Green Building Law Update

Environmental Law and Sustainability for Business

Tag Archives: Maryland environmental law

New Environmental Laws in Maryland: 2024 Brings Opportunities for Businesses

By Stuart Kaplow on April 28, 2024 Posted in Environmental, State

business opportunities to lead and profit in environmental and sustainability matters advantaged by these newly enacted state laws… 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

2018 IgCC Poised to be Adopted for the First Time

By Stuart Kaplow on August 9, 2020 Posted in Green Building, IgCC, LEED, Local Government

Montgomery County, Maryland is on the cusp of being the first to adopt the 2018 International Green Construction Code. The proposed Executive Regulation 12-20 appeared in the Montgomery County Register on August 1. A public hearing will be held on proposed regulation on September 3. And written comments may be submitted until October 5. Montgomery … 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

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

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

Maryland Enacts New Environmental Laws in 2020

By Stuart Kaplow on April 7, 2020 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental, State

The 440th session of the Maryland General Assembly commenced on January 8, 2020. The 90 day session was, for the first time since the Civil War cut short, ending three weeks early (.. of note, the predecessor, appointed not elected, General Assembly of Maryland was first called together in 1635 in St. Mary’s for 90 … Continue Reading

When Trees Sue for their Own Environmental Preservation

By Stuart Kaplow on January 5, 2020 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Environmental

In the new decade American environmental law will likely expand to include you being sued by the trees. I don’t mean being sued by the Lorax or someone else who “speaks for the trees” but rather the trees will have standing to sue to confront environmental degradation and the like. This movement to empower nature … Continue Reading

2018 IgCC is Not in Use Anywhere. A Detailed Analysis of Why?

By Stuart Kaplow on December 1, 2019 Posted in Green Globes, IgCC, LEED, Local Government

The 2018 International Green Construction Code was released on November 8, 2018 but more than a year later, it has not been adopted anywhere. The 203 page document available from the ICC for sale to the public, .. click here for a free read only copy of the 2018 IgCC, is an entirely new standard … Continue Reading

An HREC is Not a REC in a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment

By Stuart Kaplow on November 3, 2019 Posted in Environmental, Federal

I review a large number of Phase I environmental site assessments, and year in, year out, the largest number of questions I field are about Historical Recognized Environmental Conditions. The environmental professionals who perform those assessment generally do not take heed of Eduardo Galeano’s quote, “History never really says goodbye. History says, ‘see you later.’” … Continue Reading

Government to Allow Less Lead in Drinking Water

By Stuart Kaplow on October 20, 2019 Posted in Environmental, Federal

EPA is expected to publish this week in the Federal Register the first proposed regulatory revisions to the National Primary Drinking Water Regulation for lead in more than 30 years. The United States has made tremendous progress in lowering children’s blood lead levels (.. children are a good data set analogous to the broader population). … Continue Reading

ESG Disclosure Simplification Act Passes Committee But Will Fail

By Stuart Kaplow on October 13, 2019 Posted in Environmental, Federal, Sustainability

On September 20, 2019, the Financial Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 4329, the ESG Disclosure Simplification Act of 2019. The bill would require all public companies to disclose “environmental, social, and governance [ESG] metrics” as material information about the company. Although there is little if any chance that the bill … Continue Reading

LEED Offers Companies a Response to Declining Bird Populations

By Stuart Kaplow on October 6, 2019 Posted in Environmental, LEED

Condor in the Cordillera Huaywuash, Peru

In response to a much publicized new study on North American bird populations that appeared in the journal Science last month, we received a significant number of inquiries from businesses about what an appropriate response might be from a responsible company? The study found “cumulative loss of nearly three billion birds since 1970, across most … Continue Reading

State Law Trumps on Location of Solar Panels

By Stuart Kaplow on July 28, 2019 Posted in Energy, Environmental, Solar Panel

There will be a brief hiatus in regular blog posts during the month of August. I am in Peru walking slowly up the very big hill that is Siula Grande (.. in lieu of blog posts, read the book or watch the movie, “Touching The Void” about the first guys to summit this mountain). “Here … Continue Reading

Brownfield Laws can Save Green Building and the Planet

By Stuart Kaplow on June 23, 2019 Posted in Federal, Green Building, LEED

It is widely accepted that the greenest building is one already built. So, why then on the 20th anniversary of many state brownfield programs, is there so little correlation between green buildings and brownfields? Green building ratings systems, standards and codes expend a great deal of verbiage on aims reducing embodied carbon, including the currently … Continue Reading