Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP

As a former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) senior attorney, Greg uses his deep agency, regulatory and enforcement knowledge to assist clients in solving complex environmental matters, with specialized expertise in CERCLA/Superfund, brownfields, RCRA, FIFRA and TSCA legal issues.

With over 15-years of experience in environmental law, Greg assists clients in regulatory counseling, enforcement defense, litigation, and transactional matters. His experience in both private and public practice, in particular at EPA, provides him the ability to navigate the regulatory process with an informed understanding of government decision-making and strategies for efficiently resolving complex legal and policy issues. He has significant experience related to the acquisition and sale of environmentally-impaired property, conducting voluntary cleanups, and the re-development of brownfield sites, including for renewable energy projects, as well as advising clients on EPA regulations and policies across a diverse client base, including oil & gas, electric utility, chemical, mining and marine transport.

Greg’s extensive practice of CERCLA at the highest levels in the federal government allows him to advise clients, particularly the defense of clients facing government enforcement or private party contribution actions. While at EPA, Greg served as the lead EPA Headquarters attorney on cleanup enforcement cases at Superfund sites with remedies exceeding $1 billion and regularly worked on national matters involving CERCLA. He also authored multiple national guidance documents on CERCLA enforcement and drafted model settlement documents used by EPA nationwide. During his EPA tenure, Greg received numerous EPA and DOJ awards, including for his work on the Administrator’s Superfund Task Force and the development of EPA’s national enforcement response to the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway v. United States.

Greg is an adjunct professor at William & Mary Law School, teaching Environmental Law and the Regulation of Toxic Substances and Hazardous Waste.

Relevant Experience

Contaminated Sites and Remediation

• Represented federal and private sector clients in CERCLA litigation involving over 50 federal Superfund sites, including precedential trials and appeals addressing novel arranger liability and divisibility issues, the intersection of section 107 cost recovery and section 113 contribution actions and the interplay between CERCLA remedies and state common law claims.
• Negotiated CERCLA settlement agreements for cost recovery and performance of response actions at Superfund sites across the country.
• Counseled private equity, financial institutions and industrial clients on CERCLA landowner liability protections, environmental insurance and contractual risk allocation mechanisms for the redevelopment and reuse of contaminated property.
• While at EPA, represented the Agency in a CERCLA section 106(b) reimbursement proceeding before the Environmental Appeals Board raising arranger liability issues of first impression.

Regulatory Counseling and Advocacy

• Conducted a comprehensive TSCA and EPCRA regulatory audit of a client's semiconductor manufacturing facility. Counseled client into compliance and disclosed potential violations to EPA under the Audit Policy, resulting in avoidance of millions of dollars of gravity-based penalties.
• Assisted clients with TSCA premanufacture notification review process and negotiation of TSCA section 5(e) orders to bring chemical products, including products of biotechnology and nanotechnology, to the market in the US.

• Advised clients on testing, risk reporting, inspections, recordkeeping and import and export requirements under TSCA.
• Advised clients on EPA’s concerns related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances under TSCA.
• Assisted clients to bring industrial chemical and biotechnology-derived products to market in Asia under foreign chemical control regimes in China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.
• Advised clients on pesticide regulatory issues under FIFRA including product registration, labeling, the treated-article exemption, import and export requirements, jurisdictional issues and enforcement matters.
• Advised clients on compliance with RCRA regulatory requirements for the generation, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal of various waste streams, including power generator waste, discarded ration heaters, byproducts from chemical manufacturing processes and oil and gas wastes.
• Prepared comments for a chemical-specific trade association on multiple state and federal rulemakings under TSCA and the Clean Air Act.
• Counseled office equipment and consumer electronics manufacturers on EPA’s ENERGY STAR programs, product specifications and labeling.

Environmental Regulatory Enforcement and Litigation

• Represented an electric distribution cooperative participating as an intervening defendant in a NEPA challenge involving the client’s coal-fired power plant in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
• Represented a coal-fired power plant in a TPDES permit contested case hearing involving Clean Water Act section 316(b) and water quality issues before the Texas State Office of Administrative Hearings.
• Represented clients before EPA regarding alleged violations of EPA’s Clean Air Act ozone-depleting substances regulations.
• Represented a client being investigated by DOJ for criminal violations of the Clean Water Act for discharges from oil platforms.
• Represented a coatings manufacturer before California’s South Coast Air Quality Management district for alleged violations of VOC-content regulations.
• Represented an electric utility being investigated by EPA as part of the New Source Review Enforcement Initiative.
• Represented a trade association client in arbitration involving false advertising claims and unsubstantiated health risks allegedly posed by exposure to a chemical substance.

Environmental Representation in Transactions and Securities Filings

• Conducted environmental due diligence reviews and negotiated contractual provisions for transactions involving clients in the oil and gas (upstream, midstream, and downstream), chemical, coal mining, marine transport, and manufacturing sectors.
• Represented an international power producer on the construction and financing of a merchant power plant in South America.
• Represented securities issuers and underwriters in all environmental aspects of offerings of stocks, notes, and master limited partnership interests in filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for oil and gas, maritime, chemical and other industries.
• Represented a private equity client on all environmental matters related to the acquisition of solid waste landfills in multiple states.
• Negotiated an environmental indemnity for a private equity client’s acquisition of a rubber manufacturing company. Developed a compliance and self-disclosure plan to address outstanding environmental compliance issues.
• Counseled Fortune 500 clients on parent, shareholder and other organizational environmental liability for acts of subsidiaries and other business affiliates.
• Counseled an international energy company in evaluating potential permitting and environmental liabilities associated with its acquisition of a petroleum refinery.
• Counseled a foreign oil company on environmental requirements and potential liability exposures associated with an offshore lease in the Outer Continental Shelf.

Education

BS, Tufts University, 1999