The Business Council opposes this Executive Budget proposal that would deny remediation and development tax credits for projects which have been admitted into the Brownfield Cleanup Program before June 23, 2008, but have not yet received a certificate of completion. Adoption of this bill will endanger over $20 billion of cleanups and development in the state, will likely involve the state in protracted and expensive legal action at the federal level, and will violate the state’s pledge to honor its commitments.

The adoption of tax credit caps in 2008 (Chapter 390 of the laws of 2008) expressly grandfathered projects that had been admitted into the Brownfield Cleanup Program prior to the adoption date. Approximately 100 projects, two-thirds of which are upstate, were thus protected from losing benefits previously promised by New York State. This bill would retroactively apply the credit caps and new credit determination standards to these projects.

To read the detailed bill memo click here.