it here 
and now as a way to show that we can still move bipartisan legislation 
in the Senate.
  We have strong support. Dozens of environmental organizations, 
business, labor, and State and local governments support the bill, 
including the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the Real Estate Round Table, 
and the National Association of Realtors. It is a mix of people and 
interests, including the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries and 
the Natural Resources Council. The list is a very long one, including 
various communities throughout the country as well as the organizations 
I mentioned.
  Many don't know what we are talking about when we say brownfields. We 
will explain it. These are contaminated sites. They are abandoned 
properties that blight our communities. But also, they lie there 
waiting to be developed because they offer great promise for the 
future.
  According to the Conference of Mayors, there are over 450,000 
brownfield sites in the United States. They are, of course, in every 
State of the Union. There are brownfields in rural and urban areas and 
large and small communities. Citizens everywhere would benefit from 
this bill.
  There are economic and environmental benefits from cleaning up 
brownfields. That is why the business community and labor so strongly 
support the bipartisan brownfields bill.
  The Conference of Mayors has estimated that redeveloping these sites 
would create almost 600,000 jobs, would increase tax revenues, by their 
estimate, from somewhere between $900 million to $2.4 billion. What a 
benefit that would be to communities.
  In a city in my State, Elizabeth, NJ, a town I lived in when I was 
growing up, we turned an abandoned site, that lay fallow for years, 
into an enormous shopping mall, with more than a million square feet of 
retail space and 5,000 permanent jobs. Elizabeth is one of the oldest 
industrial cities in the State of New Jersey. It is actively trying to 
build for the future. They are looking at hotels and a convention 
center thanks to brownfield revitalization. The successes in Elizabeth 
established proof that brownfields create jobs, hope, and opportunity 
for communities.
  In Trenton, NJ, we have a very famous company that builds steel for 
bridges and structures all across this country, formally called 
Roebling & Sons. We have a picture of what happened to this site as it 
sat for years. I know my State so well; I remember the dump site. It 
was almost a lagoon of toxins. It was broken down. Anyone could see in 
the picture the terrible deteriorating condition.
  Then we have a brownfield restoration program and this is what 
happened: It became a full-service supermarket, the first market in the 
city in many years. This is our capital city, with an office building 
and senior housing. It is almost a miraculous rebirth.
  There is a risk in letting these brownfield sites sit there. The 
risks are substantial. They pose threats to human health and the 
environment, they create blighted downtown areas often leading to crime 
and loss of jobs. It forces development of farmland and open spaces. It 
causes sprawl. The result is increased driving time for those who have 
cars living in these cities,

[[Page S10776]]

with traffic congestion and air pollution.
  The bipartisan brownfields bill will make major strides in 
revitalizing sites across the country. They are small sites, typically 
for $200,000 and less. They can be turned into productive urban centers 
or rural centers where commerce can take place and jobs exist.
  The bill provides critically needed funds to assess and clean up 
abandoned and underutilized brownfield sites. They can use them for 
parks and greenways. They encourage cleanup and redevelopment of the 
properties by providing another important element: legal protection for 
innocent parties such as contiguous property owners and prospective 
purchasers, innocent land owners. They need to know that their 
liabilities are limited. Otherwise they are not going to take the risk 
in putting money into the sites.
  It helps, also, to encourage other cleanups of State and local sites 
creating a certainty for those who would invest there, and ensures 
protection for public health. When the sites are revitalized, the 
results are obvious: jobs, a stronger local tax base, curbing sprawl, 
preserving open space, and protecting the health of our citizens.
  Some suggest there are other ways to solve this problem by 
revitalizing or reforming or reauthorizing our Superfund Program. That 
is a nice idea, but unfortunately, we have been working 8 years to get 
the parties together to get the Superfund Program reauthorized. The 
Superfund handles the enormous sites that dot our landscape, without 
success.
  I, personally, since I have been so involved in the environmental 
committee and in environmental issues, wanted to get to work on 
Superfund and get it done before I left the Senate, which is 
effectively in the next few days. I will have lost my opportunity to 
talk on this floor and get some of the things done that we still have 
ahead. The value of this legislation is real and it is current.

  While the sites, by their very definition, are not the size of 
Superfund sites, the overwhelming majority of brownfields are not 
Federal cleanup problems but are being cleaned up by States and local 
governments.
  This bill will give incentives and protection at those hundreds of 
thousands of State sites. We owe this relief to our communities. They 
can take the money and get an investor to develop the site. We should 
not hold this bill hostage. There are 67 Members, two-thirds of the 
Senate, bipartisan, who do not want to see this bill lying around here 
and not getting passed. Mr. President, 67 Senators have spoken. 
Business groups support this, as do environmentalists, and State and 
local governments. The legislation ought to pass.
  It is a very simple task. The time for this bill to pass is now. I 
hope my colleagues will act to move this legislation as quickly as 
possible. They have cosponsored the bill. If we can just put it in the 
line of things, it need not take a long time to debate or discuss. I 
hope we can pass this legislation soon.
  I yield the floor.

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