Lance: NJ Wins Under Environmental Clean Up Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Leonard Lance (NJ-07), member of House Energy and Commerce Committee and Climate Solution Caucus, today supported H.R. 3017, the Brownfields Enhancement Economic Redevelopment and Reauthorization Act, on the House floor.  Lance’s House Energy and Commerce Committee championed the bipartisan bill to reauthorize the successful Brownfields Program through the Environmental Protection Agency that is tasked with remediation and redevelopment of 419 contaminated sites in New Jersey.

“The Brownfields Program has worked and must be reauthorized.   Over 59,000 sites nationwide, and 419 in New Jersey, have been transformed by remediation and redevelopment freeing our land and water of harmful chemicals and other hazards.  This is a tremendous win for environmental protection, economic development and for communities that have struggled with contaminated sites,” said Lance during debate in the U.S. House.

The Brownfields Program assists localities with the cleanup of properties where redevelopment or preservation is complicated by environmental contamination.  Brownfields sites are often abandoned, closed, or under-utilized industrial or commercial facilities, such as an abandoned factory in a town, a closed commercial building or warehouse, or a former dry cleaning establishment or gas station.  The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are more than 450,000 brownfields in the United States, and each of these sites has the potential to encourage economic development through the Brownfields Program.

“Facilities in Dover, East Amwell, Phillipsburg, Roxbury and Somerville are slated for revitalization.  This public-private partnership has been a winning formula as the Brownfields Program has already prompted $ 22 billion in private investment – a major return on a minimal, though important, federal investment,” added Lance.