Earlier this week, the Ohio Senate Finance Committee released the substitute budget bill. GOPC, and brownfields stakeholders, are concerned about the proposal put forward by the Senate for the Brownfield Remediation Program. As a reminder, the House’s version that was passed and sent to the Senate included a $250M allocation to the Brownfield Remediation Program. The House did not make any programmatic changes.

The Senate has made the following changes to the Brownfield Remediation Program:

• Reduces the appropriation from $125M in each fiscal year to $100M, for a total of $200M for the program.

• Limits brownfield grants only to economic development projects, and defines an economic development project to mean one developed by a for-profit entity that demonstrates site control, a plan for development, and documented support for the economic development project from the city or township. The language includes demolition as a remediation cost.

• Provides a set-aside for the first year of the program for each county, and eliminates the first come, first serve granting for the second year. The grants are to be awarded on a rolling basis after review by the ODOD Director on a case by case basis that assesses the economic merit of the project to the county and surrounding counties, and the state. The language also requires the ODOD Director to ensure projects are not specific to one region of the state.

GOPC has concerns about the changes to the Brownfield Remediation Program that the Senate has put forth.

More than 200 of the sites have received assessment grants, totaling nearly $44 million. Unless those sites have a proposed economic development end use, this spending will go to waste as clean-up efforts will not be able to proceed under the program.  

GOPC’s review of all BRP grants to date shows that, of the 631 total grant awards issued since 2021, 21% of project awards have fallen under the “economic development” category.

It would be a disservice to the people of Ohio to restrict ongoing funding only for projects that have an “economic development” end use, when the state is facing innumerable challenges, including a housing crisis where these sites could be redeveloped for future residential development (as 26% of current grant awards are planned). 

GOPC will be advocating for changes to the language during Conference Committee, when both the House and the Senate come together in the coming weeks. GOPC will share opportunities for brownfields stakeholders to submit testimony during that time. GOPC encourages stakeholders to contact your local elected officials and share how the Senate’s programmatic changes may negatively impact potential brownfield projects in your work.