Our National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and historic preservation review experience includes:

• Securing a unanimous ruling for the State of North Dakota from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit allowing the design of a $250 million water treatment plant to proceed in which the court held that completion of the decision-making process under NEPA constitutes a changed circumstance under Rule 60(b)(5) where an injunction was issued based on a prior NEPA review that was found to be legally deficient.
• Serving as lead environmental counsel to assist with NEPA and Section 106 reviews for the Union Station 2nd Century Project, a large-scale expansion and modernization of the Union Station site, the second busiest rail station in the Northeast corridor.
• Advising the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority on transportation projects in this highly political and mobility-focused area and working with federal, state, and local agencies and the public to help avoid and resolve potential project issues.
• Working with the contractor entity on a variety of general environmental matters in implementing the first P3 transit project in the State of Maryland, a multi-billion dollar, 21-station project entails building a light-rail transit line between Bethesda and New Carrollton, linking four Metrorail stations, two large downtowns, and the main campus of the University of Maryland, and working with a leading national transportation industry association in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in NEPA litigation challenging the project.
• Representing Norfolk Southern Railroad in a matter involving the replacement of an 1875 railroad bridge spanning portions of a state park near Rochester, New York, connecting the western and eastern portions of the State, including historic preservation, NEPA/State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR) environmental review, and other regulatory approvals as well as coordinating with and obtaining approvals from the lead state agency, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.
• Assisting the Florida Department of Transportation in obtaining an assignment of NEPA review and related environmental permitting responsibilities for highway projects from the U.S. Secretary of Transportation pursuant authority conferred by Congress.
• Serving as the State of Maryland’s primary outside environmental counsel in successfully devising, implementing, and defending a strategy for FHWA approval of the highly controversial 18-mile new Maryland Intercounty Connector (ICC) Tolled Expressway linking I-95 and I-270 in Maryland, re-fashioning the project strategy and to help lead the effort, which moved the proposal past the Draft EIS stage for the first time, and resulted in a positive Record of Decision and crafting the successful defense of these documents in federal court against claims under NEPA, Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act, CWA Section 404, and the CAA, brought by local and national environmental groups.
• Advising the Virginia Department of Transportation during the NEPA review of the project to expand and transform service on I-66 between Haymarket and I-495, where the FHWA issued a Finding of No Significant Impact under NEPA in 2016.
• Representing Caithness Long Island, LLC, who developed the first baseload power plant on Long Island in over four decades, in relation to the SEQR requirements for the project, and in securing all state, county and local permits including local land use, air permit, State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System approval, Public Service Law Certifications for generation and transmission, and related County and Municipal approvals.
• Defending the NEPA compliance for the development of the Capital One Arena (at the time, the MCI Center) in downtown Washington, D.C. and successfully negotiating the Memorandum of Agreement associated with impacts to historic resources in the vicinity of the arena.
• Serving as counsel to the City of Alexandria, Virginia in its challenge to the Federal Highway Administration's EIS for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Improvement Project and assessing the agency's NEPA compliance, as well as its related work under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, Section 4(f) of the Transportation Act and Clean Air Act conformity requirements, which led to a very favorable settlement between the City and the federal government.
• Representing a multinational mining company in its efforts to secure an important land exchange in Arizona with the Bureau of Land Management and playing an important role in the preparation of the Final EIS and in defending litigation brought by local environmental organizations before the Department of the Interior Board of Land Appeals, where all challenges to the EIS and related analysis of the land exchange were rejected and our client has since obtained title to valuable property adjacent to its existing mining operations in Arizona.
• Defending the County of Nassau, New York in SEQRA federal and state court litigation which affirmed the right of the County of Nassau to ship the sewage sludge from its publicly owned treatment works for out-of-state disposal.
• Serving as counsel to a working group of telecommunications companies on CEQA compliance strategies for California.