When he took office, Governor Tom Ridge committed to make Pennsylvania a leader among states and a competitor among nations. He has pursued that commitment by cutting taxes, promoting exports, and making Pennsylvania a "high-tech" state through the introduction of new electronic commerce and electronic government tools. Another important part of the Governor's plan was restoring and protecting Pennsylvania's environment by cleaning up old industrial sites - "brownfields" - and returning them to productive use.
Complicated federal remedies of the late 1970's and 80's such as RCRA and Superfund have, at best, a mixed record in addressing the legacy of old industrial sites left from years of being the world's industrial leader. The unworkable liability scheme of Superfund often produced litigation instead of cleanups. Requirements that contaminated sites be returned to pristine condition - a standard that was financially and sometimes technologically prohibitive - left once-productive sites in many communities permanently off the tax roles and off-limits to renewal and reuse.
Governor Ridge, and the leaders of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, recognized that we needed a different approach to cleaning up contaminated sites. The passage of Acts 2, 3 and 4, the three acts establishing Pennsylvania's Land Recycling Program, provided the environmental platform to allow us to tear down the fences around these sites, to begin to restore our communities, and to turn our manufacturing heritage back into an asset.
Pennsylvania on May 2, 2000 is a much different place than it was five years ago on May 19, 1995, the day that Governor Ridge signed the Land Recycling Program into law. Had you been with us that rainy day in Western Pennsylvania at the site of the former U. S. Steel National Tube Works, you would have seen an environmental scene that could have been in Anytown, U.S.A. -- a rusted hulk that resulted from the battles and success of our first industrial revolution.
The Lands Recycling Program is an innovative solution that evolved from concept to reality so successfully that Governor Ridge has described the program as "simply a case of government making sense."
This common sense approach provides a statutory liability release, standardized procedures, realistic goals, cleanup options and funding assistance. These features destroyed the barriers that stood in the way of the federal and early state remediation programs.
Don't think that the Land Recycling Program uses lax environmental standards. On the contrary, the program used sound science to establish cleanup standards that protect public health and the environment. The difference is that these standards are realistic enough to promote the reuse of contaminated sites.
The program's four cornerstones - uniform cleanup standards, standardized review procedures, release from liability, and financial assistance - all address crucial business Issues.
Uniform standards, under four cleanup options, give communities the flexibility they need to attack this nationwide problem. Total costs and project time are also easier to establish. Agreements to protect buyers' rights and the financial viability of owners of multiple contaminated sites are available to business.
Standardized review procedures provide a uniform statewide process for cleanups. A technical guidance manual was published, in plain language, to help people use the program. The program imposed review time limits and guarantees a reply to applications within 60 days.
Releases from liability take the risk out of remediation. Anyone who cleans up a site to the new standards is released from any additional cleanup of the old contamination. This liability travels with the property and can extend to financial institutions, economic development agencies, and local authorities. It essentially puts the site back into the stream of commerce.
While the program has attracted millions of dollars of private sector investment in cleanup, funding assistance is also available to help reach sites that might not otherwise get addressed. The Industrial Sites Cleanup Fund, initially stocked with $15 million, makes grants and low-interest loans available to cover up to 75 percent of the cost of site assessment and remediation. Pennsylvania's Department of Community and Economic
Development has already provided in excess of 20 million dollars in grants and loans to assist land recyclers.
The results speak for themselves. Since the inception of our Land Recycling Program, more than 700 sites have been remediated and hundreds more are in various stages of cleanup - compared to Superfund, in which only 16 of 1 12 sites on Pennsylvania's NPL have been delisted. Many of these brownfields properties are now back on the tax roles, and more than 17,000 people now have jobs on these redevelopment sites.
As David Gergen from U.S. News and World Report has pointed out, "These results are impressive. Pennsylvania has created strong incentives for businesses to clean up and revitalize abandoned urban sites, while preserving farms and undeveloped land in the process."
Our program is not only producing environmental protection and economic development gains at individuals sites, but also is an effective strategy to accomplish broader policy goals such as reversing urban blight and developing a sustainable future. Working with redevelopment authorities, local government, lending institutions and the private sector, we are creating jobs, increasing tax revenues, improving transportation infrastructure, revitalizing urban areas, and preserving open space.
Let me go beyond basic statistics though, to give you a flavor of how Pennsylvania's brownfields program has affected and influenced "real people."
-- A particularly noteworthy Land Recycling Project is the site of Bethlehem Steel Corporation's original steel-making facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This represents the largest brownfield project currently being undertaken in the nation (nearly 2000 acres). This site, which once supported heavy industrial processes, is being converted into a recreational, educational, cultural and entertainment center of regional, if not statewide, significance. The Smithsonian Institution will occupy a key location there to house and display artifacts of our nation's industrial heritage.
-- Several other examples include a large industrial complex, the Transit America facility, in North Philadelphia that is being remediated and returned to open space use as an 18 hole public golf course. In West Chester, a turn of the century Laundromat has been converted into a fitness center. And in McKeesport, in the Mon Valley, a steel mill site has been converted into the eastern headquarters of Echostar Corporation and will house more than 2000 customer service representatives.
-- Our partners in redeveloping these sites have been most generous in their praise. A few quotes illustrate how successful the program has been. Michael Theisen of Woodmont Corporation, which turned an auto wrecking yard into a shopping center pointed out, "It would have been impossible to acquire tenants or the financing needed to make such a center feasible, particularly one located downstream from a Superfund site, without the support and assurances provided [by the Land Recycling Program]. Perhaps the success of our program is most easily summed up by Lou Marseglia of Grundy Recreation who said "If it wasn't' for the [Land Recycling Program], we couldn't have built it" in reference to the recreation center built on the site of a former carpet mill.
