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Protecting the Planet

rom landmark pollution and climate change litigation to groundbreaking research and scholarship, the pioneering work of Penn Carey Law alumni and faculty in environmental and energy law are effecting change and inspiring new generations of advocates. David Weinberg L’73, Mark Sussman L’ 77, Lori Greenberg Kier L’91, and Matt Pawa L’93 are among a cadre of Penn Carey Law alumni who have paved the way.

Protecting the Planet

David Weinberg L’73

Seven months after the passage of the Superfund Act in 1980, a fire broke out at a facility that stored paint sludge and toxic chemicals hauled into Sante Fe Springs, California, showering the neighborhood and a nearby beach with debris. The fire department doused the fire, sending contaminated water into a nearby flood-control channel leading to the Pacific Ocean and killing about 50,000 fish. The Environmental Protection Agency sought reimbursement for subsequent cleanup costs.

Thrust into a developing field, David Weinberg L’73 said he became the first lawyer in the United States to negotiate this type of groundbreaking settlement on behalf of his client: Weinberg got the hauler to pay for the final stages of the cleanup and convinced the U.S. government to testify that his client, Inmont, a paint manufacturer that was the prime source of the sludge, had paid its fair share and should be insulated from future lawsuits.

“I think that was one of the only times that that was done, maybe the only time,” said Weinberg, Senior Counsel at Wiley Rein.

Rated by the Euromoney Legal Media Group as one of the world’s leading environmental lawyers and named one of “America’s top 20 environmental lawyers” by the Guide to the World’s Leading Environment Lawyers, Weinberg has been in the field for over a half century.

Mark Sussman L’77

Not long after the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire when a spark from a passing train ignited an oil slick in 1969, Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970 and then the Clean Water Act in 1972. Right around this time, a young Mark Sussman L’77 worked as an environmental engineer at the Environmental Protection Agency in Boston before beginning his studies at the Law School at Penn.

Sussman spent his 1L summer working in the EPA’s Region 3 Office in Philadelphia and his 2L summer with the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York. After graduation, he joined the Pollution Control Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he defended the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers from lawsuits and brought enforcement actions against polluters. In 1981, he moved to Murtha Cullina, where he became a Partner and Chair of the Environmental Practice Group.

One of the illustrative cases of his career, according to Sussman, was his representation of a group of homeowners in Mumford Cove, an idyllic neighborhood in Groton, Connecticut. This beautiful area was despoiled when the town’s sewage treatment plant discharged waste into shallow water and salt marshes. The homeowner’s association failed in its attempt to get Groton to divert the sewage to a larger body of water. The city objected to the plan because the diversion pipe would go through the heart of the city. Sussman won the case on behalf of the homeowners.

Sussman, who retired last year from Murtha, is now self-employed and an emeritus member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, reserved for the top attorneys in the field.

It’s now really hard to make assumptions about the impact of pollution and the health of the environment. It’s especially challenging to protect the environment when you don’t know what’s coming.”

Lori Greenberg Kier L’91

Kier has spent a quarter-century on the front lines of environmental law. She’s a senior attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project, a watchdog NGO which works to ensure that federal, state and local officials are enforcing environmental laws. She is an expert on laws governing drinking water and wastewater, the same areas she handled as counsel at the EPA Region 3 office in Philadelphia for 24 years and one year with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

She was drawn to environmental law because of her love of the outdoors.

“I’ve been a hiker and a camper,” Kier said. “I garden and I am an amateur naturalist. Environmental law to me was a way to preserve the outdoors which I love.”

Kier was part of the first team at the EPA to take action against parties that contaminated the Ohio River with PFAS, per-and polyfluoroakyl substances that have been linked to cancer. These so-called “forever chemicals” will continue to occupy environmentalists, including lawyers in the field, she said.

Matt Pawa L’93

As a lawyer in his mid-thirties, Matt Pawa L’93 took the bold step of starting his own law firm with a junior lawyer and joined forces with government officials in New Hampshire to file a groundbreaking lawsuit in 2003 against Exxon Mobil and other oil companies. The suit alleged that the companies were contaminating groundwater throughout the state through a chemical process meant to produce cleaner burning gasoline, which ultimately leaked out of underground storage tanks into the soil.

Pawa projected the number of wells that were being affected and analyzed the enormous cleanup that would be required.

“It was a gargantuan case. We were outgunned at every step,” Pawa said.

And yet, Pawa prevailed. Nine years after the original lawsuit, most of the oil companies reached a $118 million settlement. Exxon was the lone holdout, but the company eventually lost the case at a cost of $236 million.

In 2004, Pawa filed the first climate change tort case with the City of New York and eight state attorneys general against the owners of 175 coal-fired power plants who were emitting massive amounts of greenhouse gases. These were the biggest source of industrial emissions in the United States, according to Pawa. The defendants refused to reduce their emissions. He won the case on appeal.

Explaining what drove him to take on major interests in the fossil fuel industry, Pawa said, “It’s so painfully obvious that this is a crisis of immense proportions, that there is clear legal liability. You cannot destroy the climate on which all life depends and on which civilization depends without committing a tort.”

The Future of Energy and Environmental Law

Sussman specifically noted that PFAs, is likely to remain an issue for a long time, as will climate change. To this point, Weinberg said, although climate change is clearly an ecological emergency, most environmental law practitioners are not yet bringing challenges to it.

Kier laments the unpredictability of climate change, saying that no one knows anymore when the next hundred-year storm will hit.

“It’s now really hard to make assumptions about the impact of pollution and the health of the environment. It’s especially challenging to protect the environment when you don’t know what’s coming.”

As the legal field expands to confront evolving environmental challenges, Penn Carey Law is committed to equipping students with the expertise and dedication to lead these efforts. To that end, the Law School continues to welcome faculty at the forefront of research and innovation, most notably, Shelley Welton, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Law and Energy, who holds an affiliation with the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy in the Weitzman School.

Welton’s current research projects include exploring a just energy transition for the U.S. south; understanding what lessons the failed nuclear renaissance offers for climate infrastructure development; and investigating grid reliability governance under climate change.

She notes the vast opportunities for those who want to help mitigate a warming planet, citing the billions of dollars in tax credits and grants available for clean energy projects. These, she says, represent the far frontier for people engaged in this line of work, including lawyers.

“This is a challenge on a grand enough scale that it’s going to keep a lot of very talented people busy for a long time,” Welton said.

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