Posted: 09/03/2003
EPA Policy Change on Brownfields Good News For Development, And Enviroment
NCPA’s Schwartz Says “Extreme Rhetoric Is Completely Disconnected from Reality”
September 3, 2003 – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has come under fire from some environmentalist groups for a recent rule change that ends the ban on the sale of real estate contaminated with PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, which the EPA classifies as a probable carcinogen. Yet according to experts with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), this rule change could be critical in kick starting inner-city redevelopment in many cities while improving the urban environment.
The EPA would require buyers rather than sellers of abandoned manufacturing plants, industrial sites and buildings to clean up any PCB tainted material found therein.
“This simple change could start job growth and boost tax revenues for cities, states and counties at a time employment rates are stagnant and when government budgets are increasingly stretched beyond their limits,” said NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett.
According to Burnett, the change reverses the policy that discouraged development and encouraged property owners to hide contamination.
- Under the former policy, more than 400,000 brownfield sites sat idle and abandoned because their owners feared to have them tested for contamination since they would then be responsible for the cleanup.
- The new policy, by contrast, provides current owners with an incentive to have their buildings and lots tested, since sites that test clean could then be sold and/or redeveloped.
- At a minimum, this will help identify locations containing potentially harmful levels of PCB’s.
- Potential buyers could then weigh the risk of investing in a property and negotiate with the current owners to purchase a contaminated property at a discounted price in light of the anticipated costs of cleaning up the site for future productive use.
“Since no environmental standards are lowered, it is hard to see how this policy change is anything but a win, win situation for the economy and the environment,” said Burnett.