Environmental Counseling

• Advising regulated clients with day-to-day permitting and compliance concerns across the country, including issues under the Clean Air Act, RCRA, EPCRA, the Clean Water Act, TSCA, CERCLA and their local equivalents.
• Formulating air permitting strategies to account for New Source Review, air dispersion modeling. NESHAPs, NAAQS nonattainment, consent decree compliance and other variables.
• Managing self-audits under federal and state laws, regulations and policies.
• Assisting clients with internal programs to identify permitting projects and monitor ongoing compliance.
• Conducting environmental due diligence for business sales and acquisitions.
• Defending clients’ material management and waste recycling practices in various states and EPA, including securing regulatory approvals for proprietary practices.
• Responding to agency information requests (e.g., under Clean Air Act§ 114 and CERCLA§ 104), including requests seeking testing of clients’ emission, ingredients and products.
• Shaping federal, state and local laws and policy through stakeholder groups, petitioning for rule changes, commenting on proposals such as SIP rules, NAAQS designations. NESHAPs, climate change programs and hazardous/solid waste regulation.

Environmental Enforcement and Litigation

• Defending clients targeted by U.S. Department of Justice investigations and enforcement actions, including NSR enforcement pursuant to EPA’s National Enforcement Initiatives, which has involved federal consent decree negotiation, implementation and litigation.
• Assisting clients facing federal, state, and local noncompliance allegations (e.g., NOVs, FOVs, NFOVs) from Puget Sound to the Carolinas, from the California air districts to Massachusetts, and myriad jurisdictions in between.
• Successfully litigating a challenge to a facility-specific RACT Order during a week-long trial before a state Pollution Control Hearing Board.
• Defending and challenging clients’ permits in administrative and court proceedings, including a third-party air permit challenge that reached the state Court of Appeals.
• Challenging NAAQS nonattainment designations before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in EPA petitions for reconsideration, and during state and federal rulemakings.
• Defending an environmental remediation company from criminal and civil charges brought by the attorney general for violations of air, hazardous waste, and water laws.
• Representing clients in CERCLA actions that included appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

Civil Litigation Matters

• Defending businesses against odor, dust, nuisance and diminution of property value claims brought by nearby residents.
• Pro bono work for the ACLU, U.S. Department of Defense, Project Salute (representing military veterans with VA claims) and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.