Note: Article from EDR Insider

SBA Revamps Environmental Policy

The U.S. Small Business Association’s (SBA) long-awaited revisions to its Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Lender and Development Company Loan Programs were introduced in mid-March. The revisions include a new streamlined, more robust approach to environmental due diligence.

The revised SOP 50-10(5) –which will become effective on May 1, 2008 – is more prescriptive than the previous document, and nearly 600 pages shorter. The new environmental process outlines a tiered approach for performing property investigations that reflects a number of additional steps and clearer guidance on what needs to be done in specific instances. The policy also, as expected, embraces the protocol for conducting Phase I environmental site assessments (ESAs) that is outlined under the U.S. EPA’s All Appropriate Inquiries (AAI) rule and the associated ASTM E 1527-05 standard.

One significant change is that determinations about whether a Phase I ESA is warranted are based on the perceived risk of the property, rather than the size of the loan. If a property’s current or past uses find a match on the SBA’s list of “environmentally sensitive” industries, then the environmental investigation must automatically begin with an AAI-compliant Phase I ESA conducted by a qualified environmental consultant. Otherwise, a lower level of investigation can be initiated.

Read remainder of story - click here.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 2:29 am and is filed under ●Brownfields Financing.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.