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.
Professor of Law Emeritus; Senior Fellow for Climate Policy, Environmental Law Center, Vermont Law School
Patrick A. Parenteau is Emeritus Professor of Law and Senior Fellow for Climate Policy in the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School. He previously served as Director of the Environmental Law Center and was the founding director of the EAC (formerly the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic) in 2004.
Professor Parenteau has an extensive background in environmental and natural resources law. His previous positions include Vice President for Conservation with the National Wildlife Federation in Washington, DC (1976-1984); Regional Counsel to the New England Regional Office of the EPA in Boston (1984-1987); Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (1987-1989); and Senior Counsel with the Perkins Coie law firm in Portland, Oregon (1989-1993).
Professor Parenteau has been involved in drafting, litigating, implementing, teaching, and writing about environmental law and policy for over three decades. His current focus is on confronting the profound challenges of climate change through his teaching, publishing, public speaking and litigation.
Professor Parenteau is a Fulbright US Scholar and a Fellow in the American College of Environmental Lawyers. In 2005 he received the National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Achievement Award in recognition of his contributions to wildlife conservation and environmental education. In 2016 he received the Kerry Rydberg Award for excellence in public interest environmental law.
Professor Parenteau holds a B.S. from Regis University, a J.D. from Creighton University, and an LLM in Environmental Law from the George Washington U.
Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Damien Schiff is a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. He leads its environmental practice group, a unique initiative that draws broadly from PLF’s expertise and success in property rights and separation of powers litigation. Over the years, Damien has represented hundreds of landowners and property rights advocates to defend their liberties against heavy-handed and unwarranted environmental and land-use regulation. His litigation experience includes Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a groundbreaking decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of landowners to challenge Clean Water Act compliance orders issued by EPA, and Contoski v. Norton, PLF’s successful effort to force the federal government to make good on its promise to delist the bald eagle from the Endangered Species Act.
Besides litigation, Damien has written academic articles on a variety of subjects, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, greenhouse gas torts, the duty to rescue, and international water law. He has appeared on a variety of television and radio programs and has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harper’s Magazine, and The Economist, among other publications.
He obtained his law degree magna cum laude from the University of San Diego School of Law, and his undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University. While at USD, he was a research assistant for Professor Bernard Siegan, a leading constitutional theorist and advocate for property rights and economic liberty. Immediately prior to joining PLF, Damien clerked for Judge (and former PLF attorney) Victor Wolski of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Damien credits the mentoring and examples of Professor Siegan and Judge Wolski for his decision to pursue a career in liberty-based public interest litigation.
Damien lives in Sacramento with his wife, two young sons, four chickens, and a cat named Princess. In his off hours he enjoys stamp collecting, Gregorian chant, and martinis—preferably at the same time.
Principal, Advantus Strategies, LLC
John Paul Woodley Jr. is currently the Principal of Environmental and Energy Practice Group for Advantus Strategies. From 2003 to 2009, Woodley served as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, supervising the Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works Program. Under his leadership, the Corps Wetland Regulatory Program was strengthened. He also oversaw the restoration of the Florida Everglades and the reconstruction of the hurricane protection system for New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
Woodley also served as Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Environment, where he was responsible for policy and oversight of the Defense Department’s environmental cleanup, compliance, pollution prevention and natural resource management.
He has also served as Secretary of Natural Resources for Virginia, where he was responsible for environmental protection and for permitting, outdoor recreation, open space management, inland and marine fisheries and historic resources in the Commonwealth.
Woodley served on active duty with the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1979 to 1985, and retired from the Army Reserve in August 2003 as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Woodley has been awarded the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal (2nd Oak Leaf Cluster), the Army Commendation Medal (1st Oak Leaf Cluster), and the Army Achievement Medal. He has been honored with the U. S. Army Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service and the Silver de Fleury Medal from the Army Engineer Regiment.
Partner, K&L Gates
Varu Chilakamarri is a partner in the K&L Gates Environment, Land, and Natural Resources practice group. Her practice focuses on litigation services, particularly in appellate matters and in administrative, environmental, and energy law. Varu also counsels clients on government-facing matters, which often involve strategic analysis of legal risks and opportunities presented by statutory and regulatory frameworks.
