Maxine Waters: “I rise to support the Miller Brownfields amendment. The Amendment provides $15 million in funding for the Brownfields…”

“I rise to support the Miller Brownfields amendment. The Amendment provides $15 million in funding for the Brownfields program. Again, let me thank the Chairman of the Subcommittee, Joe Knollenberg and the Ranking Member, John W. Olver, for their work on this bill. HUD programs, however, have witnessed major cuts over the past several years. What I find interesting about this bill is that it does not provide any funding for the Brownfields Economic Development Initiatives (BEDI) program, but instead includes Brownfields redevelopment as an eligible activity under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. Of course, this does not take into account the existence of numerous Brownfields sites across the country. These sites are often located in strategically important areas of a city or county, where economic development projects have been planned. Without funding for the Brownfields program many of these projects will not be undertaken. The estimate of the number of vacant and underused sites around the U.S. is more than 500,000. If we could put these sites into productive economic development uses we stand to increase jobs by 500,000 million, while generating $2.4 billion in new tax revenues. The Brownfields program that I would like to see funded is truly an economic development tool that has been very effective in assisting communities to reclaim important parcels of underused land.…”