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What's Next for Clean Water Act Jurisdiction

Tuesday, July 11, 2017 - 12:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. Eastern

INTRODUCTION

Jeanne Christie, Executive Director, Association of State Wetland Managers [POWERPOINT PRESENTATION]

PRESENTERS

  • Jan Goldman-Carter, National Wildlife Federation
  • Virginia Albrecht, Hunton and Williams, LLP
  • Royal C. Gardner, Stetson University, College of Law [POWERPOINT PRESENTATION]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Army (Army) are carrying out a two-step process to revise Clean Water Act Jurisdiction. The first step is to repeal the Clean Water Rule regulation finalized by EPA and the Army in the spring of 2015 and replace it with the 1986 rule previously in place in conjunction with the Rapanos guidance. Essentially this step formally adopts the current status quo which remains in place because the Clean Water Rule is stayed by the Sixth Circuit Court pending action by the court. The next step following the repeal and replace rulemaking will be a new rule based in part on the Scalia Opinion in the Rapanos decision.

As states, tribes, and others review the proposed rule and think about the rulemaking that is planned to follow it, there are many issues to consider. ASWM has invited legal experts representing diverse perspectives to share their insights to help webinar participants to understand the current process, issues of importance, and potential outcomes as these rulemaking efforts are carried out and later challenged in the courts.

BIOS

Virginia S. Albrecht is Special Counsel for Hunton and Williams.  Her practice focuses exclusively on environmental law and administrative law --- in particular, the Clean Water Act (CWA) wetlands program, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other federal regulatory programs that affect the use of land. She has experience in permit negotiation, litigation of policy issues, lobbying Congress and the Administration, enforcement defense, and compliance counseling. Representative clients include development companies, agricultural and mining companies, state and local agencies, and trade associations. She has extensive experience with federal environmental agencies both in Washington and in district and regional offices. Virginia is a member of the assumable waters subcommittee which EPA established in 2015 to obtain advice on the scope of waters that can be assumed and Administered by states under section 404 of the clean water act.  She is also an adjunct professor for the University of Miami School of Law Program in Real Property Development.  She received her JD from Vanderbilt University Law School, was Articles Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review in1981, and received her MA in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970 and her BS from the University of Wisconsin in 1964.  She has bar admissions in the District of Columbia.

Jan Goldman-Carter is Director, Wetlands and Water Resources for the National Wildlife Federation. She manages the NWF campaign to restore Clean Water Act protections and works to strengthen wetland and watershed protections regionally and nationally. Jan has lectured and written extensively on Clean Water Act and wetlands laws and programs since 1987. She received the EPA-ELI National Wetlands Award in 1993. Jan served as a wetlands specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She grew up on the edge of the "River of Grass" - the Everglades - and enjoys canoeing, kayaking, birding and otherwise being in and on the water. She received her B.A. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Williams College, Massachusetts, her M.S. in Natural Resources from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources, and her law degree from the University of Minnesota.

Royal C. Gardner is Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy at Stetson University College of Law. He is an internationally recognized expert in wetland law and policy. Recent projects include advising the Government of Oman regarding wetland policy, coauthoring a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of environmental scientists, and creating an interdisciplinary course that facilitates discourse among experienced scientists, policymakers, and students.

His research and scholarship focus on U.S. and international wetland legal and policy issues, with an emphasis on biodiversity offsets. He has lectured in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America.

Professor Gardner is the current chair of the Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP) for the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental wetland treaty with 168 countries. He also served on the Ramsar STRP as North American representative (2006–2008) and invited expert (2009–2012). He was chair of the U.S. National Ramsar Committee (2005–2008) and participated in the Ramsar Convention Conferences of the Parties held in Spain (2002), Uganda (2005), Korea (2008), and Romania (2012). In 2006, he won the National Wetlands Award for Education and Outreach. In 1999–2001, Professor Gardner was appointed to the National Research Council’s Committee on Mitigating Wetland Losses.

