National Brownfields Coalition seeks members for Remediation Tax Expensing committee

Medplace
Medpace moved their 700-employee headquarters to Cincinnati and used the tax expensing program to overcome $3.0 million in cleanup costs. Photo via Cincinnati.com.

Brownfields professionals and coalition members are invited to join a new committee of the National Brownfields Coalition dedicated to re-implementing the Section 198 Remediation Tax Expensing program.

The Committee is organizing support from communities that have benefited from the program, and is providing information to Congress on the past impacts and the future potential of the program. The Committee has already organized a sign-on letter in support of the measure and hosted a webcast about the issue with our partner NALGEP. The webcast includes many project examples, including the Medpace office and research laboratory pictured above, which was built on a 29-acre parcel in Cincinnati that was once contaminated. Medpace has 750 employees at the site with plans for future expansion.

The section 198 Remediation Tax Expensing program, adopted by Congress in 1997, makes site cleanup expenditures fully deductible in the year incurred. This approach, originally adopted in the Community Renewal Act of 2000, treats cleanup of hazardous substances as a “repair” to the land, rather than a capital expenditure which must be depreciated over time. The result is to make the cost of cleanup less of a barrier to redevelopment of brownfield sites.

The program has been used to help clean up approximately 350 sites over the program’s 15 year history. The program was not renewed by Congress in the tax extenders bill that passed Congress in January 2013.

Get involved

Coalition Tax Expensing Committee

  • Elizabeth Barton, Day Pitney
  • Sue Boyle, Brownfields Coalition of the Northeast
  • Ken Brown, National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals
  • John Bryant, NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association
  • Laura Clark, Cuyahoga County
  • Christopher Coes, LOCUS, Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors
  • Brian Eggers, AKT Peerless
  • Katy Hartnett, Smart Growth America
  • Paul Hayden, Geo-Technology Associates
  • Kent Jeffries, International Council of Shopping Centers
  • Mark McIntyre, New York City, Mayor’s Office of Environmental Remediation
  • Evans Paull, National Brownfields
  • Judy Sheehan, US Conference of Mayors
  • Elly Walkowiak, City of Tacoma
  • Dan Walsh, Chair, New York City Office of Environmental Remediation
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