Responding to actions taken by federal and state administrative agencies has long been a core area of the firm’s litigation practice. Whether it is challenging federal rulemaking in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, guiding clients through government investigations and information requests, or appealing or defending final agency actions before administrative hearing boards, we vigorously pursue our clients’ rights. In addition to state and federal courts, we have represented multinational corporations and individual property owners before such diverse tribunals as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Administrative Law Judges, the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board, the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law, the Delaware River Basin Commission, the Allegheny County Health Department, and the Pennsylvania Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Fund Board.
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Our experience with respect to administrative actions and appeals includes the following representative matters:
- Challenging multiple EPA rulemaking actions, including challenges to EPA’s Clean Air Mercury Rule and Clean Air Interstate Rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and a challenge to an EPA-promulgated Total Maximum Daily Load ("TMDL") for PCBs in the Delaware Estuary.
- Challenging regulations related to incineration of non-hazardous secondary materials and solid waste issued by EPA under the Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act on behalf of a leading provider of waste management services and waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy facilities.
- Representing a national railroad in a highly publicized enforcement and civil penalty action brought by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania arising from a release and fish kill in northwestern Pennsylvania.
- Negotiating a major federal consent decree, with a value of approximately three quarters of a billion dollars, in the context of an EPA national petroleum refinery enforcement initiative.
- Defending electric generating units in response to state and federal enforcement actions concerning compliance with air quality regulatory requirements.
- Pursuing an action against the U.S. Soil Conservation Service for improperly designating a site, resulting in the agency’s withdrawal of its designation and the wholesale revision of the agency’s designation rules.
- Negotiating consent agreements with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection on behalf of a natural gas gathering company regarding alleged violations of the Clean Streams Law and the Air Pollution Control Act.
- Defending the purchaser of a large former military installation in a civil penalty action brought by EPA related to PCB transformers left at the property by the Department of Defense.
- Representing a petroleum refiner in negotiating two highly complex consent decrees to resolve alleged noncompliance under the Clean Air Act and other federal and state statutes.
- Providing on-scene counseling to clients during three separate emergency response actions where evacuation orders had been issued and government investigators were present at the site.
- Negotiating resolution of government enforcement actions involving a major mid-Atlantic petroleum facility in the context of the sale of the facility.
- Representing a client in a Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation into the disposal of radiological medical waste.
- Resolving citations, requests for information, and other administrative actions with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration.
- Challenging, on behalf of a pipeline company, an administrative order and subsequent directives concerning remediation issued following the release of gasoline from a pipeline valve.
- Representing a municipality in permit challenges to prevent the expansion of an unpopular land use within the municipality.
- Successfully defending a permit challenge seeking to block construction of a wind-powered electric generating facility in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Press Releases
- January 6, 2020
- October 3, 2019
- January 7, 2019
- June 18, 2018
- December 11, 2017
- March 31, 2017
- October 19, 2015
- October 27, 2014
- October 12, 2011
- September 19, 2011
- July 19, 2010
- January 18, 2010
- September 16, 2009
Seminars & Speaking Engagements
- November 9, 2015
Media Coverage
- September 24, 2019Law360
Special Alerts
- March 1, 2018
- January 23, 2017
- January 22, 2017
- January 25, 2016
- July 31, 2013
- July 9, 2013
- May 8, 2010
- December 8, 2009
- May 8, 2009
- May 8, 2009
- January 16, 2008
- October 19, 2006
Articles
- November 2, 2020MGKF Litigation Blog
- April 23, 2020MGKF Litigation Blog
- April 1, 2020MGKF Litigation Blog
- March 26, 2020MGKF Litigation Blog
- February 24, 2020MGKF Litigation Blog
- December 23, 2019MGKF Litigation Blog
- August 5, 2019MGKF Litigation Blog
- July 31, 2019MGKF Litigation Blog
- July 18, 2019MGKF Litigation Blog
- March 5, 2019MGKF Litigation Blog
- December 10, 2018MGKF Litigation Blog
- October 1, 2018MGKF Litigation Blog
- September 5, 2018MGKF Litigation Blog
- July 16, 2018MGKF Litigation Blog
- June 26, 2018MGKF Litigation Blog
- June 20, 2018MGKF Litigation Blog
- May 1, 2018MGKF Litigation Blog
- March 26, 2018MGKF Litigation Blog
- February 1, 2018MGKF Litigation Blog
- August 30, 2017MGKF Litigation Blog
- August 29, 2017Law360
- August 16, 2017MGKF Litigation Blog
- August 15, 2017MGKF Litigation Blog
- July 31, 2017MGKF Litigation Blog
- July 30, 2017MGKF Litigation Blog
- July 7, 2017MGKF Litigation Blog
- June 27, 2017MGKF Litigation Blog
- June 1, 2017MGKF Litigation Blog
- January 5, 2016MGKF Litigation Blog
- November 23, 2015MGKF Litigation Blog
- October 2, 2015MGKF Litigation Blog
- January 9, 2015The Legal Intelligencer
- December 19, 2013MGKF Litigation Blog
- May 10, 2013The Legal Intelligencer
- March 19, 2013The Legal Intelligencer
- August 2, 2012Association of Corporate Counsel's "Green-house Counsel"
- December 1, 2011Association of Corporate Counsel's "Green-house Counsel"