In an all-out brawl within the environmental industrial complex, last week the American Society of Landscape Architects filed a lawsuit over the ownership of the trademark for the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) against the Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife Center at the University of Texas. The complaint is a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of not having a written agreement between partners or otherwise to protect valuable intellectual property.… Continue Reading
Last Friday, the GSA recommended both Green Globes 2010 and LEED 2009 as the third party certification systems that the federal government will use. This recommendation, if accepted, portends a green building world (which has always been dominated by LEED) turned upside down.… Continue Reading
In a hugely important judicial decision advancing onsite renewable energy, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has found ground mounted solar photovoltaics to be an "accessory use" permitted as of right in all zoning districts.… Continue Reading
The Federal Trade Commission will begin to ramp up enforcement of environmental claims .. The coming crackdown on environmental claims follows an update of the FTC's Green Guides last year that set forth the commission's current views on environmental marketing to help business avoid making unfair or deceptive claims.… Continue Reading
Dallas has now accepted the first building permit applications under its green building ordinance. All new projects must either: meet the minimum requirements of the Dallas Green Construction Code or be LEED certifiable or be Green Built Texas certifiable or be certifiable under an equivalent green building standard.… Continue Reading
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is soliciting comments on the issuance of a take permit "for recurring eagle mortalities" .. It has been suggested that comments should be submitted on the double standard of issuing permits for killing bald eagles with wind turbines while charging .. power companies for electrocuting birds on power lines.… Continue Reading
This article is a very unscientific statistical review of the LEED projects certified last week. There are opportunities throughout the environmental industrial complex and beyond to profit and thrive from the millions of square feet that are LEED certified next week and the week after ..… Continue Reading
Fourteen trees were cut down when Brian Novie only had permission to fell Eleven. He was charged with violating the Tree Preservation and Landscape Maintenance Law and moved to dismiss on the ground that the Tree Law is unconstitutional.… Continue Reading
In the most recent shot fired in the trade war over solar panels between the United States and China, last week solar panel manufacturer Energy Conversion Devices, through its liquidating trust filed an antitrust lawsuit against Chinese companies ... seeking over $950,000,000 in damages.… Continue Reading
Last week the Superior Court of D.C. entered an order staying Michael Mann's (of Hockey Stick Graph fame) defamation lawsuit, .. but that order also concluded that "to place the Plaintiff's name in the same sentence with Sandusky (a convicted pedophile) is clearly outrageous.… Continue Reading
In a case important beyond the State of Washington, the State's highest court expressly acknowledged the dynamic tension of balancing the competing interests of the ecology versus generating electricity, coming down on the side of electricity, all be it renewable energy from wind turbines.… Continue Reading
Hastings on Hudson, a village with a population of just over 9,400, located east of the Hudson River, less than 20 miles north of Times Square, conducted a final public hearing last evening on its custom written Green Building Code.… Continue Reading
