Earlier this year in KFC Western, Inc. v. Meghrig, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that private parties may obtain restitution of the costs of cleaning up contaminated property under §7002(a)(1)(B) of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The Ninth Circuit's ruling in KFC Western opened the way for private parties to use the RCRA citizen suit provision to recover their costs of investigating, studying, and cleaning up contaminated property from responsible parties.

[Editors' Summary: This Article is adapted from The Law of Green Buildings: Regulatory and Legal Issues in Design, Construction, Operations, and Financing ch. 2 (J. Cullen Howe & Michael B. Gerrard eds., 2010). Copyright © 2010 by the American Bar Association and co-published with ELI Press. Reprinted by permission. This book provides an overview of green building law from a variety of well-known attorneys and other professionals in the green building field. These legal issues are likely to evolve quickly—and perhaps radically—in the coming years.

Offshore areas are under pressure to industrialize for renewable energy. To plan for offshore wind development, Rhode Island engaged in a marine spatial planning process that resulted in the Ocean Special Area Management Plan (O-SAMP), a regulatory invention of the Coastal Zone Management Act. Notably, the Rhode Island O-SAMP maps and plans for uses in federal waters beyond the three-mile line dividing state and fedeal jurisdiction, as well as within the state's territorial sea, posing a challenge to the boundaries of offshore federalism.