Green Building Law Update

Environmental Law and Sustainability for Business

Archives: Environmental

Labor Department Will Not Enforce Anti ESG Rule

The U.S. Department of Labor has announced that it will not enforce recently published final rules by the prior Administration on “Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments” and “Fiduciary Duties Regarding Proxy Voting and Shareholder Rights.” This policy statement is in furtherance of the Biden Administration issued Executive Order 13990, entitled “Protecting Public Health and … Continue Reading

Now We Know What is Killing the Birds

By Stuart Kaplow on March 28, 2021 Posted in Environmental

A cause is now known for bird deaths that eluded scientists for more than 25 years. It is beyond dispute that there are human activities that have a known negative impact on the natural environment, but sometimes events come together, only in part arising from human activities, to create unknown environmental consequences. During the winter … Continue Reading

Covid Pandemic Exposes More Children to Toxic Lead

By Stuart Kaplow on March 21, 2021 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental

Covid-19 school closures and lockdowns resulted in thousands of children having increased blood lead levels. In a study of this consequence of Covid-19, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to describe blood lead level testing among young children during the Covid-19 pandemic, the CDC analyzed data reported from 34 state and local … Continue Reading

Rare Earth Metal Theft by Catalytic Converter

By Stuart Kaplow on February 21, 2021 Posted in Environmental

The theft of catalytic converters to sell for the value of the rare earth metal components is a thing once again. A catalytic converter is a component part of the exhaust system of a fossil fuel motor vehicle that catalyzes, or accelerates the break down of vehicle emissions making them less harmful. The catalyst of … Continue Reading

EPA 2020 Enforcement Offers Insight

By Stuart Kaplow on February 14, 2021 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental, Federal

The Environmental Protection Agency’s has released the results of its 2020 enforcement and compliance efforts and those results offer significant insight that business can benefit from. In the first 5 months of fiscal year 2020, EPA was on track to significantly exceed traditional numeric metrics in many categories with more compliance monitoring activities in the … Continue Reading

PFAS in a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment?

By Stuart Kaplow on January 31, 2021 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental, Uncategorized

The question de riguer in commercial real estate transactions is if PFAS is included in a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment? As made clear by the January 14, 2021 EPA action, the response is “no” that the standard practice for environmental site assessments in the vast majority of places does not consider PFAS, however, .. … Continue Reading

Former Public Officials Indicted on Criminal Charges in Flint Water Crisis

By Stuart Kaplow on January 17, 2021 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental

Michigan prosecutors last Thursday announced that 9 individuals have been indicted on a total of 42 counts related to a series of alleged actions and inactions that created the Flint water crisis. Interestingly, the Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit in Genesee County appointed Judge David Newblatt to act as a one-man grand jury to … Continue Reading

COVID–19 in Buildings is all about Ventilation

By Stuart Kaplow on November 8, 2020 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental, Local Government

This post is about what we know today about how to occupy commercial and public buildings, from offices to schools, in order to prevent the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 (the now designation for what had been the novel coronavirus 2019). If in 1992, “it’s the economy, stupid” was the phrase coined as the message of … Continue Reading

To Make Dishwashers Great Again?

By Stuart Kaplow on November 1, 2020 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental, Federal

Last Friday the U.S. Department of Energy issued a final rule effective November 30, 2020, that will once again permit American households to purchase dishwashers that actually clean dishes, as they had done for most of the machine’s 130 year history. The October 30 final rule does not force anyone to change their currently installed … Continue Reading

HREC in a Phase l is Not a Recognized Environmental Condition

By Stuart Kaplow on October 25, 2020 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental

Among the most misunderstood term in a Phase I environmental site assessment is the Historical Recognized Environmental Condition. The environmental professionals who perform these assessments by and large do not take heed of Eduardo Galeano’s quote, “History never really says goodbye. History says, ‘see you later.’” By way of background, a Phase I environmental site … Continue Reading

Supreme Court to decide Climate Change Case

By Stuart Kaplow on October 11, 2020 Posted in Climate Change, Environmental

While this week the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett begins in earnest before the Senate Judiciary Committee, last week the U.S. Supreme Court granted BP’s petition for a writ of certiorari in BP P.L.C. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, a much watched climate change case. In 2017, a number of state and … Continue Reading

Maryland becomes First State to Ban Polystyrene this Thursday

By Stuart Kaplow on September 27, 2020 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental, State

