National League of Cities Federal Advocacy Update NLC Urges House Action on Brownfields Reauthorization Carolyn Berndt NLC urged House Energy and Commerce and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leadership to develop and pass legislation reauthorizing and improving the U.S. EPA Brownfields program. With the passage of a brownfields reauthorization bill in the Senate, attention now turns to the House where two committees have jurisdiction over the program. While there is broad bipartisan support for the program, and both committees have held hearings, neither has yet to draft a bill for consideration. NLC supports the Senate version of the Brownfields bill, but is also asking Congress to go further in addressing local government liability concerns in acquiring contaminated properties where the local government had no role in creating the contamination. The current law creates a disincentive for local governments and is a barrier to the cleanup and productive reuse of brownfields properties in communities nationwide.
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In meetings with both Energy and Commerce and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee staff this week, it is clear that there is interest from both sides of the aisle in developing and advancing a bill this year that addresses many of the local government concerns. House Poised to Act on Legislation to Address Opioid Epidemic Yucel Ors The House Judiciary and the Energy and Commerce Committees marked up more than a dozen opioid-related bills. The package includes provisions to establish a grant program at the Department of Justice (DOJ) that can be used to develop alternatives to incarceration; train state and local public safety personnel on substance abuse disorder and mental illness; increase funding for mental health, drug abuse, and veteran’s courts; and raise the limit on the number of patients that doctors can treat with drugs to ease the symptoms of withdrawal. The House package, however, is missing some key components that are in the Senate’s Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016 (CARA, S. 524), which
SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
