The Indiana Department of Environmental Management reminded businesses, schools and municipalities that you have until August 29th to apply for Pollution Prevention Grants. The grants are designed to help organizations implement prevention activities and processes. The "P2" grants require a 50% cash or in-kind match, but there are exceptions for MBE/WBE, small businesses and others.  Matching grant funds of up to $250,000 are available.

Recent grants have been awarded for:

• Church Brothers Collision Repair (Marion County): Awarded $63,584 to convert four of their locations to use waterborne basecoat paint. This will replace the current paint that has a higher amount of volatile organic compounds (VOC), reducing VOC emissions into the air.
• The Muncie Sanitary District (Delaware County): Awarded $45,000 to purchase reusable bags and distribute them to local grocery stores. The grant will also go toward measuring the amount of plastic and paper saved through the reusable bag program.
• Nimet Industries, Inc. (St. Joseph County): Awarded $14,933 to install an electroless nickel dialysis machine in order to reduce the amount of waste that is produced from their metal finishing process.
• Harrison Steel Castings Company (Fountain County): Awarded $100,000 to reduce the amount of resin in their chemically bonded sand molds. This will reduce the amount of volatile organic compounds released into the air.
• Hill's Pet Nutrition Indiana, Inc. (Wayne County): Awarded $71,000 to install a water conservation system and reduce the facility’s wastewater discharge by millions of gallons.
• Frito-Lay, Inc. (Clinton County): Awarded $50,000 to design and install a waste heat recovery system that will significantly reduce energy consumption.
• Saint-Gobain Containers (Jay County): Awarded $30,000 to install and test an energy efficient compressed air system, used for the first time in the United States.

Go to www.idem.in.gov/prevention/p2grants for additional information.

“Retention and reuse of older buildings is an effective tool for the responsible, sustainable stewardship of environmental resources,” stated Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation: at a dinner last December where Moe was honored by the National Building Museum with the Vincent Scully Prize for his work on historic preservation.  Moe went on to state that “[N]o matter how much green technology is employed in its design and construction, any new building represents a new impact on the environment.  The bottom line is that the greenest building is one that already exists.”

Moe is not alone in seeing the critical interplay between historic preservation and sustainable development.  I’m with him, which is why when I was recently asked by the Indiana Chapter of the United States Green  Building Council to speak to its members and guests about tax incentives for sustainable development I could not resist the opportunity to talk a little bit about federal historic rehabilitation tax credits.  Federal income tax law has allowed for many years two credits , a 10% credit for pre-1936, non-certified historic structures, and a 20% credit for “certified historic structures”.  The credit amount equals credit rate (10% or 20%) multiplied by amount of “qualified rehabilitation expenditures”. 

The 20% credit provides the historic developer a source of funds with which to fund gaps in financing.  The source is tax credit equity provided by an investor or investors willing to become an owner of the project for 5 years in return for tax credits generated by the project expenditures.  For example, assuming the project has $10M of qualified rehab expenditures (defined below), the project owner (a partnership for federal tax purposes) has $2M in federal tax credits to pass through to its owners.  The project owners can typically raise 85-95% of the $2M in the form of tax credit investor equity. 

There are four basic requirements to consider, though other requirements and limitations(such as those related to tax-exempt use of the property) may apply

Must involve a “certified historic structure” 

Must result in “qualified rehabilitated building” 

Must have “qualified rehabilitation expenditures” 

Must be a “certified rehabilitation” 

• Rehabilitation of a certified historic structure must be certified by the Secretary of the Dept. of Interior in order to qualify for the credit
• Three part application process involving the State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) and the Dept. of Interior

As mentioned above, other limitations and special rules apply, but historic rehabilitation tax credits can serve as one of the many incentives potentially available to finance sustainable development.

Jim Rebber is the General Manager of Quality at Seymour Tubing, Inc.

