Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your holding this hearing today.

Environmental justice is a relatively recent, if not new, concept. It raises complex and sometimes emotionally charged questions that are worth asking and must be taken seriously.

Today's hearing is not about the concept of environmental justice. It is about a particular Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) document designed to guide the handling of environmental justice complaints.

Since it was issued in February, the EPA guidance has itself sparked a number of complaints.

Some of those complaints are procedural. They concern whether EPA adequately consulted with a diverse community of stakeholders that includes civil rights and citizen groups, state, county and local officials, and the private sector before issuing the guidance. There is mounting evidence in the press that the views of many of these groups were ignored by EPA, either willfully or inadvertently.

Some of the complaints about the guidance are substantive. Mayor Dennis Archer of Detroit authored a resolution adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors urging EPA to suspend the guidance in its current form. Mayor Archer's concerns, as expressed in the resolution and in discussions with me, center on the use of the guidance to block or delay the redevelopment of urban communities.

That is a special concern of mine. Even in a time of relative prosperity, the competitive pressures to cut costs and trim jobs are intense. That's especially true in the manufacturing sector, which faces cutthroat competition in domestic and international markets from producers in low-wage countries overseas and south of our border.

Manufacturing industries also happen to be those most severely affected by environmental regulations developed under the Clean Air Act, and by the actions that will be required to implement the Kyoto Agreement on Climate Change. At the same time, the urban industrial communities most in need of redevelopment and revitalization are those whose past and future prosperity are tied to a healthy American manufacturing and industrial sector. The Democratic Members of this Subcommittee are intimately familiar with some of those cities and their problems. Mr. Klink represents the Pittsburgh area, once known for its steel production. Mr. Sawyer represents Akron, Ohio, once known as the Rubber City. I represent an area still known as the Motor City, and those of us in Southeast Michigan would like to keep it that way.

If the majority is sincerely interested in the issue of what Congress can do to restore the economic vitality of our cities, then I will be delighted to join them. But the majority's record on these issues is not encouraging.

A prime example is how the majority has handled brownfields. A January report from the U.S. Conference of Mayors identified the lack of cleanup funds as the number one impediment to brownfield redevelopment. Yet the majority attempted to limit brownfield funding in this year's appropriations process, and has held broader brownfields legislation hostage in the debate over comprehensive Superfund reform.

The majority also refused to move legislation Mr. Klink authored to ease the burdens new air quality standards will impose on our industrial cities.

Nevertheless, I welcome today's hearing. EPA has been slow to recognize the procedural and substantive flaws in its guidance. In a marked departure from traditional agency practice, the agency has in recent weeks acknowledged its fallibility, and begun a series of meetings to better inform its judgments in the future. As that process unfolds, this issue will merit continued Congressional scrutiny.

Back to the Public Record Home Page