EDR Insight's Quarterly Market Update: Tracking the Drivers of Recovery

Remember when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s All Appropriate Inquiries rule was promulgated in 2005? For the first time since then, there will soon be a new revision to the ASTM E 1527 Standard and the time to begin preparing your staff and educating your clients is now.

The E 1527-13 revision is the result of three years of discussion and debate among many dedicated stakeholders who spent countless hours at ASTM Phase I ESA Task Group meetings and on conference calls examining all parts of the standard and hammering out every word of the revision. The most significant revisions are in the areas of: REC definitions, agency file review, vapor migration/intrusion, user responsibilities and more.

For this event, EDR Insight is fortunate to have the input of three professionals—an environmental professional, a commercial real estate lender and an attorney—who were active with the revision process and who each devoted significant time and expertise to shaping the new revisions.

Join us for this important and timely event as the commercial lending and property risk management industry prepares to transition away from the -05 standard to E 1527-13.

Target Audience:
• Environmental due diligence professionals
• Environmental risk managers at financial institutions

Benefits to attendees:
• Insights into specific areas of revision and a deeper understanding of what drove the changes
• More clarity on REC-HREC-CREC definitions
• More clarity on agency file review
• An end user perspective from the lending sector
• An attorney’s take on what the changes mean in the construct of CERCLA liability and commercial property transactions
• Advice on how EPs and lenders should be preparing for E 1527-13
• Potential changes that end users may see in their Phase I ESA reports when E 1527-13 takes effect

A number of recent developments, including 2013’s revisions to ASTM E 1527 Phase I environmental site assessment standard, make it more difficult—and risky—to ignore vapor migration during environmental due diligence. EDR Insight has assembled a panel of the most knowledgeable attorneys in the field to help environmental professionals and risk managers at financial institutions answer a common question:
What can happen if vapor-related issues are missed?

This team of experts, with decades of experience advising commercial real estate deals, will share real-world cases of “due diligence gone wrong” from vapor migration-related lawsuits filed as a result of inadequate property investigations and poor lender oversight. This one-time event is an important learning opportunity for any environmental professional who participates in environmental investigations, as well as commercial real estate lenders who extend credit on properties that may be impacted by vapor migration.

Attendees of this webinar will learn:
• Recent developments that have brought vapor migration front and center.
• Why environmental due diligence policies should expressly address vapor migration.
• How federal and state authorities are responding to vapor intrusion concerns—and the implications for buyers, lenders and sellers.
• Steps that environmental professionals and commercial real estate lenders can take to avoid liability related to vapor migration.
• Real-world examples of what can happen if vapor issues are ignored during environmental due diligence.

For the first time since 2005, the ASTM E1527 standard is going through a significant revision. Now is the time to start preparing your staff and your clients! The changes to the standard will go into effect immediately once the new version is published in 2013. At this complimentary webinar you will learn about:
-Revised REC and HREC definitions, plus a new term
-Clarification on vapor migration and ASTM E2600-10
-Changes to User Responsibilities and important news about environmental liens
-Much more!


The EDR team has been tracking the revision process closely since it began in 2010. This fall, we have educated over 1,000 environmental professionals at our Due Diligence at Dawn (DDD) seminars around the country.

Join EDR and Anthony J. Buonicore, former E1527 Task Group leader, for this webinar and learn all you need to know to comply with the forthcoming edition of the ASTM E1527 Standard.

Vapor intrusion, the migration of volatile chemicals from the subsurface into overlying buildings, presents potential health risks and environmental liability at properties with current or past contamination. The U.S. EPA is preparing its final Vapor Intrusion Guidance for evaluating and assessing risk from VI. The release of EPA’s guidance is scheduled for release a few months before ASTM is expected to publish a revised Phase I environmental site assessment protocol (ASTM E 1527). Among the changes to ASTM E 1527-05 is the addition of new language throughout the standard to include the assessment of vapor migration risk.

EDR is extremely fortunate to offer you a webinar with three speakers who have been performing successful VI investigations for many years, and have been working with ASTM and the U.S. EPA to provide comments on draft documents. With the scheduled release of EPA’s final VI guidance—followed by a revised ASTM E 1527 standard to include vapor intrusion—now is the time to prepare and ensure that due diligence policies include VI and that appropriate science is used to minimize the impact of VI on property deals, including brownfield redevelopment.

It is critical that risk managers understand what these two documents mean in terms of the standard of care and how it might affect their own liability—or that of their borrowers.

Benefits to Lenders:
•Recent regulatory history surrounding vapor intrusion
•Myths about vapor intrusion and mitigation alternatives
•Available data that can be used to evaluate VI risk
•Implications of the new federal guidance document
•What the vapor-related revisions to ASTM E 1527 mean in terms of lenders’ environmental due diligence policies

Benefits to EPs:
•A better understanding of why vapor migration presents a risk to your clients
•A way to begin thinking about how the new guidance and revised ASTM E 1527 standard may necessitate changes to your Phase I ESA process

To help you meet the challenge of staying up to speed on the forces driving demand for property assessments, EDR Insight invites you to a complimentary web event on the state of the market in the third quarter of 2012—and a look to 2013. Attendees of this 60-minute webinar will learn:

• The status of commercial property transactions and the asset classes attracting the most attention
• Commercial real estate lending volume
• Key players in the deal-making and lending worlds
• Where to focus business development efforts for 2013 and beyond
• EDR Insight’s near-term forecast for Phase I ESA volume and major market risks

Join us for a look at the forces driving demand for your services so that you can position your firm for growth.

To help you meet the challenge of staying up to speed on the forces driving demand for property assessments, EDR Insight invites you to a complimentary web event on the mid-year state of the market.

