Governments See New Accounting Rules for Brownfields

GASB’s Wesley Galloway explained the rule for accounting and financial reporting of pollution remediation obligations: “If you have an obligation to clean something up, you should start reporting it,” he told

EBN. If a government owns a contaminated property that it is required to clean up, that obligation brings financial liabilities, including costs associated with environmental assessment, cleanup, and post-remediation monitoring; agency oversight fees; and legal expenses. Those liabilities belong on financial reports. At the same time, the rule sets standards for when governments can count pollution remediation expenses as assets.