The National Brownfields Coalition was proud to testify before the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment in a congressional hearing focused on “promoting economic and community redevelopment and environmental justice in the revitalization and reuse of contaminated properties.”
Following up on our previous overview of the American Jobs Plan, we explore some specific provisions related to land use and development intended to address national insufficiencies in affordable housing and related infrastructure, and also make some recommendations to improve it. Within the expansive American Jobs Plan, there are four land use and development proposals … Continued
Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty and Mayor Patricia Murphy of New Milford, CT visit New Milford’s Century Brass mill, a brownfield site, in 2014. Photos via The News-Times.
Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty (D-CT-5) is fighting hard to reinstate a tax incentive to help cleaning up contaminated land more affordable and more feasible.
Late last month, Esty introduced the Brownfields Redevelopment Tax Incentive Reauthorization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2002), a bill to re-establish the Brownfields Tax Incentive which ended in 2011.
Originally signed into law in 1997 and codified through Section 198(h) of the Internal Revenue Service’s tax code, the Incentive allowed taxpayers to fully deduct the costs of brownfield sites’ environmental cleanup the year the costs were incurred—making the arduous process more affordable for those who take it on.
The redeveloped Merchandise Mart on Washington Avenue in St. Louis. Via Flickr.
This week, Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty (D-CT) introduced the Brownfields Redevelopment Tax Incentive Reauthorization Act of 2014, or H.R. 4542. The legislation would re-establish the brownfields tax incentive for five years through 2018. In a bipartisan show of support for the bill, Congressman Tim Bishop (D-NY) and Congressman Chris Gibson (R-NY) have signed on as cosponsors.
Originally signed into law in 1997 and extended through December 31, 2011, Section 198’s Brownfields Tax Incentive is a tax deduction intended to encourage the cleanup and revitalization of brownfield properties. Under the incentive, environmental cleanup costs are fully deductible in the year incurred, rather than capitalized and spread over time. Improvements in 2006 expanded the Incentive to include petroleum cleanup.
Liberty, TX is one of the many communities where the federal Brownfields Tax Incentive has brought new jobs to formerly abandoned industrial plants.
The National Tube and Pipe (later Allied Pipe and Tube) opened in Liberty in 1973 and eventually became the largest employer in the town. When the company closed in 1993, it left behind a 492,000 square-foot manufacturing facility contaminated with PCBs, asbestos, a polluted retention pond and petroleum.
In 2009 Boomerang Tube, a manufacturer of pipe and tubes for oil and gas customers, announced its intent renovate and expand the old National Tube and Pipe factory into a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. The project would bring 350 manufacturing jobs back to Liberty in the process. Boomerang Tube had one significant hurdle, though: an estimated $1.2 million in cleanup costs.
The federal Brownfields Tax Incentive program helped make cleanup feasible for Boomerang. The Tax Incentive effectively limited the impact of cleanup costs on the development budget. Tax abatement and other local incentives also factored in, and Access Industries provided financing for the project. All of this helped clear the way for a $200 million investment in the plant and equipment.
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Developers working to clean-up and redevelop brownfields could soon lose a major federal aid – unless advocates work together to save it.
Originally signed into law in 1997 and extended through December 31, 2011, Section 198’s Brownfields Tax Incentive is a tax deduction intended to encourage the cleanup and revitalization of brownfield properties. Under the incentive environmental cleanup costs are fully deductible in the year incurred, rather than capitalized and spread over time. Improvements in 2006 expanded the Incentive to include petroleum cleanup.
The incentive is scheduled to expire at the end of the year, but there’s a chance to save it. The National Brownfields Coalition is asking Congress to extend the Incentive as part of the Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012, more commonly known as the “tax extenders” bill.
Join the call to make brownfields cleanup easier: send a letter to your members of Congress today.
The Incentive is already helping towns put contaminated land back in to productive reuse. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for example, the Incentive helped make possible the redevelopment of a former industrial site in the city’s historic Martin Luther King Drive Business Improvement District. The site is now home to new commercial and residential space, and has greatly added momentum to efforts within the Business Improvement District.