Green Building Law Update

Environmental Law and Sustainability for Business

Tag Archives: environmental law Maryland

Now We Know What is Killing the Birds

By Stuart Kaplow on Posted in Environmental
Stuart Kaplow
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

Rare Earth Metal Theft by Catalytic Converter

By Stuart Kaplow on 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 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

179D Tax Deduction Made Permanent by Covid Relief Bill

By Stuart Kaplow on Posted in Federal, Green Building, Green Globes, LEED
On page 4,872 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, H.R. 133, which passed both houses of Congress on December 21st and was signed into law by President Trump on December 27th, the 179D energy efficient commercial buildings federal tax deduction, which had been scheduled to expire at year end, was instead made permanent. At a … Continue Reading

The Birds: Migratory Bird Treaty Act redux without Tippi Hedren

By Stuart Kaplow on Posted in Federal, LEED, Solar Panel, wind turbine
Three weeks ago the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a regulation to finally resolve and codify the legal principal that an incidental bird take resulting from an otherwise lawful activity, for example a sparrows flies into a solar panel, is not prohibited under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service is … Continue Reading
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