-- Further, our program has been recognized as an "Innovations in American Government Award Winner" and a 1997 "Ford Foundation Award Winner."
-- People in other nations have noted our success and looked at us as a model for programs of their own. The Scottish Environmental Industries Association invited us to share our experience at the Contaminated Lands Forum in Scotland. We have also gotten inquires from Brazil and Eastern Europe on our program.
The flexibility offered by Pennsylvania's Land Recycling Program has allowed us to be innovative in our approaches to cleaning up sites. We have entered into a multi-site agreement with the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to facilitate the cleanup of all sites used previously for military purposes and to prepare them for reuse a decade earlier than originally scheduled. This was a landmark agreement that will have tremendous economic development benefits for the Commonwealth and has formalized a plan of action for resolving federal liabilities at 1,260 sites in 26 counties. This agreement was only possible because of the flexibility afforded by the state laws establishing the Land Recycling Program and clearly can be a model for other States to follow.
As often happens, one successful innovation points the way to others. To raise awareness of the availability of sites for redevelopment, DEP created the Brownfields Inventory Grant (BIG) Program, which provides grants to local governments, economic development agencies and other qualifying agencies to inventory the brownfields properties in their area. Sites that are identified are added to the Pennsylvania Brownfields Directory on our Department's website, so that parties interested in developing sites will know that they are available. This database currently lists over 130 sites.
As a further inducement for the revitalization of communities, Governor Ridge signed legislation creating Keystone Opportunity Zones, in which tax abatement is offered to businesses locating in economically depressed areas.
The unrealistic standards and open-ended liability of Superfund have often been strong deterrents to the use of new technologies at environmental cleanups. The cleanup options available to voluntary parties under our program are more conducive to the use of new technologies. Promoting the use of new technologies is another state success story that is shared by many states. States are working together to improve state permitting processes and to speed deployment of technologies by using the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Cooperation Work Group, or ITRC, which is an organization affiliated with ECOS. The ITRC is a state-led, national coalition of regulators working with industry and stakeholders to improve state permitting processes and to speed deployment of technologies through interstate and regulatory collaboration.
Currently, 31 states actively participate in ITRC activities and additional states are indirectly involved through participation in training events and technical work team activities. Other participants include the Departments of Energy and Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The ITRC can document success stories in all 50 states, through the use of lTRC products or examples of institutional change.
These innovations, taken together, have made the efficient re-use of industrial land far more attractive in Pennsylvania, and have reduced the pressure on undeveloped "Greenfield" areas.
We believe that we have gotten the fundamentals right. Now it is time to make it even easier for these sites to be cleaned up and returned to productive use. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in collaboration with a number of other state agencies has launched additional new initiatives to do just that.
-- Financial Resources for the Environment is one of two initiatives of its kind in the nation in which public sector entities are working together with lenders, utilities and corporations to develop a financing vehicle to provide funding for brownfields redevelopment. In many cases private financing for brownfields projects is difficult to obtain. This project will fill in that gap and promote more redevelopment without the necessity for increased public funding.
-- We are developing a request for proposals to offer a Commonwealth-wide insurance policy that can protect owners and developers from the uncertain liabilities associated with conducting cleanups. By purchasing coverage under this - umbrella policy -- owners and developers will receive coverage more affordably than seeking it alone and can even be insured against actions taken by our Department. This will provide even more confidence for individuals seeking to sell and buy brownfield sites.
Many other states have also attacked the problem of brownfields with innovative programs of their own. At least 35 states have voluntary cleanup programs, and, while many share common elements, each is tailored to the particular needs of the state. Thousands of sites around the country have been cleaned up under these programs.
In short, Pennsylvania and the other states have figured it out. Brownfield redevelopment is becoming a common and natural aspect of real estate development and sound land use planning in our Commonwealth and across the nation. There are some legislative steps that can be taken to accelerate the pace at which these programs can restore our environment and revitalize our communities.
I encourage the Senate to consider passing brownfield legislation based upon the model developed and supported by many states. The key elements of such legislation are: (1) a release of federal liability at state land recycling sites, (2) a waiver of federal permitting requirements at state land recycling sites, and (3) Governors concurrence on proposed NPL listings.
A federal release of liability will heighten developer confidence that EPA will not take judicial or administrative action should EPA decide to second-guess a state's decision regarding a clean up. Second, there needs to be a waiver of federal permitting requirements at land recycling sites being addressed under a state voluntary cleanup program. In Pennsylvania, our General Assembly gave DEP the authority to waive state permits at sites being handled by our land recycling program, but only Congress can waive the requirement to obtain federal permits. These are the same permitting requirements that EPA has the authority to waive at sites in the Superfund program. In asking for this waiver, be assured that discharges to the air and water are fully regulated by our state regulatory programs, and persons cleaning up sites in our state system have to meet all of our applicable emission and discharge limitations, both during cleanup an thereafter. In addition, Congress should reinstate the opportunity for Governors to concur on proposed Superfund listings. Governors can best decide whether sites have the potential to be redeveloped and, therefore, moved through a state land-recycling program as opposed to being relegated to the NPL.
We are very proud of what we have achieved in Pennsylvania. Our Land Recycling Program has preserved open space, revitalized town and urban centers and made people feel better about their communities and the government's role in them. We believe our Program can serve as a national model and I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
Thank you.