The firm’s Air Quality Practice combines strong, substantive knowledge of the Clean Air Act with significant experience with state environmental agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, enabling us to navigate the complex regulation of emissions and provide creative, effective solutions.
Working with EPA and state regulators, Katten attorneys ensure that client concerns are understood in the rulemaking process, routinely working with companies on major rulemakings under the Clean Air Act’s New Source Performance Standard, National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants and New Source Review programs as they affect manufacturing operations. Katten attorneys also help companies whose products—such as turbines, on-road and off-road vehicles, traditional fuels and biofuels—are regulated under environmental statutes.
Our legislative practice addresses a range of bills and enacted statutes, including the Clean Air Act, the Energy Investment and Security Act, the Energy Policy Act, the Information Quality Act, Waxman-Markey and other climate change bills, and regulatory improvement bills, all of which affect air quality requirements. We manage all aspects of the legislative process, from draft bills, to committee markups, to oversight hearings and investigations.
For manufacturing facilities, our attorneys provide high-quality assistance at every point in the lifecycle of an emissions source—from obtaining operating permits and making minor and major amendments, to resolving issues arising from NESHAP, NSPS, NSR and PSD, and greenhouse gas reporting regulations, to responding to notices of violation and other enforcement actions. Along the way, we help our clients address air regulatory issues within the context of their overall business goals and provide support for their efforts to develop and maintain a culture of compliance.
Our team represents manufacturers, energy companies, chemical and oil companies, biofuels companies, technology companies, paper and forest products companies, trade associations and others facing the uncertainties presented by rapidly emerging legal, regulatory and legislative responses to climate change.
Representative engagements include:
- Obtaining a determination of non-applicability of EPA’s 2011 Commercial and Industrial Solid Waste Incinerators (CISWI) air emissions regulations on behalf of a major client.
- Challenging EPA’s air emissions regulations for industrial boilers under Clean Air Act Section 112 and incinerators under Section 129.
- Representing the National Association of Manufacturers and more than 20 other trade associations in eight challenges to EPA’s regulations addressing climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, and the implications for manufacturing facilities and other stationary sources.
- Serving as counsel to the Air Permitting Forum, a group of Fortune 100 companies dedicated to promoting the development of efficient and effective construction and operating permitting strategies under New Source Review and Title V of the federal Clean Air Act and state programs.
- Representing major energy companies, manufacturers and trade associations on climate change legislation and analyzing the potential impacts of the legislation or, if legislation fails to pass, regulations that may ensue.
- Providing advice on regulatory actions that EPA has issued to address climate change, including greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles, permitting requirements for sources of greenhouse gases and the finding of endangerment for motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, as well as analyzing the interaction between state initiatives and actions under the Act.