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DEC commissioner urges fix for pollution cleanup program

By Tom Wanamaker

ALBANY — Environmental activists are pushing for action on reforming New York's brownfield cleanup laws before the end of the legislative session in two weeks.

At a press conference in Albany Monday, advocates joined Alexander B. “Pete” Grannis, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, in voicing support for Program Bill 51, Gov. David A. Paterson’s proposed legislation to revamp the state's current, and largely ineffective, brownfield remediation statutes.

“We must reform the brownfield cleanup program to make it smarter, more effective and more accountable to taxpayers,” Grannis said. “The goal is to target limited public dollars for the best use and the best return.”

The governor's proposal would offer tax credits for redeveloping contaminated industrial properties — brownfields — commensurate with the difficulty and cost of the cleanup, and whether it would occur anyway without tax incentives. Paterson’s bill would broaden brownfield eligibility to include more upstate sites and implement a sliding scale for tax credits, with greater credit for more involved cleanups. Credits would be capped at $15 million.

Under current law, adopted in 2003, tax credits range from 10 percent to 22 percent of cleanup and development costs combined, with no cap. “This structure has resulted in the availability of excessively large tangible property credits to developers who invest relatively little to remediate a site, or who would likely redevelop a site in the absence of tax credit initiatives,” according to a statement attached to the governor's bill.

Legislators in both houses have also proposed bills to reform the 2003 brownfield laws. They differ in key regards from each other and from Paterson’s proposal.

Assemblyman Robert K. Sweeney, D-Lindenhurst, has introduced legislation that would, among other things, offer a site preparation tax credit of 50 percent of costs with no cap and would transfer cleanup oversight to the state Department of State.

State Sen. Carl L. Marcelino, R-Nassau/Suffolk, has proposed two bills. One would expand eligibility and give oversight to the Department of State. The other would, among other provisions, offer a sliding scale for tax credits from none to 100 percent, based on the difficulty of the associated cleanup and would require greater disclosure of costs, taxes and credits.

During the budgetary process disagreements between the governor, the Senate and the Assembly over tax credits led to a 90-day moratorium on brownfield remediation projects throughout the state.

Grannis said some 40 to 45 projects around the state, worth “easily in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” are currently in limbo because of the moratorium, which is set to expire in July.

“Most of these projects are not in counties that really need the help that the governor's bill provides,” Grannis said. He added that the governor's bill is potentially “richer” for developers in that it expands the number of eligible cleanup projects to smaller ones “that are not as profitable” under the 2003 legislation.

In any case, cleanup advocates want action before the Legislature adjourns on July 23.

“New York state's failing 2003 brownfield law requires urgent and immediate resolution this legislative session,” said Norreida Reyes, conservation director for the Sierra Club's Atlantic chapter. “It is fiscally and environmentally prudent to restructure tax credits to incentivize developers without giving away tax dollars for sites that need no incentives.”

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