House Democrats Delay Brownfields Bill

Danielle Jackson

Washington, D.C. -- House Democrats stalled a bill yesterday that would clean up brownfields sites because it had no assurance that jobs created as a result would be eligible for high wages under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, a federal labor law guaranteeing high wages for workers on federal construction projects.

Most of Congress backed the brownfields legislation, H.R. 2869, to provide $200 million per year for the cleanup of more than 50,000 sites. But Democrats are waiting for a letter from the Bush administration that would assure the Davis-Bacon Act would apply to state cleanup grants created by the bill.