An executive editor of the Boston College Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif, he graduated magna cum laude from Boston College Law School. He then clerked for Chief Judge Francis J. Boyle of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. From 1989 to 1993, he served in the Army General Counsel’s office as the Department of the Army’s principal wetland attorney, advising the assistant secretary of the Army (civil works) on legal and policy issues related to the Corps of Engineers’ administration of the Clean Water Act section 404 program. From 1993 until he joined the Stetson faculty in 1994, Professor Gardner worked for the Department of Defense, where he participated in negotiating international agreements with Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus to facilitate the dismantlement of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons.

Since joining the Stetson faculty, Professor Gardner has twice received Stetson University’s Homer and Dolly Hand Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship and has been voted the Outstanding Professor by the Stetson student body. He has taught at Stetson’s summer programs in Spain, Germany, Argentina, and Estonia, and has been a visiting professor at the Universidad de Málaga (Spain) and Concordia International University-Estonia, where he received the Outstanding Instructor Award. At Stetson, Professor Gardner has served as director of graduate and international programs, associate dean, vice dean, and interim dean. 

Part 1: Introduction: Jeanne Christie, Executive Director, Association of State Wetland Managers
PlayPlay

Part 1: Introduction: Jeanne Christie, Executive Director, Association of State Wetland Managers
Presenter: Royal C. Gardner, Stetson University, College of Law

Part 2: Presenter: Royal C. Gardner, Stetson University, College of Law
PlayPlay

Part 2: Presenter: Royal C. Gardner, Stetson University, College of Law

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Part 1: Introduction: Jeanne Christie, Executive Director, Association of State Wetland Managers
Part 2: Presenter: Royal C. Gardner, Stetson University, College of Law
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The presentations for Jan Goldman-Carter and Virginia Albrecht are not available for viewing. 



Recorded Webinar: 2017 Annual State/Tribal/Federal Coordination Meeting


What's Next for Clean Water Act Jurisdiction:

Maintaining - or Draining - the Swamps? The Future of the Clean Water Rule

Tuesday, April 11, 2017 

INTRODUCTION

Jeanne Christie, Executive Director, Association of State Wetland Managers 

ABSTRACT

In the spring of 2017 the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are implementing Executive Order 13778 on Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and the Economic Growth by Reviewing the Waters of the United States” Rule which directs the federal agencies to rescind the current Clean Water Rule and replace it.  This recorded webinar by Stephen Samuels, retired, formerly with Department of Justice, provides information about the status of the currently stayed Clean Water Rule and the case that has been accepted to be heard in 2018 before the Supreme Court, as well as a succinct overview of  Supreme  Court decisions addressing Clean Water Act jurisdiction in recent decades through the present day.  

PRESENTER

BIO

Now retired, Stephen Samuels was previously Assistant Chief of the Environmental Defense Section of the Environment & Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  In that capacity, Mr. Samuels supervised a staff of 15 attorneys handling federal district court litigation involving all the major environmental pollution statutes.  Mr. Samuels has 31 years of experience enforcing and defending the Clean Water Act Section 404 regulatory program.  During that time, he helped lead the federal government’s litigation responses to the Supreme Court's decisions in SWANCC, Rapanos, Sackett and Hawkes.  Until his retirement in January 2017, Mr. Samuels headed the DOJ litigation team that defended challenges to the Clean Water Rule.  Mr. Samuels is a frequent speaker on Clean Water Act jurisdiction at conferences around the country.  Mr. Samuels previously was an attorney with the U.S. Department of Energy and with the law firm of Breed, Abbott & Morgan.  Mr. Samuels earned his J.D. in 1977 from Stanford Law School and his B.A. in 1974 from Tulane University.

Part 1: Introduction: Jeanne Christie, Executive Director, Association of State Wetland Managers
PlayPlay

Part 1: Introduction: Jeanne Christie, Executive Director, Association of State Wetland Managers
Presenter: Stephen Samuels, Retired, formerly with Department of Justice

Part 2: Presenter: Stephen Samuels, Retired, formerly with Department of Justice
PlayPlay

Part 2: Presenter: Stephen Samuels, Retired, formerly with Department of Justice

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Part 1: Introduction: Jeanne Christie, Executive Director, Association of State Wetland Managers
Part 2: Presenter: Stephen Samuels, Retired, formerly with Department of Justice
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