Varu joined K&L Gates after a 17-year career at the US Department of Justice, where she was a successful federal district and appellate court litigator and held various senior leadership roles. Most recently, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ's Civil Division. In this role, Varu was the head of the Torts Branch, an office of over 230 litigators and staff who defend the United States in a wide range of suits for monetary damages—including toxic tort cases arising out of environmental regulatory actions, constitutional tort cases, and cases brought under unique statutory compensation programs.
Before that, Varu was an appellate attorney in the Environment and Natural Resources Division, serving as lead counsel in complex civil and criminal appeals. These included facial challenges to the constitutionality of federal laws and regulations, and challenges to the validity of federal permitting and land use decisions (e.g., cases involving the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Water Act). She also litigated enforcement cases, including those involving violations of substantive environmental laws, recordkeeping requirements, and various Title 18 provisions. She argued cases before the US Court of Appeals for the Third, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, D.C., and the Federal Circuit, and she has practiced in several other federal appellate and district courts. Varu was previously appointed as the Division's first counselor for animal welfare matters and served as Chief of Staff to the Assistant Attorney General in DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division. Varu's work at the DOJ often centered on novel legal challenges arising from a broad suite of federal statutes, including two preemption lawsuits that went to the US Supreme Court.
Varu joined the DOJ in 2006 through the Attorney General's honors program as a trial attorney in the Civil Division's Federal Programs Branch, and during her tenure, also worked in the office of the Associate Attorney General as Acting Deputy and served on detail to the White House Counsel's Office. Before joining the DOJ, Varu clerked for Judge R. Guy Cole in the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Timothy B. Dyk in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Executive Counsel - Issues and Advocacy, Exxon Mobil Corporation Law Department
Robert Levy serves as Executive Counsel at ExxonMobil, where he leads the company’s legal strategy on advocacy and civil justice reform. His work includes representing ExxonMobil in state and national organizations dedicated to improving the legal system and the rule of law, coordinating amicus support on key policy and litigation matters, and advising on data privacy and information governance. He previously oversaw the company’s eDiscovery compliance and cybersecurity law initiatives.
Robert currently chairs the Board of the American Tort Reform Association and previously served as President of the Civil Justice Reform Group. He is Treasurer of Lawyers for Civil Justice (LCJ), chairs its Discovery Committee, and serves on its Amicus Committee. He is also actively involved with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform and Litigation Center and sits on the Executive Committee of the Texas Civil Justice League. Additionally, he is an active member of the Federalist Society and its In-House Counsel Network.
A long-standing member of the Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee, Robert has served for over 14 years and currently chairs one of its subcommittees. He also sits on the Advisory Councils of the Atlantic Legal Foundation, the Center for Law & Public Policy, and the Mountain States Legal Foundation. In recognition of his leadership, LCJ awarded him with the Al Cortese Award for his contributions to civil justice reform. Texans for Lawsuit Reform and the Texas Civil Justice League have honored Robert for his years of service to TCJL and Texas civil justice reform.
He has also been deeply engaged in community and bar activities, serving for over a decade on the board of Houston Volunteer Lawyers and on the board of the Houston Jewish Federation. He is a former Chair of the Board of Robert M. Beren Academy, where he was honored with the Dena and Baruch Brody Award for his leadership and service. Additionally, he served as President of United Orthodox Synagogues, reflecting his longstanding commitment to faith-based and civic leadership.
Robert is a frequent speaker at legal conferences and continuing legal education (CLE) programs. Early in his career, he served as a briefing attorney for the Honorable Judge Robert Parker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He has practiced law for over 39 years and earned his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law in 1986.
Before joining ExxonMobil, Robert was a partner at Haynes and Boone, LLP for over 14 years, where he practiced in the Business Litigation Section. He also held positions at Johnson & Gibbs and Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
Robert and his wife Barbara reside in Houston, Texas, where they raised four children and now enjoy their role as proud grandparents to three grandchildren.
Senior Fellow for Law, Economics, and Technology, The Heritage Foundation; Professor, Florida International University
Mario Loyola is a Senior Fellow for Law, Economics, and Technology at The Heritage Foundation.
Loyola served in the Trump Administration as Associate Director for Regulatory Reform at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In that role, he was one of the principal drafters of the One Federal Decision policy, which helped to streamline the permitting and environmental review of large infrastructure projects. While at CEQ, he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the USMCA free trade negotiations with Mexico and Canada, as well as the United Nations conference on biodiversity on the high seas. Loyola initially joined the White House in February 2017 as a Presidential Speechwriter, employing his expertise in many areas of foreign and domestic policy.
