Scott M. Turner

What do you focus on?

For a major international manufacturing company, I handle environmental permitting and compliance issues for its facilities in New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

I have helped clients obtain permits for energy facilities in California, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Oklahoma. For example, I represented an energy client in obtaining its California Energy Commission certification and PSD permit for a 500 MW gas-fired merchant power plant in northern California and led the successful defense of that PSD permit before EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board.

In New York, I played a lead role in the Article X certification and PSD permitting process for the Athens Generating Project, an 1100 MW gas-fired power plant (the first project to be successfully certified under the state’s then-current power plant siting statute). I later represented another energy client in obtaining an Article X certificate and PSD and SPDES permits for the 1816 MW Astoria Generating Station repowering project.

One particularly complex effort that I led was the successful permitting of a major landfill expansion that involved the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the municipality. Four state permits, four local permits, a federal permit, and an Endangered Species Act consultation were required.

My enforcement work has included the defense of air pollution and other enforcement proceedings brought by EPA, New York, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. I successfully litigated, in federal district court and the Third Circuit, a major enforcement matter arising from EPA’s challenge to a PSD permit issued by Pennsylvania for a six-unit gas turbine facility.

What do you see on the horizon?

The Trump administration’s changes to EPA regulations merits watching, but, as a practical matter because of our federal system, I expect very little will change at the state regulatory level. Thus, I expect that the environmental regulatory regime with which our clients currently deal will remain in place.

The energy sector has transformed radically due to the shale gas revolution, government support for renewable energy resources, and reduced demand. We do not see this changing.

Publications

Mr. Turner was a senior editor of the New York Environmental Law Handbook, Fifth Ed. (Gov’t. Institutes, 1999). He has published in the Albany Law Review, the Washington & Lee Law Review, and the National Law Journal. He speaks frequently on energy and environmental law issues before such groups as the Air and Waste Management Association, the American Corporate Counsel Association, and the Edison Electric Institute Legal Committee.

Representative Experience

• Oversaw environmental/permitting/review for a “greenfield” specialty steel plant in Michigan, a steel mill expansion in Central New York, a pipeline compressor station in Kentucky, and a hazardous waste incinerator in Western New York
• Provided permitting counsel to the public power participants in the 1600 MW Prairie State Generating Project and represented them in the EPA Environmental Appeals Board challenge by project opponents.
• Represented the owner of the Ginna Nuclear Plant in the NYSPSC proceeding investigating a major steam generator tube rupture.
• Represented the owners of the Nine Mile Point 2 Nuclear Station in the NYSPSC prudency proceeding regarding continued construction of the plant.
• Represented two electric utilities in connection with PSD/NANSR enforcement cases challenging routine maintenance activities at several coal-fired power plants.
• Represented two natural gas pipelines in obtaining Article VII certificate amendments from NYSPSC.
• Represented an electric utility in its evaluation of a potential compressed air energy storage facility that would store energy generated off-peak by nearby wind farms.
• Represented a 252 MW island-based wind project in connection with Army Corps permitting and Endangered Species Act consultation.