November 9, 2005—The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new rule on November 2 establishing clear standards for environmental due diligence that will encourage more urban redevelopment of brownfields. The EPA says the All Appropriate Inquiries rule, announced at the Brownfields Conference in Denver, Colorado, makes risk management “less of a guessing game and more of a science.”
The rule is expected to increase private cleanups of brownfield properties while reducing urban sprawl, affecting more than 250,000 commercial real estate transactions nationwide annually. The rule’s process of evaluating a property for potential environmental contamination and assessing potential liability for any contamination at the property increases certainty of Superfund liability protection, and improves information about environmental conditions of properties.
For additional information, visit the EPA’s Web site.
