McKinley Bill to Spur Economic Development Signed Into Law

Press Release

Brownfields legislation authored by Congressman David B. McKinley, P.E., (WV-1) was included in the bipartisan spending bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump today. This legislation reauthorizes and improves the Brownfields Program, empowering states, communities, and other stakeholders to assess and safely clean up abandoned or contaminated industrial sites.

"Abandoned sites are an eyesore to the community and are detrimental to economic development. This bill will provide additional funds and speed up our ability to mitigate the environmental hazards and convert these sites to productive use. Across the Northern Panhandle and the rest of West Virginia we have hundreds of these sites, many of which have been revitalized, like the Pietro Fiorentini facility in Weirton or the Taylor, Smith and Taylor Pottery site in Chester. The Brownfields Program has been an important tool to turn these abandoned eyesores into economic opportunity," said McKinley.

"We're encouraged to see this reauthorization signed into law so our communities can begin cleaning up more of these sites," McKinley added.

Background
McKinley's Brownfields Enhancement Economic Redevelopment and Reauthorization Act of 2017 was passed by the House in November. McKinley worked with leadership to ensure this critical program's reauthorization was included in the omnibus spending package, which funds the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year.

Brownfield sites are properties whose redevelopment or reuse is complicated by the potential presence of a hazardous substance, contaminant or pollutant. Since it was established in 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Brownfields Program has changed the way developers approach and manage the redevelopment of these properties. The EPA uses grants authorized in the program to empower states, communities and developers to safely assess, clean up and repurpose these brownfield sites.

This legislation makes some key improvements to the program that will enable more sites to be redeveloped.

This bipartisan bill:

o Makes important clarifications related to sites covered under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.
o Expands eligibility for non-profit organizations and eligible entities that owned these properties prior to the original enactment of the Brownfields Program so that they may receive brownfields grant funding.
o Increases the limit for remediation grants from $200,000 to $500,000.
o Creates multipurpose grants, which will provide flexibility to communities trying to cleanup multiple brownfields sites within an area in the community.
o Makes it easier for small, rural, or disadvantaged communities and tribes to participate in the brownfields program.

Brownfield projects also attract private investment into small and rural towns nationwide. The Business Development Corporation of the Northern Panhandle has been the beneficiary of $2.5 million in EPA Brownfield Grants. They have successfully leveraged that into $70 million in private funding to develop brownfield properties.

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