Political Quotes

“The bill we are voting on today makes several important changes to the brownfields law that will result in more contaminated sites being cleaned up. The changes we are making also bring more parties into the process by clarifying their eligibility to receive funding under the brownfields program, including making nonprofit entities eligible to receive all forms of brownfields funding. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency provided us technical assistance a week ago, telling us that the definition we used for how to delineate which nonprofit organizations should be included was too limited, and would exclude a number of important organizations that the EPA currently provides funding to through the brownfields program, including the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials, commonly known as ASTSWMO, and other entities organized under section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code that are involved in the cleanup of brownfields sites around the country. We need to address this issue as this process moves forward. We need to figure out how to ensure that these organizations do not lose the funding that they rely on to make significant contributions to the brownfields program. Does the gentleman agree?”