RECENT LAW LIBRARY ARTICLES
Maryland’s latest environmental mandate is no longer just a legislative concept. It is becoming an operating program. In 2025, Maryland enacted Senate Bill 901, establishing an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework for packaging and paper products. Governor Wes Moore signed ...
For decades, environmental risk focused on the visible and catastrophic: spills, smokestacks, contaminated properties, while doling out punishments after the damage was done. Now a quieter and potentially far more consequential ‘ecological meets human health’ issue is moving to the ...
Can a government be held constitutionally accountable when it supplies contaminated drinking water, and then tells residents the water is safe? According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the answer is not under the U.S. Constitution’s ...
The Air We Breathe – Indoor Air Quality Is Becoming a Real Estate Issue
The most dangerous environmental threat is the one we breathe every day. Air pollution is the world’s largest environmental health risk, responsible for roughly 7 million premature deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization. For real estate owners, however, the more surprising issue may be what happens inside ...
The Land Isn’t Moving, But Its Coordinates Are – What the 2026 GPS Modernization Means for Real Estate
Long before satellites orbited the Earth, humans relied on the stars and the sun to find their way. Today, GPS does far more than help us find an address. It underlies surveying, mapping, construction, agriculture, utilities, engineering, and countless commercial real estate applications. That is why a major change to ...
The Lead Paint Legacy Real Estate Owners Must Take Seriously
For owners of older residential real estate, lead based paint can seem like a problem from another era. It is not. A recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency settlement involving an apartment complex in Putnam, Connecticut, is a useful reminder that lead based paint compliance remains a current environmental, public health ...
Greenwashing Is Still a Thing – Tractor Supply Judgment Shows Environmental Marketing Claims Are Being Prosecuted
Greenwashing claims are still a thing, and businesses should treat them as a legal compliance issue, not merely a public relations concern. That point was underscored last week when Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez announced that Tractor Supply West, LLC entered into a stipulated judgment requiring the company to ...
Puerto Rico’s Water Crisis – The Era of Potable Water Bankruptcy Has Arrived
Environmental law has in large measure focused on pollution: the contaminated river, the leaking underground tank, the smokestack, the Superfund site. But an equally consequential environmental problem is emerging when there is simply not enough water in the needed locales. Puerto Rico is now providing a stark warning. Beginning August ...
Commercial Space Launch Reform – FAA Proposal Will Cut Years from Licensing Approvals
The United States is in the midst of a new space race. Unlike the Apollo era, this competition is driven not only by governments but by private companies launching communication satellites, developing reusable rockets, planning lunar missions, and even envisioning data centers in low Earth orbit. If the United States ...
