| |
|
|
Home > Practices > Environmental
>
Environmental Litigation and Regulation
Environmental Litigation and Regulation
Scope of Practice | Representative Experience
Overview
Business and industry are acutely aware of our environment, natural resources, and the importance of a legal framework that seeks to balance sustainability, a strong balance sheet, and a robust economy.
V&E environmental lawyers counsel and represent industrial, governmental, financial, and individual clients who are grappling with these challenges today and addressing the opportunities and potential risks of the future. Our lawyers have extensive knowledge and experience on a full range of environmental law issues including climate change, air and water permitting, enforcement defense, natural resource damages, CERCLA/Superfund, water rights, and environmental crisis management. Clients seek out our environmental group for guidance, advice, and representation on their most significant environmental matters.
Environmental enforcement is an area in which we routinely handle criminal investigations and prosecutions, as well as civil actions and citizens suits under all of the major federal statutes. Likewise, V&E is one of only several law firms that has maintained a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) practice since the law was enacted in 1969, which has lead to our development of significant expertise in helping clients to navigate the myriad federal and state approvals to successfully complete large infrastructure projects in many states, including Texas, California, Alaska, and Puerto Rico.
Scope of Practice
V&E’s environmental practice is known throughout the nation – and especially in Texas – for its work on a broad range of litigation and transaction matters. We have broad-based experience in civil and criminal litigation, contested permitting, compliance counseling, project siting and development, and the resolution of environmental issues associated with certain transactional matters. We routinely assemble teams of lawyers to match the scope of the matter with the specialized knowledge clients require. Our proven results and broad range of experience allows us to handle a single suit over a wind farm as effectively and efficiently as a multi-state, multi-EPA region Superfund case.
Our lawyers routinely counsel executives and boards of directors at Fortune 500 companies regarding high-risk, high-stakes environmental issues in litigation, regulatory, and transactional contexts. We understand the applicable laws and regulations and have developed a proven track record of working with governmental and private-party decision-makers to achieve favorable results for our clients. Further enhancing our capabilities, several of our lawyers have held senior positions with federal and state governments, including: - A former Deputy Attorney General of the United States and Assistant Attorney General of the Environmental and Natural Resources Division
- An Assistant Section Chief of Environmental Enforcement Section of the Department of Justice
- A Director of the Litigation Division at the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission
Representative Experience
V&E’s Environmental practice offers a deep knowledge about the compliance, permitting, and litigation matters that can arise under federal and state environmental statues with respect to many different industries. We also help clients identify and resolve environmental liability questions in mergers and acquisitions, and similar transactions.
Representation of our experience are matters that include: - Defeating both at trial and at appellate levels challenges by citizens groups to permits for coal-fired power plants
- Successfully permitting a multi-purpose deep water port on the Gulf Coast and defeating appellate challenges to the project
- Negotiating a ground-breaking consent decree in a federal action covering violations and cleanup responsibilities on a system-wide basis for an interstate pipeline system that involved more than 100 separate facilities in a dozen different states
- Defended claims regarding contribution to global warming asserted against a major producer of coal-fired electric power, leading to successful dismissal from the plaintiffs’ bar most serious attempt to impose liability on industrial entities for global warming
- Defended an Indiana utility in the federal NSR initiative under the Clean Air Act against coal-fired electric power producers, and achieved what is generally considered the most favorable settlement in that litigation
- Represented a private equity group on all environmental matters relating to its $45 billion acquisition of the largest electric power producer and mining company in Texas. The transaction involved many complex environmental issues and was one of the largest private equity purchases of a public company in U.S. history
- Prevailed on appeal before the U.S. Fourth Circuit to overturn a lower court’s imposition of Superfund liability based on the sale of scrap metals; the appeal set an important precedent in this area and saved the client from approximately $10 million in response costs
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
<< Back to Top
|