I know all too well the problems faced in New Hampshire when those willing to clean up and redevelop brownfield sites are too often discouraged from doing so because of the uncertainties they face. There are literally hundreds of these sites in New Hampshire -- Milford, Nashua, Durham, Concord, and on and on . Our brownfields legislation, S. 350, removes the obstacles of uncertainty and will encourage cleaning up brownfields sites by codifying and streamlining the current EPA program, nearly doubling funding, and providing commonsense and balanced liability protections to those who cleanup the environment. This bill will promote conservation through REDEVELOPMENT as opposed to NEW greenfield development; and will help to revitalize our city centers and create new jobs in the inner-cities. This legislation is a win for the environment, a win for the economy, and a win for New Hampshire and the nation.
There are numerous interests who support S. 350, many of them represented on panels today. I'd like to mention the U.S. Conference of Mayors, National Association of Realtors, the Trust for Public Land, American Insurance Association, Smart Growth America, Environmental Business Action Coalition, and many, many more. With that said, I am proud that S. 350 has such broad, bipartisan support - something that, unfortunately, is not typical for issues that pertain to CERCLA. I hope the bipartisan success of this bill will translate into other areas of Superfund reform that are desperately needed. We all want a clean environment, Republicans and Democrats, and by working together, this bill will help to set the stage for future, common sense, legislative reforms.
Just two years ago, when Senator John Chafee, my predecessor as Chairman, sat at the helm of this committee, we held a hearing on a comprehensive Superfund reform bill, which had a brownfields title. That bill had no bipartisan support. There was a comparable bill put forth by my Democratic colleagues and it, too, lacked bipartisan support. Today, we have done what just two years ago seemed impossible. We reached a compromise both parties can and should support. Is this everyone's ideal bill? Absolutely not. But continuing to delay enactment of this bill - in search of the perfect bill that will never pass - is not the way to address the issues faced at an estimated 450,000 brownfield sites nationwide. We have this chance now to move forward on a piece of legislation that, while not 100% of what everyone wants, gets as close as all our divergent interests are going to get. If we delay, the losers are people living near the sites that eventually become full fledged Superfund sites, the greenspace that is lost to new development, the urban centers that remain blighted, and the local communities that will miss out on revitalization opportunities. I ask our witnesses to keep this in mind when speaking to the contents of our bill.
How is S. 350 better than current law? Simply stated, our bill provides an element of finality that does not exist today, while allowing for federal involvement under a specific universe of conditions. Current law allows EPA to act whenever there is a release or threatened release; this bill ups the ante by requiring:
1) EPA to find that "the release or threatened release may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health, welfare or the environment" and after taking into consideration response activities already taken, "additional response actions are likely to be necessary to address, prevent, limit or mitigate the release or threatened release";
2) the action to come at the request of the state;
3) contamination to have migrated across state lines; or,
4) new information to emerge after the cleanup that results in the site presenting a threat.
That's not all our bill does to improve the current situation. S. 350 authorizes $150 million in critically needed funds to assess and clean up brownfield sites, as well as $50 million to assist state cleanup programs. This is more than double the current level of funding expended toward the EPA Brownfield program.
This is a balanced bill -- and we are determined to move quickly through the legislative process. Senator Reid and I have committed to marking up this bill in early March, and we hope to have floor time soon afterwards.
I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses.