The General Motors Brownfields Story

General Motors’ bankruptcy filing in June 2009 represented the largest industrial bankruptcy in US history. When GM filed for Chapter 11 protection, the goal was to reorganize GM into a car maker that could better compete in the global marketplace.  When “New GM” was created, many of “Old GM’s” (now “Motors Liquidation Company’s) surplus facilities were left behind.  Less than a year later, the White House announced that agreement had been reached on the largest environmental response trust ever created to speed the remediation and redevelopment of GM’s surplus properties in 14 states.  The MLC Environmental Response Trust is unique in a number of respects, including its national approach to funding required remediation to stretch taxpayer dollars; its goal of obtaining full regulatory closure (no further action) status for all of its sites; and its focus on returning those sites to productive use as soon as possible.  This panel will feature the people who engineered this remarkable settlement on behalf of MLC.  Among the issues they will discuss are the relationship between bankruptcy and environmental laws, how environmental liabilities are calculated in bankruptcy, negotiating cleanup estimates with regulators, challenges of positioning significant industrial properties for reuse and redevelopment, structure and vehicles for “running off” contaminated real estate, and the prospects for reuse and redevelopment of MLC’s sites.