Director of the Center for Energy and Environment and Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Daren Bakst is Director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment and a Senior Fellow. In this role, he manages, develops, and leads the coalition, advocacy, and research activities of the Center, which is one of the most effective advocates for Free Market Environmentalism.
Before joining CEI as Deputy Director in March, 2023, Daren was a Senior Research Fellow in Environmental Policy and Regulation at the Heritage Foundation, where he played a leading role in the launch of the organization’s new energy and environment center, and created and hosted the Heritage Foundation’s energy and environment podcast the “PowerCast.” During his decade at Heritage, Daren wrote about energy and environmental policy, food and agricultural policy (including editing and co-authoring the book Farms and Free Enterprise), regulation, and trade among other topics.
Daren also worked on environmental policy and regulation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he was a policy counsel and served as the executive to the association’s Government Oversight, Operations & Consumer Affairs committee, which was responsible for issues such as regulatory process reform. Daren has significant state level experience, working for seven years at the Raleigh, N.C.-based John Locke Foundation, one of the largest state-based, free-market think tanks. As director of legal and regulatory studies, his broad portfolio included energy and environmental policy, regulatory reform, and property rights.
Daren has testified numerous times before Congress, regularly submits comments to federal agencies and has appeared in or been quoted by a wide range of media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Times, CNN, Fox Business News, Al-Jazeera America, and U.S. News and World Report. He is a member of the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Executive Committee and serves on the College Level Advisory Board for Constituting America, an organization that informs and educates about the importance of the U.S. Constitution.
Daren, who hails from Florida, received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from George Washington University. A licensed attorney, he holds a law degree from the University of Miami and a master of laws degree from American University.
Partner, Hunton Andrews Kurth
A co-leader of Hunton Andrews Kurth’s environmental practice, Deidre is lauded in Chambers USA, 2016 as “extremely capable,” “very familiar with the regulations and agencies,” and excels at giving clients “good insight into getting an expeditious outcome.” Her practice focuses exclusively on environmental, energy and administrative law.
Deidre represents clients on permitting, compliance and litigation relating to the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other environmental statutes. She frequently counsels clients on administrative rulemaking and policy, providing regulatory clarifications when necessary, and drafting federal and state legislation on myriad intricate issues. She is also well known for negotiating and obtaining permits for complicated energy and development projects. Her clients include development companies, oil and natural gas pipelines, electric utilities, agricultural interests, state and local agencies, and various trade associations.
Prior to entering private practice, Deidre served as assistant general counsel of the Army at the Pentagon, advising the secretary of the Army on environmental and land use issues involving the Corps of Engineers’ Civil Works and section 404 Regulatory program, as well as the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program. Deidre has extensive experience with federal regulatory agencies, military departments and the US Department of Justice.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Professor of Law and Executive Director, Law and Economics Center, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Donald Kochan is Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center (LEC). Professor Kochan is an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and serves as an Adviser to ALI's Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property project. Professor Kochan is a Nonresident Scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a Visiting Scholar in residence during Fall 2018. Before joining the Antonin Scalia Law School faculty, he was the Parker S. Kennedy Professor in Law at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law from 2004 to 2020. From 2003 to 2004, Professor Kochan was an Olin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. During 2002-2003, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.
Professor Kochan’s scholarship focuses on areas of property law, constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, natural resources and environmental law, and law & economics. He has published several books and more than 50 scholarly articles and essays in well-regarded law journals. His work has been cited in more than a dozen state and federal court opinions, in more than 75 briefs filed in state and federal courts including more than 25 filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, in dozens of books and treatises, and in more than 800 scholarly articles.
Professor Kochan received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was a John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics and managing editor of the Cornell International Law Journal. During law school, he also served as editor and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy symposium issues in 1997 and 1998. He received his BA from Western Michigan University, magna cum laude, with majors in both political science and philosophy, where he studied as the John W. Gill Medallion Scholar and was honored as the Presidential Scholar (awarded to the top graduate in the political science department).
After graduating from law school, Professor Kochan was a law clerk to The Honorable Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Following his clerkship, Professor Kochan was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in natural resources & environmental law as well as tort, products, and consumer civil litigation & legislative affairs.
Chief Counsel, Legal Studies Division and Director, Communications, Washington Legal Foundation
Glenn Lammi started at WLF in 1993 and has directed our publishing and programs division since 1995. He is the lead editor of WLF’s blog, The WLF Legal Pulse, and writes several columns a month for the site. He earned his B.A. from Penn State University and his J.D. from American University’s Washington College of Law. During law school he served as a law clerk in WLF’s Legal Studies Division.
Senior Fellow, Texas Public Policy Foundation
As a senior fellow, Jacki brings expertise to the Life: Powered initiative at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Currently the host of The Jacki Daily Show, she has had an impressive career in energy, law, and politics.
Most recently, Pick served as Chief Operating Officer for a free market think tank specializing in health care policy, entitlement reform, and energy policy. Previously, she served many years as legal counsel on Capitol Hill to the Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and the former Ranking Member of the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee, advising on the oversight of federal agencies. Prior to her career in Washington, she worked as a litigator and as an Assistant Vice President for a national bank.
Prior to her legal career, Jacki served as the Public Relations Director for a statewide political organization.
Jacki studied Economics, Spanish, and World History at Marshall University (Society of Yeager Scholars), Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and the University of Zaragoza in Spain. She is an alumna of the Vanderbilt University Law School, where she served as the President of the law school’s Federalist Society chapter.
Jacki is from the Ohio River Valley, where the shale runs deep. She descends from a long line of energy workers, including roughnecks, railroaders, coal miners, and nuclear energy specialists.
