The Business Council supports this legislation, which updates the current Brownfields Cleanup Program by addressing a number of our most significant objectives – clarifying and maintaining broad eligibility for the state’s Brownfield program, and making the tax credit program permanent.

The bill also makes several improvements to the program’s administrative processes, by reducing charges for Departmental oversight for some smaller projects, and by adopting environmental easement requirements in line with those adopted by more than 20 other states.

The following provisions are of particular importance to Business Council members:

• The bill would maintain current program and tax credit eligibility for “participants” (defined in law as entity with some legal liability for a contaminant, excluding a Class 2 site responsible party or a party already subject to a cleanup order for a site) and allow current active State superfund and RCRA sites in the program if owned and controlled by volunteers. The continuation of this broader eligibility is critical to promote cleanup and redevelopment activity at sites that are not subject to ongoing state-supervised remedial or enforcement efforts. 
• The bill would modify the definition of a Brownfield to include sites that reasonably demonstrate a strong suspicion of a significant level of contamination, and where the site is abandoned, significantly underutilized, or functionally obsolescent.  The Business Council urges the Senate to also consider acceptance of a federal or state environmental or health based standard as a criteria for determining program eligibility.  We believe these changes will create a less subjective determination of eligibility, thereby giving greater certainty to program applicants.
• It would make the tax credits under the BCP permanent and would allow taxpayers who have not received a certificate of completion for a qualified site by March 31, 2015 to be eligible for tax credits under the program.
• It would allow the taxpayer to compute the maximum allowable development credit regardless of the treatment of the expenses for federal purposes.

In summary, this bill addresses several key program reform issues for the state’s business and development community.  It maintains broad program eligibility while keeping the investment tax credits.

On balance, this legislation represents positive program reforms, and The Business Council recommends approval of  S.5228.

Legislative Bill Memo homeBC HomeEmail this story Print This Page