New Brownfield Law To Help Abandoned Sites

On January 11, President Bush signed into law the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act (H.R. 2869). He marked the occasion at The Millennium Corporate Center in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, which recently became the 1,000th brownfield revived under the Pennsylvania Land Recycling Program. “With this bill, we are returning common sense to our cleanup program,” Bush declared.

This bipartisan legislation reforms the federal “Superfund” law in two ways. “First and foremost,” explains Charles Bartsch of the Northeast-Midwest Institute, “it provides finality and liability protection to new brownfield site purchasers and adjoining site owners, which should help tip more decisions towards brownfield reuse.” Traditionally, threat of liability has been a major deterrent to small businesses that might otherwise choose to redevelop contaminated sites.

Second, the new legislation doubles annual federal funding to $200 million for brownfield assessment and reclamation. “This will enhance local efforts to promote site reuse by giving cities and nonprofit organizations the tools they need to deliver clean, shovel-ready sites to new users,” says Bartsch. The fact that individual states will be responsible for administering the funds, however, could represent a weakness of the bill. Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney Mark Izeman has expressed concern that cleanup methods and standards will be inconsistent and some could be inadequate as a result. Despite his reservations, Izeman maintains that “overall, this is a good bill.”