The two things that I would like to discuss center around workforce improvement and global manufacturing as it relates to Indiana's competitiveness.  As was mentioned during the roundtable, Indiana is very willing to grant funds for employee training.  This question or thought that I have is, "How do we motivate the workforce in Indiana to take advantage of this opportunity?"  Is it a question of an employee's belief that there is not a need for them to improve their knowledge and/or skill base in order to compete for jobs in the future?  Or, are there some other factors holding many people back from taking advantage of these programs?  Maybe the question should be, "What is the level of involvement of people taking advantage of state provided training opportunities?"  The next question should be, "How do we increase this involvement?"

Second thought: Global competitiveness.  I thought about this on the way home.  I enjoyed hearing the gentleman from Taiwan talk about the fact that manufacturing jobs were leaving Taiwan and going to South Asia.  They have some of the same fears that we have here in the U.S.  The loss of middle-class jobs and, therefore, the weakening of the middle-class in terms of numbers is a real concern for them.  It was reported that they were going to look to the U.S. for answers – namely creating the service type industry base.  Truly it is a small world.  If we believe that it is important to keep a sound industrial base here in Indiana, then we are going to simply have to work smarter than the rest of the world in finding ways to compete in this global economy.  Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss issues that face Indiana.

Dr. Homer L. Pearce's remarks during Ice Miller's recent life science distinguished speaker's series highlight the importance of sufficient research funding for success in the war on cancer.  Research and development costs associated with identifying pharmaceutical solutions are particularly daunting and, given the time to market and current patent protection periods, sometimes commercially unjustifiable.

As a result of the targeted efforts of many, including the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and BioCrossroads, among others, Indiana's unique contribution to the national life science sector is becoming increasingly recognized - not only in terms of its many research institutions, major pharma companies and contract service providers, but also with respect to availability of funding.  In 2006, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, Indiana ranked 21^st in the nation for venture capital investments in the life science sector.

According to the S&P-2006, Purdue and Indiana University currently have $200 million in academic life science funding commitments and graduate 10,000 science and engineering students each year.  Both institutions are developing innovative diagnostic equipment and pharmaceutical protocols that, with appropriate funding, can bring life saving treatments to market.  The financial needs of Indiana's innovators have not gone unnoticed by public and private financial sources that are positioned to fund such developments. 

In 2008, we should expect to see further growth in Indiana's life science community as our state's leading research scientists build on the efforts of past scientific contributors to develop cutting-edge technologies and as funding sources become increasingly available both locally and nationally.  

February 21, 2008, marked the inaugural of  Ice Miller's life science distinguished speaker's series.  We were fortunate enough that Homer L. Pearce, Ph.D., could join us as the featured speaker on the "Progress in the War on Cancer."  Homer spent the last 30+ years working in cancer research and development.   He also has a continuing distinguished career of scholarly publications, teaching and consulting and advisory services in the cancer field.

The unofficial war on cancer was declared in 1971 during President's Nixon State of Union address. Later that year, Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into law, declaring, "I hope in the years ahead we will look back on this action today as the most significant action taken during my Administration."  Since that time, over $200 billion has been allocated to cancer research.

Statistics surrounding the causalities in the war on cancer are staggering.  It is still a major disease.  Over 1.5 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year – an average of one every 30 seconds.  About 600,000 deaths occur each year.  In 2010, cancer will likely be the leading cause of death in the U.S. 

But there is some progress in the war on cancer and Indiana's life science community is playing a significant role.  Indiana is home to some of the leading cancer research institutions, including Indiana University and the Purdue University Cancer Center.  Biotech companies are creating both innovative diagnostic tools and genome therapies.  Our major pharmaceutical companies are also bringing to market targeted pharma solutions.

Future prospects will likely include personalized drug protocols for each patient with treatment based on individual profiles.  New technologies in screening and detection will also play a major role as will prevention.

As Dr. Pearce observed, one thing is clear – a victory in the war on cancer can only be declared through a spirit of mutual trust and cooperation between all stakeholders.

Harry Gonso is a partner at Ice Miller LLP.  His primary areas of practice concentration are in general corporate and transaction law and life sciences.