NEWS RELEASE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE DEMOCRATS
Congressman John D. Dingell, Ranking Member
For Immediate Release
October 21, 2004 |
Contact: Jodi Seth
202-225-3641 |
Brownfields Report Shows Big Funding Shortfall
Local Revitalization Efforts Suffer
Washington, D.C. – Congressman John D. Dingell, Ranking Member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, today released a staff report entitled "EPA Brownfields Program: Dramatically Underfunded; Undermining Local Revitalization." This report documents the failure of the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress to fully fund the Brownfields Revitalization Act. A list of the unfunded Brownfields requests for Fiscal Year 2004 by state is included in the report.
In FY 2004, only about one in three Brownfields proposals received grants under that Act, meaning that hundreds of abandoned or underutilized industrial sites are not being cleaned up. "Many local revitalization and job creation efforts are being blocked by shortsighted Administration budget requests and by Republican budget cuts in Congress," Dingell said. "This is a lose-lose proposition for the environment and our local economies," he added.
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