After beginning his career in M&A and corporate finance law, Loyola served in the Bush 43 Administration as a special assistant to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He left that position to start writing on national defense issues in magazines such as National Review and The Weekly Standard, reporting from the front lines of the war on terrorism in Lebanon, Israel, and Iraq. He finished the Bush Administration as Foreign and Defense Counsel to the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, then under the chairmanship of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. He subsequently moved to Texas and joined the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where he specialized in energy, environment, and federalism.
Loyola is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and The Atlantic, among others. He teaches environmental and administrative law at Florida International University, where he is Founding Director of the Environmental Finance and Risk Management program in FIU’s prestigious Institute of Environment. He received a bachelor’s degree in European history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a J.D. from Washington University School of Law.
Partner, Vinson & Elkins
Corinne principally practices in environmental law, with an emphasis on litigation, regulatory compliance, internal investigations, and defense against government investigations and enforcement actions.
Corinne draws on wide experience at the U.S. Department of Justice, including serving as Senior Counsel in the Office of the Associate Attorney General, which oversees all civil litigation on behalf of the United States, and as Counselor in the Office of the Attorney General.
Corinne most recently served as Counsel and Chief of Staff in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where she assisted in managing a 600-person division that included 400 lawyers. In this role she helped manage the Division’s civil and criminal litigation arising under more than 150 environmental and natural resources laws.
She also worked closely with the General Counsel’s Offices for multiple federal agencies, including the EPA, Departments of Interior, Defense, Energy, Commerce, and Agriculture, as well as the White House and Counsel on Environmental Quality to advise high-ranking officials on policy and litigation risks associated with the environmental and natural resource laws.
She has personally argued cases in three U.S. Courts of Appeals, and multiple district courts, and served as the lead or co-lead counsel in district court litigation defending agency regulations, approvals, and permits related to oil and gas operations and other energy extraction projects.
Her roles in government have given her a unique perspective into the decision-making processes in the federal government.
In the private sector, Corinne counsels clients on environmental compliance across a variety of industries, including energy, chemical, manufacturing, and mining sectors. In the transactional context, she assists in the drafting and negotiating of the environmental terms in purchase and sale agreements, lease agreements, credit agreements, and disclosures for debt and equity offerings and public filings. She has also drafted comments on behalf of clients to agencies on proposed rules with significant implications for the oil and gas industry.
Counsel, Boyden Gray PLLC
Jim Wedeking is counsel at Boyden Gray PLLC. He has extensive experience with environmental regulations, providing compliance counseling for large industrial and agricultural companies and their related trade associations, drafting comments on proposed environmental rulemakings from a variety of federal agencies, and challenging those rules in court. For over 20 years he has helped companies obtain various permits and other authorizations for constructing major infrastructure projects, including fossil fuel-fired power plants, natural gas pipelines, and offshore wind turbines, as well as defend those permits and authorizations through litigation. Mr. Wedeking frequently writes on federal environmental law topics, including for the Washington Legal Foundation.
He has also counseled clients on several Freedom of Information Act matters, including the protection of confidential business information from disclosure to third parties and how the Supreme Court’s Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media decision increased protections for company information provided to regulatory agencies.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Wedeking was counsel in Sidley Austin’s Washington, D.C. environmental, health, and safety practice group. There, he represented industrial companies in defending against civil and criminal enforcement actions and toxic tort suits.
Mr. Wedeking received a J.D., cum laude, from the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law and a B.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland.
Tazewell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor, William & Mary Law School
Jonathan H. Adler joined the William & Mary law faculty as the Tazwell Taylor Professor of Law and William H. Cabell Research Professor in 2025. Prior to joining the faculty, he was the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property and Pollution (Palgrave, 2023), Marijuana Federalism: Uncle Sam and Mary Jane (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), Business and the Roberts Court (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011).
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2024 study identified Professor Adler as the seventh most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2019 to 2023.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight.
Professor Adler is a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership in the American Law Institute and helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances. In 2024, Professor Adler was appointed a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Professor Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Robert A. Schroeder Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Kansas School of Law
Robin Kundis Craig joined the KU Law faculty in July 2024 and serves as the Robert A. Schroeder Distinguished Professor of Law.
