Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee want to sweeten the deal for data center developers open to building on contaminated industrial sites, but Democrats — as well as state and local leaders — aren’t sold on the majority’s ideas.
GOP lawmakers are floating options to make brownfields, or neglected former industrial sites, more appealing to developers. The problem, according to Democrats, is that those plans could drain already limited clean-up funds.
Members of the Subcommittee on Environment last week introduced multiple discussion drafts laying out substantial changes to EPA’s Brownfields Program — including allowing private, for-profit corporations to apply for grants and exempting large developers from National Environmental Policy Act review requirements.
New York Rep. Paul Tonko, the subcommittee’s top Democrat, said during a Wednesday hearing that the proposals “risk jeopardizing the program’s historic bipartisan support.”