During the 2019 legislative session, the Maryland General Assembly enacted what will be the first statewide ban of expanded polystyrene foam. In the Spring of 2019 law makers did not foresee a pandemic that would shift restaurant dining (not to mention school meals and much more) to carry out in transportable food containers, but today … Continue Reading

Court Adopts New Evidentiary Standard for Science

By Stuart Kaplow on September 7, 2020 Posted in Environmental

In 2020 when science and politics appear to have collided in a car wreck, confidence of the public in scientists is at an all time low. That observed, the public does not often think about the role courts have in accepting scientific theories. Last week Maryland’s highest court drew attention to this vital unsettled matter … Continue Reading

I Just Read my 1000th Phase I Environmental Site Assessment this Year

By Stuart Kaplow on August 30, 2020 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental

For those concerned about the state of the environmental industrial complex during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, I can report that last Friday I reviewed my 1,000th Phase I Environmental Site Assessment this year. In context, last year I did not hit that 1,000 mark until late September, and while it is an unscientific indicator, … Continue Reading

ESG Going the Way of the Dodo?

By Stuart Kaplow on August 23, 2020 Posted in Environmental, GRESB, Sustainability

Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Labor put another nail in the coffin of environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) disclosures. Media sources have reported that the Employee Benefits Security Administration in the Department of Labor sent letters to a group of Registered Investment Advisors requesting detailed information within 2 weeks about their use of … Continue Reading

EPA Proposes First Greenhouse Gas Emissions Limits for Aircraft

By Stuart Kaplow on July 26, 2020 Posted in Climate Change, Environmental, Federal

Last Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency proposed greenhouse gas emissions standards for airplanes used in commercial aviation and large business jets. “This standard is the first time the U.S. has ever proposed regulating greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft,” according to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. And as much as I have railed against more and regressive environmental … Continue Reading

New Lead (Pb) in Soil Standard Now Effective in Maryland

By Stuart Kaplow on July 12, 2020 Posted in Environmental, State

The EPA has described lead as the number one environmental public health hazard in the U.S. And despite that the CDC has in the past identified childhood lead poisoning prevention since 1971 as 1 of 10 great U.S. public health achievements which has included success in reducing human exposures on average, the amount of lead … Continue Reading

A Force Majeure Decision during the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Stuart Kaplow on July 5, 2020 Posted in Environmental

There has been much speculation and supposition about the interplay of force majeure provisions in leases and other contracts in response to government orders closing businesses during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, but now there is an authoritative court decision that may provide persuasive authority. In a motion in a Bankruptcy case the landlord … Continue Reading

Two New LEED Pilot Credits Respond to COVID-19

By Stuart Kaplow on May 31, 2020 Posted in Environmental, Green Building, LEED

America is reopening including physically opening its buildings and the U.S. Green Building Council has announced that LEED will play a role in confronting risk in the post coronavirus pandemic era. Last week Mahesh Ramanujam, the President & CEO of USGBC announced in a published letter that the “second generation at USGBC will focus on … Continue Reading

COVID 19 Commercial Building Liability

By Stuart Kaplow on May 24, 2020 Posted in Environmental, Green Building

With all 50 states now in some stage of reopening and some reclosing in part from the novel coronavirus pandemic closures and more than 1,500 new statutes, regulations and executive orders addressing the pandemic having been enacted in a matter of weeks, many commercial real estate owners are questioning if they can be liable for … Continue Reading

COVID-19 and the Risk from Recirculated Air in Buildings

By Stuart Kaplow on April 29, 2020 Posted in Environmental, Green Building, State

The Federation of European Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Associations (REHVA) has in recent days issued guidance on how to occupy commercial and public buildings, from offices to schools, “in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.” As Americans begin to end coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdowns, which were of course intended to keep … Continue Reading

Supreme Court Permits State Law Claims Against Superfund Property

By Stuart Kaplow on April 26, 2020 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental

In an instructive environmental law decision last week, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the federal Superfund statute (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act) does not preclude owners of adjacent contaminated land from pursuing state laws claims for money damages for nuisance, trespass and strict liability, but any cleanup of that land cannot … Continue Reading

Maryland is First State to Legislate Permitted Use of PFAS

By Stuart Kaplow on April 19, 2020 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental

Prior to the just concluded session of the Maryland legislature, the State’s laws and regulations were silent with regard to PFAS chemicals including PFOA. At worst, Maryland could have been criticized along with the Federal government and other states, for failing to regulate PFAS as a hazardous substance. But then, some days ago Maryland did … Continue Reading