00:00Senator Fetterman, welcome. Good to see you. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hi.
00:06Thank you for the opportunity to talk to an expert on all of this, and I'm in
00:14Pennsylvania, and some people across the nation really doesn't know what a
00:21brownfield is. And a brownfield, would you like to give an exact definition? Yes,
00:30these brownfields are sites that have been contaminated, that are qualified for
00:36programs where we can clean these brownfields up, whether they're abandoned
00:41warehouses or gas stations that typically have blights in our
00:44communities, and we can turn them into economic engines. Yeah, absolutely,
00:49absolutely. And sometimes they can be smaller that you were referencing, but
00:53they can be really large. They can be, you know, a couple hundred acres and
00:56everything. And I'm in western Pennsylvania, and I literally live and
01:01I'm surrounded by brownfields. And at one point last century, that was the engine
01:08that really helped shaped American society, and was about half of the world's
01:13steel output. And now they were abandoned, and they were left really kind
01:20of to hold the bag. And the investments, the proactive kinds of investments on
01:25these brownfields, have now allowed struggled communities to emerge from
01:30bankruptcy. And I literally live next door to one, the Cary Furnace site as
01:36well, and it's it's magnificent. And now it's actually part of, and now it's going
01:40to be a national historic site of steel. It's the the last standing example of
01:47that kind of a blast furnace. And those are the kind of investments that help
01:52the communities that created so much of an investment and output for the the
01:58history of our nation. And that's our, one of my priorities here as Pennsylvania
02:03Senator is to continue that, because there's more and more sites like that in
02:07Allegheny County, where I live. But Pennsylvania, it's a story across all of
02:12it. And you know, you run a very large agency, and I'm not going to throw a lot
02:19at you. I just hope the one thing to take away from that is just how critical
02:23brownfield funding for Pennsylvania absolutely is. It is a lifeline for
02:30communities like Duquesne, like Braddock, like Rankin, like Swissvale, like West
02:37Homestead, Munhall, all these. And now, without those kind of investments, those
02:43fallow sites would would not have had anything done for 30, 40, 50 years. And it
02:50has really created an amazing impact on that. So if you have five minutes, that's
02:57an opportunity to talk to an expert like yourself is that that really means means
03:02everything. And it's almost kind of somewhat related to my colleague from
03:08Alaska, that it's it's land that has a lot of great valuable, but it needs a lot
03:13of remediation as well. And those invest in forgotten or communities that were
03:22left behind. And this really is very, very critical. And if there's anything I
03:28can do to be more of a more effective advocate for that, I would I really am
03:34here, I would love any feedback on that. And I want to thank your agency's
03:39investments to do that. And it's not just Pennsylvania, there's a lot of other
03:43deindustrializing some states that we all need those kind of invite. So I'd like
03:48to if you have any observations, I see the time to yourself and, and I thank
03:53your
03:55administration's work on all of it.
03:57No, I appreciate your laser focus on this. And we appreciate the resources that
04:02we received from the bipartisan infrastructure law to supercharge this. I
04:05think we've awarded over $250 million towards our brownfields program, that's
04:10the largest in EPA history. And, you know, just a great example is, in
04:15Pittsburgh, we work with the state of vacant property, two gas stations that
04:20we converted into affordable senior living with cafes and the like, we see
04:25this as a huge opportunity not to leave any communities behind. So we'll
04:29continue to work with their staff to be sure that we're prioritizing these
04:32investments. But there's a win win opportunity there as you've articulated.
04:36Yeah, yeah. And I have a little about 30 seconds left in and I would just more
04:41more and more. And thank you for those kind of investments. I just please,
04:45as a former mayor of one of those small communities, I cannot possibly express
04:49how critical those investments are to allow these communities to move forward.
04:54Because without those kind of help, they would be continued to deteriorate, and
04:58certainly not ever be able to prosper and come into a new a new phase. So
05:04thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
05:06Senator, thanks so much for for joining. I think your your perspective, I know my
05:10perspective as a former governor, informs me in the work that I do every
05:14day. And I'm sure your experience, uh, as a former mayor and if I'm not
05:20mistaken, Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant Governor as well and husband,
05:24father, all of that helps inform us for the work that we do. The
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