Political Quotes

“I want to thank my colleague, Congressman McKinley, for working with me on this amendment. Our amendment increases funding for State grants to assess or clean up brownfield sites by $7 million in fiscal year 2019. Too many cities and towns across America with proud manufacturing legacies are now struggling with vacant brownfield properties. In my home State of Connecticut, the city of Meriden alone has at least $10 million worth of brownfield projects for which they have been unable to secure funding--and that is just one city in one State. Every single congressional district across this country is home to at least one brownfield site. In fact, some have hundreds. The benefits of funding brownfield cleanups are enormous. For every $1 invested in brownfield redevelopment, 18 additional dollars are leveraged in outside investment. That is one of the highest leveraging of outside money of any Federal program. Despite the clear, demonstrated value of Federal brownfield investments, the EPA has been forced to turn down very worthy projects due to lack of funding. In fact, the EPA has only been able to fund about one-quarter to one-third of the applications it receives. Between 2012 and 2017, over 1,600 applications for viable projects were turned down because of inadequate Federal funding. The base bill before us today provides just $153 million for brownfields in fiscal year 2019--the very same amount that was enacted for 2018.…”