Tilting at Windmills? The Challenges of a 'New Energy' Economy
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Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Katsas was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in December 2017. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor on the Harvard Law Review. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker on the Third Circuit, to then-Judge Clarence Thomas on the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. Between 1992 and 2001, he was an associate and then partner in the Washington office of Jones Day, where he specialized in appellate and complex civil litigation. Between 2001 and 2009, he served in many senior positions in the Department of Justice, including as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and as Acting Associate Attorney General. In 2009, he returned to Jones Day. From January to December 2017, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President.
Before joining the bench, Judge Katsas argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the Supreme Court, 13 cases in the D.C. Circuit, and cases in every other federal court of appeals. By appointment of the Chief Justice, he served on the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules from 2013 to 2017. In 2016, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry. He writes regularly for leading publications such as Fortune magazine, National Interest, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Times. Bandow speaks frequently at academic conferences, on college campuses, and to business groups. Bandow has been a regular commentator on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. He holds a J.D. from Stanford University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
Judge Kevin C. Newsom is a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He sits in Birmingham, Alabama.
Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Newsom was the head of the appellate practice group at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP and, before that, the Solicitor General of Alabama. As a practicing lawyer, Judge Newsom argued four cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, and nearly 40 more in the United States Courts of Appeals and state supreme and appellate courts.
Judge Newsom graduated summa cum laude from Samford University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an articles editor on the Harvard Law Review. Following law school, Judge Newsom clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Judge Newsom teaches at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, Stanford Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School. His published work has appeared in the Yale Law Journal and the Harvard Law Review.
Justice, Supreme Court of Alabama (Retired); Professor of Law, Belmont University College of Law?
Shareholder, Maynard Cooper & Gale
Tommy’s trial practice concentrates on complex mass tort, environmental, and product liability cases, often handling the defense of class actions or mass consolidated cases throughout the South. He has handled cases in Alabama, Virginia, California, Texas, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi and the District of Columbia. Tommy is active in the American Bar Association, having served as the Association’s President in 2008-2009. His skills as a litigator have been highly recognized throughout the years, including being listed in The Best Lawyers in America© and one of Alabama’s Top Ten attorneys in Super Lawyers®. He is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the Litigation Counsel of America and the American College of Environmental Lawyers.
Former Solicitor General of Texas
Gregory Scott Coleman was an American lawyer and the first Solicitor General of Texas, serving in that capacity from 1999 to 2001.
Partner, Clement & Murphy, PLLC
Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.
Paul has argued over 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Rucho v. Common Cause, Facebook v. Duguid, and TransUnion v. Ramirez. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui and NFL v. Brady.
Paul’s practice focuses on appellate matters, constitutional litigation and strategic counseling. He represents a broad array of clients in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts. Last year, for example, he successfully argued Supreme Court cases involving significant issues of energy regulation, statutory interpretation, state sovereign immunity and Article III standing, and successfully argued a trademark appeal in the Fourth Circuit, and a constitutional appeal before the en banc Eleventh Circuit.
Paul focuses on high-stakes appeals. In recent years, he successfully defended a $1.2 billion jury verdict for clients in a Tenth Circuit case, while securing the reversal of an over $2 billion jury verdict for another client in the Seventh Circuit and the approval of a nearly $1 billion dollar class action settlement in the Third Circuit. He has initiated major administrative law challenges and constitutional litigation against the federal government, such as the successful challenge to the HHS drug-pricing rule and threatened challenges that led to the withdrawal of the Treasury Department’s proposed cryptocurrency regulations. He also counsels clients on a variety of strategic legal questions, whether arising from pending legislation, government inquiries or ongoing litigation.
Paul has undertaken substantial pro bono engagements in the Supreme Court, such as twice successfully representing the defendant in Bond v. United States and successfully representing the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska v. Parker, the guardian ad litem in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, the defendant in Sekhar v. United States, a high school football coach in Kennedy v. Bremerton, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Paul’s pro bono representation also precipitated the federal government’s confession of error in United States v. Rojas.
Following law school, Paul clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, he went on to serve as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism and Property Rights.
Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer in Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he has taught in various capacities since 1998. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute. He is the Justice Joseph Story Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the Gray Center at Scalia Law School.
Ohio, Opportunity
Matt A. Mayer is the President of Opportunity Ohio and weekly contributor on Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati radio. In his role, he develops strategic policy positions, advises policymakers on a wide-range of issues, designs and evaluates public opinion surveys, creates educational videos and collateral material aimed at key constituencies, engages with all elements of the media, conducts fact-finding missions, and speaks to groups in America and Europe on a variety of topics. Mayer led a nine-state campaign to stop the expansion of Medicaid, and has conducted strategic policy summits for top state and national groups. Opportunity Ohio’s targeted educational videos have received more than 18.4 million views on social media in the last seven years. Mayer accurately predicted BREXIT, the election of Donald Trump, the budget deficit in Ohio in 2017-2018, the enormous enrollment in Medicaid that surpassed government estimates, Ohio’s continued mediocre private sector job market, and the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris 2020 Democratic ticket.
In 2023, Mayer spent nine months exploring an outsider run for Ohio Governor that involved speaking to thousands of Ohioans in fifty-six out of Ohio’s eighty-eight counties. Ultimately, Mayer ended the exploratory effort after not reaching internal non-financial benchmarks and determining that a major non-Establishment figure likely would run and overwhelm Mayer with his personal fortune and extensive media exposure.
Mayer has written and spoken extensively on the importance of competitive federalism in renewing the American promise. Previously, Mayer served as a monthly columnist for The Spectator USA and U.S. News & World Report, a Visiting Fellow for the American Enterprise Institute, and a Visiting Scholar for the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. where he wrote extensively on national security issues. You can follow him on Twitter (@ohiomatt) and all of his op-eds can be found on his Substack page, The Patriot Mind.
Mayer has worked in public policy and politics at both the state and federal levels. He was a senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where he provided DHS leaders with policy and operational advice as the Counselor to the Deputy Secretary, including participating in crisis management activities following Hurricane Katrina. He also headed the $3.5 billion terrorism preparedness office charged with developing initiatives to transform America to meet the demands of a post-9/11 environment. Mayer engaged in bilateral counterterrorism exchanges with the United Kingdom and Israel, did briefings in The White House Situation Room and at NATO, and headed America’s largest full-scale national exercise focused on a pandemic virus attack (fifteen years before the COVID pandemic).
Mayer came to DHS from Colorado where he served as the Deputy Director for the Department of Regulatory Agencies under Colorado Governor Bill Owens. He co-developed Colorado’s Regulatory Notice system that utilizes electronic mail to notify stakeholders of all proposed regulations before those regulations become final. The Regulatory Notice system earned the Denver Business Journal’s 2003 “Innovative Product/Service Award” for making government more transparent and accountable. Mayer’s concept of restoring federalism received the runner-up prize in the 2012 Better Government Competition.
Mayer was a 2007 Lincoln Fellow with The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy and a 2006 American Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In September 2005, The Ohio State University Alumni Association awarded Mayer the William Thompson Oxley Award for early career achievement. Mayer received the Colorado Statesman’s “Rising Star Award” for his management of a congressional campaign and as a deputy on a U.S. Senate campaign in Colorado. At the age of 29, the Denver Business Journal recognized Mayer as one of Colorado’s young leaders by naming him to its “Forty Under 40” list–one of only three recipients under the age of 30 (one of the other two was current Colorado Governor Jared Polis).
Mayer has written three books: The Founding Debate: Where Should the Power Over Our Lives Reside, Taxpayers Don’t Stand a Chance: How Battleground Ohio Loses No Matter Who Wins (and What to Do About It), and Homeland Security and Federalism: Protecting America from Outside the Beltway (with Foreword by the Honorable Edwin Meese III). He has written articles for law reviews, public policy journals, and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, USA Today, and Politico; given testimony to the U.S. Congress, the Texas House and Senate, and the Ohio House and Senate; and appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN, ABC, NBC, and other major media outlets.
Mayer graduated from the University of Dayton and received his law degree from The Ohio State University College of Law.