Attendees of this 60-minute webinar will learn:

• The status of commercial property transactions and the asset classes attracting the most attention
• Commercial real estate lending volume and how tolerance for environmental risk is changing
• Key players in the deal-making and lending worlds
• Where to focus business development efforts for the remainder of 2012 and beyond
• EDR Insight’s near-term forecast for Phase I ESA volume and major market risks

Join us for a look at the forces driving demand for your services so that you can position your firm for growth.

Environmental risk managers at banks understand why due diligence is important to protect the bank from collateral devaluation and liability exposure, but how well do they communicate this value up the chain? Environmental due diligence is important, along with evaluating a borrower’s creditworthiness and getting an appraisal done, but only in the broader context of originating loans. The difficulty in bridging the gap between environmental risk managers and loan officers/senior management was identified as one of the key challenges faced by risk management professionals, particularly at community banks.

This webinar will provide lenders with actionable intell to help them educate senior management and loan officers to foster a greater understanding across the bank of the importance in understanding environmental risk and the liability the bank can face if environmental due diligence is not properly addressed. Join us for this webinar as seasoned insiders selected from the ranks of a large bank, a regional bank and a community bank share their experiences in communicating the value of environmental due diligence internally at their institutions.

Panelists:

-Rick Ferguson, P.G., Chief Environmental Compliance Officer, SVP, U.S. Bank
-Brian Ginter, VP & CCIM, Appraisal/Environmental Group, Burke & Herbert Bank
-John Rybak, SVP Environmental Risk Manager, BB&T

The downturn has fundamentally changed the market. Customers are now in control. Price competition has intensified at the same time that the Phase I environmental site assessment practice is expanding to require expertise in new areas like vapor intrusion and file reviews. Pressure to deliver reports quickly and efficiently has also intensified. Doing more for less is the new name of the game.

What does this new dynamic mean to your client interactions? How well is your firm adapting?

Join this free webinar with internationally certified coach, speaker and author, Meridith Elliott Powell, for an engaging presentation on today's dynamic market environment. She will explain how you can use trust and value, not low price, to your competitive advantage in today's value-based economy. Powell will also share her proven tips for marketing services in today’s economy and how you can create a unique identity for your firm.

What's in store for lender due diligence this year? Join this EDR Insight webinar to learn about the top ten trends that will define the world of lender environmental due diligence this year. Topics will include: how lenders' risk aversion is changing in response to market conditions, geographic hot spots for commercial real estate investment, the implication of this year's wave of loan maturities for environmental risk management, the forecast for commercial real estate lending in 2012--and more.

Environmental due diligence this year will take many shapes. Banks must meet intense regulator pressure to minimize their exposure to environmental risk in their commercial real estate lending operations. Asset dispositions by lenders to clear their balance sheets of distressed loans and properties are on the rise. And on top of that, a record-high wave of loan maturities is coming in 2012. Attendees will learn how banks today are responding to the need to manage environmental risk effectively, expectations for lending levels and asset dispositions as a massive transfer of commercial properties gets underway.

EDR Insight's cutting-edge 60-minute presentation is designed to help you:
-Understand the forces driving environmental due diligence
-Whether your bank is lending in one of this year's hot spots for commercial real estate investment
-The factors that affect banks' environmental risk tolerance
-The types of properties banks are willing to underwrite in today's fragile market
-The role of environmental due diligence in determining which loans get refinanced as this year's wave of maturities hits

Educating clients about the importance of addressing vapor intrusion risk on today's real estate deals is one of the top technical challenges that environmental professionals face. Join us as two vapor intrusion experts share their experience from the field. With the science evolving at a rapid rate, VI is the unseen villain that is complicating real estate transfers, financing/re-financing options and brownfield redevelopment. As property transactions get underway after a long downturn--and a large number of properties begin to change hands due to foreclosures, workouts and distressed asset deals--it is critical for environmental professionals to understand how VI, even on properties with NFA letters, can create liability for property owners, tenants and lenders.

One important development involves EPA's efforts to make dramatic changes to its Draft 2002 VI Guidance. David Gillay, a leading environmental attorney, will cover the most significant proposed changes to the EPA's VI guidance from a legal perspective and what these changes mean for Phase I ESA standard operating procedures. Gillay will also provide several recent cases involving VI that highlight the importance of proactively addressing risk upfront.

To help environmental due diligence professionals better understand the VI pathway and its implications for increasing a property purchaser's potential environmental liability, John Sallman, a Senior Principal and Environmental Department Manager at Terracon Consultants, will present on his experience educating clients, how he deals with client resistance, why the VI opportunity differs in states that have guidance versus those that do not, what ASTM's efforts to revise E 1527-05 might mean and why firms need to proactively address VI with clients. Sallman was recently chosen to lead Terracon's Vapor Task Group and will also share what his firm is doing to maintain an internal dialogue on this important topic.

Join EDR and industry veteran Nick Albergo for an insider's take on:

-The types of issues courts consider during Phase I ESA-related lawsuits
-Practical challenges when addressing diffuse anthropogenic pollution
-Opinions versus recommendations
-When a file review can be deemed complete
-How EPs can avoid common pitfalls in their own practice

Nick Albergo's unique perspective is shaped by years of being called as an expert witness on Phase I litigation. In addition to being a course instructor for ASTM's E 1527-05 standard, Albergo has firsthand experience in the development of ASTM's Phase II ESA standard (E 1903). In this webinar, he will address recent revisions and the standard's place in the marketplace, as well as weigh in on such timely topics as vapor encroachment and continuing obligations under CERCLA.