With more than 20 years of experience working on regulatory and other matters related to air quality, Kate now co-leads the firm’s air practice group.  Across a diverse client base, Kate focuses her time working with complex industrial facilities, including refineries, chemical and other product manufacturers, commercial waste management facilities, and power generators.  Her work for these and other clients often involves emergent Clean Air Act issues, including siting and permitting of data centers to support increasing AI-driven computing demands, and issues involving how PFAS compounds in the air are measured and regulated.  The firm’s multiple air lawyers work closely with the firm’s in-house technical consultants, and Kate also draws on her undergraduate degree in biology (with concentrations in organic chemistry and genetics) and years of on-the-ground experience in the chemical manufacturing and pharmaceutical sectors to deliver legal advice that accounts for her clients’ technical operations. 

Kate regularly advises clients on compliance issues under federal and state air pollution control regulations, including virtually all aspects of the Title V permitting program and state-only air permitting programs.  When compliance issues result in enforcement, she works with clients to achieve the best outcome under the circumstances, relying on her years of defending enforcement actions brought by federal, state, and local environmental agencies, as well as her relationships with legal and technical contacts in these organizations.  To the extent an acceptable resolution is unavailable, Kate has the experience to handle the resulting administrative litigation, having successfully challenged many objectionable Title V and other permits and enforcement orders.

Kate is the firm’s primary representative in the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry and regularly presents to Chamber members and staff on air issues as a co-chair of the Chamber’s Environmental and Energy Policy Council.  In the community, Kate currently donates her time to the Tredyffrin Township Planning Commission, on which she has served for four years, and she has spent the last decade serving on the Board of Directors of the Brandywine Valley SPCA.  Kate was previously elected to the Boards of Directors of the Women’s Energy Network Greater Philadelphia Chapter and Delaware Valley Earth Force, and she also previously served on the Upper Merion Township Environmental Advisory Council for several years, including as Chair.

Kate has spent her entire legal career at the firm, beginning as a summer associate.  Now she works closely with more junior attorneys at the firm, co-coordinating associate performance evaluations.  Previously, Kate served as the firm’s associate workload partner for five years. 

In 2014, Kate graduated from LEADERSHIP Philadelphia’s Core Program.  In law school, she was a member of the Temple Law Review, and in college at Drexel, Kate was selected for the Honors Program, eventually earning the highest grade point average among all biology majors in her graduating class.

Kate and her husband have a young daughter and a golden retriever, and they enjoy spending time together, especially, at their favorite lake.  Kate also enjoys going to concerts and exercising.   

Examples of Kate’s recent experience include the following: 

• Assisting a prominent data center owner with air and other environmental permitting and defending against federal, state, and local enforcement activity.
• Representing major refining and manufacturing companies on all aspects of Title V permit Petitions to Object filed with the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
• Assisting a commercial waste management facility to develop and execute one of the first PFAS air emission tests in the United States.
• Representing an international metal recycling company in negotiating and implementing multiple federal consent decrees involving the United States Environmental Protection Agency and state and local environmental agencies.  These consent decrees involve complex and highly technical air and waste compliance issues.
• Representing an international chemical manufacturer in responding to one of the most stringent air toxics regulations in the United States.
• Advising an Ivy League university on compliance with novel environmental justice requirements.
• Representing one of the largest power generation companies in the North America in successfully defending a federal air regulation that was challenged before a federal Circuit Court of Appeals.

• Pennsylvania Super Lawyers listing (environmental law), since 2017; “Rising Star” listing (environmental law), 2013-2015. The Super Lawyers list is issued by Thomson Reuters. Click here to view the selection methodology.
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"Environmental Consent Decrees: Negotiation Strategies, Available Defenses, Modifications, Pitfalls to Avoid," a Strafford Publications webinar, March 20, 2025

"Air Regulatory Update," presented at the Chemistry Council of New Jersey Environment Committee Meeting in Bordentown, NJ, December 10, 2024

"PFAS/PFAS-Containing Materials: Destruction and Disposal," presented at the Air & Waste Management Association Allegheny Mountain Section Environmental Workshop, June 6, 2024

"Negotiating Federal Consent Decrees with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Strategies for Negotiation, Implementation and Compliance," a Strafford Publications webinar, January 30, 2024

"Air Regulatory Update," presented at the Chemistry Council of New Jersey Environment Committee Meeting in Bordentown, NJ, October 17, 2023

“Air Regulatory Update,” presented at the Chemistry Council of New Jersey Environment Committee Meeting in Middlesex, NJ, May 16, 2023

"Federal and State Air Update and Emerging Issues," presented at the PBI Environmental Law Forum, Harrisburg, PA, March 16, 2023

"Negotiating Consent Decrees for Environmental Violations: Critical Strategies for Modifying and Managing Compliance," a Strafford Publications webinar, June 21, 2022

"Legal Perspective on Oil and Gas Air Quality and Compliance Developments" presented at the Marcellus Shale Coalition's Virtual Air Quality Compliance Reporting and Testing Training, October 22, 2020

“Air Regulatory Update” presented at the Chemistry Council of New Jersey Environment Committee Meeting in Princeton, NJ, February 25, 2020

“Internal Environmental Auditing:  Best Practices for the Audit Process & Protecting the Findings” presented at the Chemistry Council of New Jersey’s Plant Operations Management Workshop, Princeton, NJ, December 4, 2019

“Air Quality Regulation” presented at the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy 2019 Science Conference, Bryn Mawr, PA, April 16, 2019

“Air Regulatory Update” presented at the Chemistry Council of New Jersey Environment Committee Meeting in Fairfield, NJ, February 26, 2019

“What’s in the Air? Permitting-Enforcement-Modeling-Continuous Monitoring” presented by MGKF and ALL4, Bala Cynwyd, PA, July 17, 2018

"Hot Topics and Advanced Air Permitting" presented at the Pennsylvania Bar Institute's Environmental Law Forum in Harrisburg, April 11, 2018

"Air Update" presented at the Environment Committee Meeting of the Chemistry Council of New Jersey (CCNJ), Bordentown, NJ, February 23, 2018

"A Regulatory Overview for Plant Management" presented at the Plant Operations Management Workshop sponsored by the Chemistry Council of New Jersey (CCNJ), East Brunswick, NJ, December 5, 2017

"Hot Topics and Advanced Air Permitting" presented at the Pennsylvania Bar Institute's Environmental Law Forum in Harrisburg, April 5, 2017

“Are You Prepared for an Environmental Emergency at Your Camp?” presented at Tri-State CAMP Conference, April 2, 2017

"Environmental Compliance for Camps," an MGKF webinar presented on behalf of AMSkier Insurance, February 25, 2016

"Preparing for and Responding to an Emergency of Casualty Incident," sponsored by MGKF in Bala Cynwynd, PA, June 24, 2014

“Industrial Boiler MACT,” a webinar presented for the McIlvaine Company’s Hot Topic Hour, March 22, 2012

“Impact on Ambient Air Rules for PM2.5 and Ozone,” a webinar presented for the McIlvaine Company’s Hot Topic Hour, December 9, 2010

“Impact of Ambient Air Rules for Fine Particulate Matter and Ozone on Fossil Fuel Power Plants,” a webinar presented for the McIlvaine Company’s Hot Topic Hour, April 22, 2010