Sho Sato Professor of Law; Faculty Director, Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment, University of California, Berkeley
Dan Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the Co-Director of the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment. Professor Farber serves on the editorial board of Foundation Press. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Life Member of the American Law Institute. He is the editor of Issues in Legal Scholarship.
Professor Farber is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where he earned his B.A., M.A., and J.D. degrees. He graduated, summa cum laude, from the College of Law, where he was the class valedictorian and served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Illinois Law Review. After graduation from law school, he was a law clerk for Judge Philip W. Tone of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then for Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States. Professor Farber practiced law with Sidley & Austin, where he primarily worked on energy issues, before joining the University of Illinois College of Law faculty in 1978. He was a member of the University of Minnesota Law School faculty from1981 to 2002, where he was the McKnight Presidential Professor of Public Law. He also has been a Visiting Professor at the Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School.
Among Professor Farber’s eighteen books are RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON PUBLIC CHOICE AND PUBLIC LAW (Elgar 2010) (with A. O’Connell); JUDGMENT CALLS: POLITICS AND PRINCIPLE IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Oxford University Press 2008) (with S. Sherry); RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE: THE “SILENT” NINTH AMENDMENT AND THE RIGHTS AMERICANS DON’T KNOW THEY HAVE (Basic Books 2007); and LINCOLN’S CONSTITUTION (University of Chicago Press 2003).
Senior Counsel for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs, Boeing
Adam Gustafson is a Senior Counsel for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs at Boeing.
Prior to joining Boeing, he served as Deputy General Counsel at the Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to that, he was a partner at Boyden Gray & Associates, where he represented States, federal judges, environmental groups, biofuel producers, agricultural interests, and public policy organizations, on such issues as the constitutional separation of powers, the First Amendment, automotive regulations, environmental computer models, healthcare regulation, and judicial deference to federal agencies.
Mr. Gustafson received his J.D. in 2009 from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, a managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, and an executive editor of the symposium issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Mr. Gustafson served as a Vice President of the Yale Law School Federalist Society. He was a Coker Fellow, and his legal writing won the Joseph A. Chubb Competition Prize and the Edward D. Robbins Memorial Prize.
Mr. Gustafson graduated with high distinction in 2005 from the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar, a member of the Raven Society, a member of the rowing team, and a Lawn resident.
Before joining Boyden Gray & Associates, Mr. Gustafson was an associate at Cooper & Kirk, where he specialized in appellate litigation. Mr. Gustafson served as a law clerk to Judge Richard R. Clifton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and to Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Deputy Litigation Director, Institute for Justice
Robert McNamara serves as Deputy Litigation Director with the Institute for Justice. He joined the Institute in August 2006 and litigates cutting-edge constitutional cases protecting free speech, property rights, economic liberty and other individual liberties in both federal and state courts.
Robert’s work has resulted in court victories for property owners fighting eminent domain abuse, tour guides fighting unconstitutional restrictions on their speech, taxi drivers seeking the right to own their own business, and many others. Robert also litigates in defense of innovation and entrepreneurship in medical care and was co-counsel in Flynn v. Holder, IJ’s landmark challenge to the federal prohibition on compensating bone marrow donors.
Robert’s writing has been published by outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and dozens more nationwide. His opinions and views on legal issues have been featured in radio and television programs ranging from National Public Radio’s All Things Considered to Fox News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes.
Robert is a graduate of Boston University and the New York University School of Law, where he was a founding member and eventual editor-in-chief of the NYU Journal of Law & Liberty. He currently lives in Virginia with his wife and children.
Robert McNamara is a member of the Virginia bar.
Vice President of Litigation and Deputy General Counsel, National Association of Manufacturers
Peter Tolsdorf is the vice president of litigation and deputy general counsel at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). As part of the Manufacturers’ Center for Legal Action, Mr. Tolsdorf works to strengthen the NAM’s ability to promote manufacturing policy objectives through litigation. He also serves as general counsel of The Manufacturing Institute, a nonprofit organization that seeks to help the manufacturing industry attract and develop world-class manufacturing talent.
Mr. Tolsdorf has extensive litigation experience on energy and the environment, labor and employment, product and civil liability, intellectual property, corporate governance and trade issues. At the American Petroleum Institute, he challenged regulatory overreach of the oil and natural gas industry. Mr. Tolsdorf previously served as an attorney at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), where he litigated energy generation and transmission matters. Before the FERC, he litigated cases at major international law firms Bingham McCutchen and McDermott Will & Emery.
Mr. Tolsdorf graduated from The George Washington University Law School, where he served as notes editor of The George Washington Law Review. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife and two sons.
Analyzing the New Proposed Rule Defining “Waters of the United States"
Daren Bakst, Deidre G. Duncan, Tony Francois
Environmental Law & Property Rights Practice Group and Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
On February 14, 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers...
Percolating in Washington State: Export-Terminal Permit-Denial Suit Implicates Federalism and Foreign Commerce
Donald J. Kochan, Glenn G. Lammi
Environmental Law & Property Rights Practice Group and Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
When state regulators block approval of construction projects, disappointed businesses routinely challenge the decision in...
Pipelines and Eminent Domain [POLICYbrief]
Jacki Pick Deason
Short video featuring Jacki Deason
How can American oil and gas companies access and transport the valuable resources beneath the...
Re-Considering Co-Benefits in Environmental Regulation
Daniel Farber, Adam Gustafson
How an agency counts costs and benefits can often determine whether it will regulate at...
Courthouse Steps Decision Teleforum: Sturgeon v. Frost
Tony Francois
In today's decision on Sturgeon v. Frost, the Supreme Court has held in favor of...
Pipeline Energy Infrastructure Legal Challenges
Robert J. McNamara, Peter Tolsdorf
The advent of fracking and other technological innovations has unleashed a new era of American...
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Reconsidering the Legal Status of Agency Guidance
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