Craig specializes in all things water, including the relationships between climate change and water; the water-energy-food nexus; the Clean Water Act; the intersection of water issues and land issues; ocean and coastal law; marine biodiversity and marine protected areas; water law; ecological resilience and the law; climate change adaptation, and the relationships between environmental law and public health. She is the author, co-author, or editor of 12 books, including Re-Envisioning the Anthropocene Ocean (University of Utah Press, 2024, co-edited with Jeffrey M. McCarthy); The End of Sustainability (Kansas University Press 2017, with Melinda Harm Benson); Contemporary Issues in Climate Change Law and Policy (Environmental Law Institute 2016, with Stephen Miller); Comparative Ocean Governance: Place- Based Protections in an Era of Climate Change (Edward Elgar 2012); and The Clean Water Act and the Constitution (Environmental Law Institute 2nd Ed. 2009), as well as textbooks for Environmental Law, Water Law and Toxic Torts. She has also written more than100 law review articles and book chapters in both legal and scientific publications.
In recognition of her work on these topics, Craig was elected to membership in the American Law Institute (2015) and the American College of Environmental Lawyers (2019) and has been appointed to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s World Commission on Environmental Law and to the Center for Progressive Reform. She has served on six National Academy of Sciences committees that evaluated Florida Everglades restoration, implementation of the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan and application of the Clean Water Act to the Mississippi River. She has consulted on water quality issues with the government of Victoria, Australia, and the Council on Environmental Cooperation in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and she was one of 12 marine educators chosen to participate in a 2010 program in the Papahanamokuakea Marine National Monument, spending a week on Midway Atoll. She was also a principal researcher in a four-year grant project on Adaptive Water Governance sponsored by the National Social-Ecological Synthesis Center with money from the National Science Foundation. In 2018, Craig was named a William Evans Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. In 2017, the Rockefeller Foundation awarded her a Bellagio Center Writing Residency fellowship, allowing her to spend four weeks on Lake Como, Italy, working on a new book project on Re-Envisioning the Anthropocene Oceans, and in 2016 she was a Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.
Craig is an active participant in several national organizations, including the American Bar Association Section on Environment, Energy and Resources (ABA SEER), where she currently serves on the editorial board of Natural Resources & Environment; the Foundation for Natural Resources and Environmental Law, where she co-chairs the Natural Resources Law Teachers Committee; and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), where she has chaired the Maritime Law Section, the Natural Resources Law Section and the Environmental Law Section. She has also served as a consultant to the Environmental Defense Fund and the River Network’s Nutrient Task Force. Craig serves on the Editorial Boards of Coastal and Ocean Management and Ecology & Society, as a Specialty Chief Editor of Frontiers Climate: Climate Law and Policy and as a Guest Associate Editor for Frontiers Climate: Risk Management on the topic of “Climate Change Adaptation as Risk Management.”
Craig earned her J.D. summa cum laude in 1996 from the Lewis & Clark School of Law in Portland, Oregon, with a Certificate in Environmental Law; her Ph.D. in English/Literature and Science in 1993 from the University of California, Santa Barbara; her M.A. in Writing About Science in 1986 from the Johns Hopkins University; and her B.A. cum laude in English/Writing in 1985 from Pomona College in Claremont, California. While in law school, she worked for the Oregon Department of Justice in its General Counsel Division, Natural Resources Section, representing the state’s environmental and natural resources agencies. After law school, she clerked for Judge Robert E. Jones at the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon before starting her law teaching career as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Lewis & Clark School of Law. Before arriving at KU in 2024, Craig held tenure-track positions at the Western New England College School of Law, Indiana University—Indianapolis School of Law (where she first received tenure), the Florida State University School of Law, the University of Utah S.J. Quinney School of Law and USC’s Gould School of Law. She has visited at the Lewis & Clark School of Law, Vermont Law School, the University of Hawaii School of Law and the University of Tasmania Faculty of Law. At Kansas, Craig teaches Environmental Law, Water Law, Ocean & Coastal Law, Toxic Torts and Civil Procedure.
Managing Partner, Best Best & Krieger LLP
Andre Monette works with both public and private clients in matters involving water quality issues. He is a member of the Environmental & Natural Resources practice group in Best Best & Krieger LLP’s Washington, D.C. office. Andre works extensively with water districts, cities, counties and agricultural interests, and other private entities on matters involving the Federal Clean Water Act and its state law analogues.
Andre works with public agencies and farmers on matters involving water rights, water supply and water quality. Andre also works with investors interested in water projects, helping funds assess the viability of potential water related investments.
