Good afternoon. Today I’m joined by my colleagues Mr. Oberstar, Mr. Towns, Mr. Borski, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Strickland, Ms. DeGette and more than 120 other cosponsors in introducing legislation to make it easier for mayors and developers to revitalize old industrial sites in our cities.

This legislation has the support of the National Realty Committee, an organization representing America’s leading real estate owners, advisors, builders, investors, lenders and managers. As far back as 1995, they urged reforms to encourage the recycling of brownfields. Their ideas were not new, but were badly needed -- and we have incorporated them into our legislation.

We provide relief for prospective purchasers of brownfield properties, we provide protection for innocent landowners, and we provide for funding, a total of $115 million per year for five years, for local governments to take action where they believe redeveloped brownfields have the best chance of creating jobs and opportunities. We’re also streamlining the paperwork requirements that currently slow the process of providing much-needed financial assistance to local governments.

For four years, action on brownfields has been held hostage to the inside-the-Beltway politics of Superfund reform. We don’t oppose comprehensive and bipartisan Superfund reform. We just believe that our frustrated mayors and developers can’t wait.

Mayor Dennis Archer of Detroit has been a national leader in the effort to revitalize our cities. He supports this bill and needs our help. The President will sign this bill. That can’t be said about any of the other proposals now pending in this Congress. Let’s suspend the futile effort to craft controversial, and convoluted, schemes to overhaul Superfund.

This Congress has a choice: We can do something, or we can do nothing. We say that Congress should act.