Environmental Litigation and Enforcement Defense

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Environmental Litigation and Enforcement Defense

With experience from the nation’s largest environmental cases, we guide clients through the life cycle of environmental, health and safety, energy, climate change, and natural resources challenges.

Companies across a wide range of industries rely on us to help them navigate all aspects of complex environmental litigation, including mass environmental torts, contaminated property disputes, enforcement defense, and criminal defense. Our team includes former federal and state prosecutors, enforcement attorneys from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and senior officials from the US Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). While in government, these attorneys led environmental investigations, enforcement actions, and prosecutions, gaining insight into agency priorities, procedures, and enforcement tactics.

We represent companies in the agribusiness, automotive, biotech, chemicals, construction, defense, energy, mining, real estate, and waste management sectors. We handle matters initiated by the EPA, DOJ, DOI, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), among other key agencies. Our lawyers have experience handling investigations, enforcement actions, and litigation involving multiple agencies and jurisdictions, including parallel criminal and civil actions by federal and state environmental, health, and safety authorities, sometimes in tandem with toxic tort litigation. Our team is notable for its trial acumen, its premier appellate capabilities, and its ability to mount a multidimensional strategic response to complex challenges that often involve high reputational and financial stakes.

In addition, we have extensive experience representing companies in business-vs-business litigation over legacy liability and toxic tort liability arising out of soil, soil vapor, groundwater, and surface water contamination. Our experience extends across a wide variety of potential contaminants—from PCBs to radionuclides to mercury, and including emerging contaminants like PFAS.

With environmental lawyers located in Boston, Denver, New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Brussels, and Beijing, our practice spans the United States and extends to important centers of environmental regulation in the European Union and Asia.

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Experience

  • Representing a chemical manufacturer in investigations by the CSB, OSHA and state environmental agencies arising from chemical releases at multiple facilities.
  • Leading BP’s response to numerous inquiries in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling accident in the Gulf of Mexico, including 15 hearings and investigative demands by more than 90 committees and members and investigations by the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Oil Spill Commission, the Chemical Safety Board, and the National Academy of Engineers.
  • Representing an environmental remediation contractor defending multiple governmental enforcement actions, False Claims Act cases, and toxic tort and property damages cases based on alleged falsification of data at Superfund site in California.
  • Representing a public agency in a federal criminal investigation of alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and reporting laws.
  • Representing a chemical company in parallel criminal/civil and state/federal investigations for labeling and marketing violations under pesticide laws.
  • Representing a company and its employees in a federal criminal investigation of alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act relating to the importation and sale of listed species.
  • Advising on a broad range of litigation, investigation, and crisis management and strategic response issues in connection with a natural gas explosion.
  • Representing an international oil and gas company in litigation regarding the remediation of chemical contamination in a New Jersey river, one of the largest cleanups in the United States.
  • Representing a mining company in multifaceted litigation involving project opponents and the federal government over mineral rights on public lands.
  • Representing a Fortune 500 utility company facing a federal criminal inquiry, federal and state regulatory inquiries, congressional demands, and civil litigation following a major explosion.
  • Representing seven national, state and local environmental and conservation groups as parties to the successful mediation and settlement of the 30-year-long Black Canyon of Gunnison water rights litigation.
  • Representing a company in investigations by multiple California district attorneys involving alleged unlawful disposal and handling of hazardous waste and hazardous materials.
  • Representing a major California water district in National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act litigation regarding a Bureau of Reclamation water project.
  • Representing a publicly traded ski company in a dispute over the possession of ski terrain at a resort.
  • Representing a company in connection with a contaminated property assessment and response, protection of workers from possible vapor intrusion, and threatened litigation with landlord and neighboring property owners.
  • Providing counseling and litigation support to a large defense contractor on environmental legal and compliance matters, including Clean Water Act issues, and evaluation and resolution of a contaminated property cost recovery claim.
  • Representing an oil company in toxic tort litigation involving hundreds of plaintiffs, while also defending the company in civil and criminal actions brought by the government.
  • Defending a major retailer in a hazardous waste investigation and enforcement action brought by a group of state district attorneys and developing an internal compliance strategy for the client’s facilities across the state, including for e-waste management.
  • Advising a products supplier in an enforcement action brought by OSHA and successfully defending that client in administrative appeals.
  • Representing an individual in a federal criminal investigation of alleged violations of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act for unlawful filling in waters of the United States.
  • Successfully defending a major electronics manufacturer against allegations of environmental, health and safety compliance violations.
  • Representing a chemical company in cost allocation proceedings related to cleanup costs incurred at a Superfund site in Kentucky.
  • Providing litigation defense, as well as strategic regulatory and permitting advice, regarding the expansion of a complex waste management facility.
  • Representing a company in an investigation by Cal OSHA for alleged workplace safety violations leading to severe employee injury.
  • Developing comprehensive litigation strategies to respond to agency decisions regarding pending permits and approvals on behalf of mining companies.
  • Representing a consortium of state agencies in controversial administrative litigation involving a nuclear power plant and myriad stakeholders.
  • Defending a financial services company against electric market manipulation charges asserted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
  • Representing an individual in a federal Clean Water Act prosecution for alleged falsification of reports and unlawful discharges to water.
  • Representing a company in a state prosecution for failure to file an updated Hazardous Materials Business Plan.
  • Representing a company in an action by a district attorney alleging violations of the California Accidental Release Prevention program.
  • Counseling government entities, including a US state, a state capital and other related entities in multistate water rights litigation involving the US Army Corps of Engineers.
  • Representing an automaker in a precedent-setting agreement with California, 13 other states and four other automakers to reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, and as intervenor in related litigation in the DC Circuit.
  • Representing an employee in investigation and prosecution under the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships for alleged dumping of oil in ocean.
  • Representing a California energy company in a successful Phase 1 trial challenging a county’s measure that would have banned hydraulic fracturing, wastewater disposal, and the drilling of new wells.
  • Representing an investment company in a one-day trial on a CEQA challenge to a large mixed-use project in the Bay Area.
  • Advising a major waste handling company in a CWA citizens’ suit regarding whether discharges that flow through groundwater and eventually reach surface waters come within the jurisdiction of the federal CWA under recent US Supreme Court precedent.

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