A major area of focus for Andre’s practice is the intersection of the water quality and water supply regulation. Federal and state laws across the nation divide water quality and water supply regulations into separate categories that often do not intersect and can preclude efficient use of the supply. Andre’s practice focuses on areas of overlap where acute knowledge of multiple regulatory schemes is required, including; streambed restoration, groundwater recharge projects, indirect potable reuse projects, large scale recycled water projects, and effluent limitation compliance.
Andre is the managing partner of BBK's Washington, D.C. office.
Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Dave Ross is the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Dave has more than 20 years of experience working on water issues in both state government and the private sector.
Prior to joining EPA in January 2018, Mr. Ross worked as the Director of the Environmental Protection Unit at the Wisconsin Department of Justice. During his tenure, he served as the lead environmental prosecutor for the State of Wisconsin and worked closely with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on environmental and natural resources issues.
Mr. Ross has also worked in the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office representing the Water Quality Division of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and as a partner in the land use and natural resources practice at an international law firm in Washington, D.C. Earlier in his career, he provided project management and environmental consulting services to the City of San Diego, California with a focus on designing, installing, and testing wastewater reclamation and repurification technologies.
Mr. Ross received his J.D. and Masters in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Partner, Baker Botts LLP
Drawing from two decades of experience in senior government, in-house corporate, and private law firm roles, Jeff Wood helps clients with federal enforcement, compliance, litigation, permitting, and policy challenges primarily in the energy and environmental fields.
Prior to joining Baker Botts, Mr. Wood served for almost two years as the Acting Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). In that capacity, Mr. Wood led ENRD and its more than 600 attorneys and staff representing EPA, Departments of the Interior, Energy, and Defense, and other agencies in civil and criminal enforcement and defensive environmental, energy, and natural resources litigation.
As the top official in ENRD, Mr. Wood managed a complex organization with an annual budget exceeding $200 million and a docket of more than 6,000 cases and matters. E&E News noted that “Wood maintains a strong relationship with ENRD's career staff” (Greenwire, Oct. 31, 2018). He previously served on the staff of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
At the Justice Department, Mr. Wood oversaw the Division's civil and criminal enforcement programs and was responsible for developing legal strategies and approving briefs in key cases including filings before the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals in coordination with the Office of Solicitor General. In this role, Mr. Wood held the highest level security clearance and worked closely with top leadership at DOJ, EPA, the Interior Department, USDA, the Energy Department, Transportation Department, FERC, NRC and across the Executive Branch, including the White House.
With many years of both private law firm and in-house legal experience, Mr. Wood has handled complex environmental enforcement, regulatory, policy, and litigation matters for electric utilities, energy companies, maritime companies, mining companies, real estate developers, financial institutions, industrial companies and manufacturers, business coalitions, associations, small businesses, and individual property owners. Drawing from his experiences in-house, Mr. Wood brings a common-sense, cost-effective, client-focused approach to his work every day.
With a strong national reputation, Mr. Wood is a frequent speaker on environmental law and policy matters, with recent speeches and presentations at the Environmental Law Institute, Harvard Law School, Vanderbilt Law School, American University Law School, American Bar Association Environmental Law Conferences, the Texas Environmental SuperConference, Air Force Judge Advocate General School's Advanced Environmental Law Course, Baker Institute's Center for Energy Studies (Rice University), and many other venues. He frequently appears in national news to share insights on significant environmental law and policy issues, including recent quotes in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Law360, and E&E News, among others.
Analysis of the New Proposed “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) Rule
Daren Bakst, Patrick A. Parenteau, Damien Michael Schiff, John Paul Woodley
On November 20th, 2025, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule...
Energy Emergency: Executive Power and the Future of U.S. Energy
Varu Chilakamarri, Robert L. Levy, Mario Loyola, Corinne Virginia Snow, Jim Wedeking
Energy Emergency: Executive Power and the Future of U.S. Energy Wednesday, May 21 2025 at...
Litigation Update: City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency
Jonathan H. Adler, Robin Kundis Craig, Andre Monette
The Supreme Court recently decided that they will review a case dealing with the Clean...
Topics
A Win for Texas in U.S. v. Abbott: Examining the States’ Power to Defend Their Borders
In July 2023, in response to record levels of illegal border crossings, the State of...
Clean Water & the Rule of Law: Recapping 4 Years of Reform and the Path Ahead
David P. Ross, Jeffrey H. Wood
Under the current administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has adopted a variety of...