Kastorf Law is an Atlanta, Georgia and Washington, D.C. law firm that can assist clients on a wide array of environment & natural resources issues. Kastorf Law can provide the same range of regulatory compliance advice and counseling you expert from an environmental law practice, but does something more. Its founder, Kurt Kastorf, is not just an environmental lawyer, but an environmental litigator, who can take cases to trial both nationally and throughout Georgia.
Why should you hire Kastorf Law for your environmental matter?
Let’s cut to the chase. Before learning about Kastorf Law’s significant expertise on environmental and natural resources matters, you probably want to know if you’re even in the right place. You should call Kastorf Law if you are in one of the following situations:
- Concerned about risk: Your business need advice on complying with environmental regulations or the risk of liability associated with a proposed project or transaction.
- Threatened by regulation: An agency is proposing a regulation that will harm your company, and you need to know whether and how to oppose the rule, if you need to sue over its implementation, and how to protect yourself against an enforcement action.
- Want an environmental litigator: You have an attorney who helps with your environmental compliance work, but you’re concerned that a particular issue will result in a lawsuit, and you need an environmental lawyer who is also a litigator and trial attorney.
- Need statutory expertise: You’ve noticed that the large environmental law practices in Atlanta, Georgia, tout their brownfield and tri-state water wars knowledge, but do not mention experience with many of the more than 100 Federal environmental statutes on the books. Your lawyer needs to understand one of those statutes.
- Face an enforcement action: The United States Department of Justice or state enforcement body has become involved in your matter, and you want a lawyer with DOJ experience.
- Plan to initiate litigation: You want to initiate environmental litigation, and need an experienced trial attorney that can work on contingency and other alternative fee arrangements.
- Have a complex issue: Your matter involves jurisdictional issues, such as standing, ripeness, pre-emption, or abstention, or otherwise raises difficult questions of first impression.
- Require appellate expertise: Your case is now on appeal and you need an appellate attorney.
What does Kastorf Law know about environmental and natural resources law?
Quite a bit. Before returning to Atlanta, Georgia, Kurt Kastorf served as a trial and appellate attorney for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice. Kurt has litigated cases involving nearly 100 environmental statutes, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, CERCLA, the Endangered Species Act, FIRA, FLPMA, Magnus-Stevens, NEPA, NFMA, OCSLA, and many more. He has also worked with a diverse array of Federal agencies, including the U.S. EPA, the Departments of the Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, and Transportation, FERC, and the Army Corps of Engineers. After leaving the United States Department of Justice, Kurt continued to work as a lawyer on environment and natural resources matters at WilmerHale, in Washington, D.C. Few attorneys in Atlanta and the Southeast can match the breadth of Kurt’s environmental and natural resources experience, particularly on issues arising under Federal law. And even fewer of those attorneys (if any) are also experienced trial lawyers.
What are some examples of Kurt Kastorf’s prior experience in environmental litigation?
Some of Kurt’s notable successes include:
- Helping to secure court approval for the first commercial wind farm on Federal land, in a case raising claims under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act.
- Obtaining from Atlanta-based United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit a reversal on an abuse of discretion standard in a Clean Air Act enforcement matter worth several billion dollars. Read that decision.
- Settling on appeal a Clean Water Act enforcement matter worth $1.4 billion dollars. Read the consent decree.
- Defeating a challenge to a dredge-and-fill permit under the Clean Water Act for a business park in Redding, California. Read the opinion.
- Preventing an appeal and later obtaining a dismissal of a challenge to the Glen Canyon Dam’s operating plans brought under NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.
- Successfully defending on an emergency basis Federal approval of timber salvage operations following extensive wildfires.
- Winning a dispute over the administration of grazing permits on Federal land. Read the Ninth Circuit’s opinion.
- Successfully defending the seizure and administrative forfeiture of hunting trophies taken in violation of the Convention on International Trade inn Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Endangered Species Act. Read the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s opinion here.
- Winning a high profile case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit concerning the standard of bonds pending appeal in environmental matters. Read the opinion here.
- Obtaining a victory for the United States Forest Service in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a challenge under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), NEPA, and Administrative Procedure ACT (APA). Read the decision.
- Defeating an attempt to challenge convictions for a conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act brought before the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit.
- Advised potential purchasers of land on potential environmental and regulatory risks associated with purchase.
Learn more about Kastorf Law’s regulatory litigation practice
Kastorf Law’s Environment & Natural Resources practice is one component of the firm’s broader expertise in regulations and regulatory litigation. Read more about Kastorf Law’s regulatory expertise.
Want to discuss your environment or natural resources problem?
Please contact Kastorf Law to discuss your environment or natural resources problem. Learn more about Kurt here.