Governor Bush Offers Plan for Brownfields Cleanup

By Kevin McCarty
April 17, 2000

In his first in a series of reform speeches, Texas Governor George W. Bush made brownfields cleanup and redevelopment the centerpiece of his message on environmental policy.

Delivering his remarks April 3 in Aliquippa, PA, Bush said, “Instead of hassling with sites that might be the subject of Superfund liability lawsuits, developers simply move on to pristine sites farther out in the country on the suburban fringe.”

“Brownfields get passed over, while greenfields get paved over, furthering what’s known as urban sprawl,” he said.

At the event where Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge joined him, Bush outlined a six-point agenda to reform current law and policies to encourage state and local government to clean up and redevelop brownfield sites.

Bush also touted his success in Texas in cleaning up brownfields. “Our state is a state, like Pennsylvania, that didn’t wait for Al Gore to wave his magic wand to clean up our environment. We cleaned it up ourself, and our state’s the better for it,” he said.

Under this plan, Bush would:

• direct the Environmental Protection Agency to establish high standard for brownfield cleanups that will provide more flexibility than the current Superfund standards;

• provide protection from federal liability at brownfields cleaned up under state programs that meet high federal standards;

• focus the efforts of the federal government on developing cleanup techniques and new cleanup technologies;

• reform the Brownfields Cleanup Revolving Loan Fund by cutting the red tape and block granting the funds to the states;

• extend permanently the Brownfields cleanup tax incentive that is scheduled to expire on December 31, 2001; and

• direct active federal facilities to comply with the environmental protection laws and hold them accountable.

In the issue paper summarizing Bush’s six-point agenda, the brownfields survey work of the Conference of Mayors was cited. “The U.S. Conference of Mayors, in its February 2000 brownfields survey, Recycling America’s Land, calls for a ‘national commitment to recycle the thousands of brownfields in America’s cities,’” it read. The paper also noted the survey’s findings on the number of brownfields, land area and local revenue benefits from recycling these sites.

While the overall funding commitments to the agenda were not provided, the issue paper did note the $150 million per year cost to extend the “expensing” provision of current tax law and the block granting of $35 million in brownfields cleanup loan fund grants. The $35 million are U.S. EPA resources that are now generally awarded directly to cities and other local governments each year to establish local revolving funds for the cleanup of brownfield sites.

Bush made his remarks at the site of a former steel plant just outside of Pittsburgh, where U.S. Gypsum has cleaned up the site and constructed a new $120 million gypsum plant that opens in May.

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