Conner & Winters’ environmental law practice helps clients understand and manage the wide range of acquisition due diligence, permitting, siting, federal and state regulatory, compliance, enforcement and legislative matters that affect their operations and projects.
We assist clients nationwide on virtually every aspect and in every venue of environmental law, whether transactional, regulatory or litigation. The many years of experience of our lawyers related to environmental matters, coupled with our litigation and technological capabilities, sets Conner & Winters’ environmental practice apart in addressing the broad spectrum of our clients’ environmental legal issues.
We take a proactive approach to environmental issues, using sensible environmental compliance measures to prevent problems, including audits and employee training. If problems do occur, we effectively defend or prosecute toxic tort suits, government enforcement actions, and any other type of environmental litigation.
Environmental Regulatory Practice
We assist clients in obtaining permits and in addressing compliance with environmental laws relating to air, water, and groundwater. We have experience with matters ranging from permitting and compliance involving industrial landfills to assisting industry and business in obtaining stormwater permits. We have substantial experience in matters involving compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, including in the preparation of environmental impact statements and environmental assessments. We also assist clients with compliance concerning a wide range of environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, state fish and game laws, and others.
The scope of our environmental regulatory and compliance work includes:
- Compliance with federal and state regulations
- Hazardous and solid waste materials management
- Defense of enforcement actions, including actions before the United States Environmental Protection Agency and state agencies
- Hazardous waste cleanup
- Superfund cleanups
- Clean Air Act compliance
- Clean Water Act compliance
- Environmental permitting
- Environmental audits
- Issues relating to climate change
- Facility siting, permitting, and expansion
- Use of national parks and other public lands
- Underground storage tanks
- Administrative proceedings
- Legislative and rulemaking proceedings
Additionally, we routinely assist business and corporate clients with the environmental aspects of business and financial transactions, including assisting with environmental permitting, environmental audits, and ongoing regulatory compliance. In addition, we assist clients with environmental risk and compliance issues relating to the acquisition, divestiture and remediation of real property.
Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution
Our environmental team’s capabilities encompass the full range of environmental litigation, including litigation relating to federal and state statutes, oil and gas industry litigation, and toxic tort claims. Our recent environmental litigation has included:
- Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) actions
- Superfund actions
- Natural resources damages actions, under both statutes and the common law
- Class actions
- Private cost recovery actions
- Water pollution actions by individuals and municipalities
- Governmental enforcement actions
We defend clients in private party actions, citizen suits, whistle-blower actions, qui-tam matters, and civil, white-collar criminal, and administrative regulatory compliance matters at the state, federal, and local levels involving hazardous waste management, wastewater discharges, air emissions, oil pollution, storm water management, Superfund and FIFRA. We also represent clients in alternative dispute resolution venues.
Environmental Aspects of Transactions
Another important part of our environmental practice relates to providing assistance to clients with the environmental aspects of business and financial transactions. Our work in this area includes:
- Due diligence assessments and audits in conjunction with mergers and acquisitions
- Environmental planning in business transactions, corporate, lending, and real property transactions
- Negotiating environmental contract provisions
- Risk mitigation, environmental management systems and operational compliance
- Emissions trading
- On-going compliance advice
