The Federal Trade Commission closed the public comment period on December 10, 2010 for proposed revisions to the Green Guides that it give businesses guidance on avoiding false or misleading environmental or “green” marketing claims. The changes to the Green Guides include new guidance on ...

A decade after the initial launch of LEED®, on November 8, 2010, the U.S. Green Building Council released the next version of the rating systems. The still unnamed version, being referred to as LEED 2012 (a takeoff on the last version, LEED 2009), but more ...

The LEED® for Retail rating systems will launch, at long last, on November 17th. LEED for Retail is two new rating systems, LEED 2009 for Retail: Commercial Interiors and LEED 2009 for Retail: New Construction. Today and prior to the launch, retail projects are registered ...

In the coming days Congress is expected to enact, for the first time, statutory authority clarifying what deems a person to have undertaken all appropriate inquiry to satisfy a defense to Superfund (CERCLA) liability. A “Transaction Screen” may well satisfy the appropriate inquiry standard. Transaction ...

The last promulgated regulations in Washington State would have required the reporting of 2009 Greenhouse Gas emissions before the end of 2010. The new proposed rule, still in a public comment period through October 14, 2010, mandates reporting start in 2013 for 2012 emissions. At ...

With a portfolio of more than 362 million leasable square feet, the real estate industry took notice when on September 9, 2010, the U.S. General Services Administration, as part of meeting requirements under Executive Order 13514, declared its long-term goal of reaching a “net zero ...

This is a version of my guest blog posting on Shari Shapiro's widely viewed blog on legal issues related to green building, available at www.greenbuildinglawblog.com. Building green is the law in Baltimore City. And while the mandatory requirement for all to build green has been ...

Regional Priority Credits were introduced into the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® 2009 rating standards. A year after their roll-out as a major enhancement of the larger LEED v3 system, Regional Priority Credits (Regional Credits) are little utilized and arguably, little understood. The stated intent ...