Eric B. Gallon
Partner
Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, LLP
Eric handles a variety of complex business and corporate litigation matters involving energy law, environmental law and complex commercial disputes. His practice includes work with chemical and industrial manufacturing entities, as well as energy exploration, production, transmission and distribution companies.
Eric advises clients with regard to state and federal regulatory compliance issues, including interpreting the New Source Review (NSR), New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) and National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) programs under the federal Clean Air Act and Ohio’s air pollution control statute and regulations; reviewing draft and proposed permits-to-install, permits-to-install and operate, and Title V permits; appealing final permits to the Environmental Review Appeals Commission (ERAC); preparing comments on proposed state and federal rulemakings; responding to state and federal notices of violation; defending clients in administrative, state court and federal court enforcement proceedings; and preparing petitions for reinstatement of debarred companies. Eric has advised both the Ohio Chemistry Technology Council and the Energy & Environment Committee of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce on environmental and regulatory issues.
Eric’s energy and public utilities practice focuses on representing public utilities in rulemaking, ratemaking and complaint case proceedings before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and the Supreme Court of Ohio. Eric advises competitive retail electric service (CRES) and competitive retail natural gas service (CRNGS) providers on certification and compliance with Ohio’s marketing, solicitation, enrollment and billing requirements. Eric also helps companies conduct due diligence for projects and transactions in the public utility and energy space, including potential acquisitions of ownership interests in utility holding companies and affiliates, new pipeline and generation facilities, and regular and virtual power purchase agreements.
With a focus on high-stakes, complex litigation, Eric’s work has included antitrust, racketeering and state-law tort claims. He has experience in both state and federal class actions, and has appeared in federal district court and in all levels of Ohio state courts, including the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Eric also regularly lectures on the application of the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine and the standards for expert witness testimony under Ohio and federal law. In 2017, he authored a book titled The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work-Product Doctrine (Juris Publishing).
Scott H. Segal
Partner
Bracewell, LLP
Scott Segal is co-chair of the firm's Policy Resolution Group, the government relations and strategic communications section at Bracewell. He has more than two decades of experience across a broad range of policy and communications issues, with particular experience dealing with energy, the environment and natural resources. Other areas of experience range from healthcare to financial services to trade and manufacturing issues. A practicing lawyer, Scott assists clients with effective participation in the legislative and regulatory processes. Additionally, Scott helps guides clients with strategic planning and communications in changed circumstances through public-affairs initiatives, monitoring, advocacy and negotiations with the United States Congress and administrative agencies of the federal government. He has testified before Congress and administrative agencies numerous times on matters related to energy and environmental policy.
Well informed on clients' issues of concern, Scott recognizes that his media contacts are looking for actual, real-world experience on important issues, not just message management. He is an articulate spokesman for Fortune 500 corporations on sensitive and progressive issues such as climate change, energy legislation and regulation, the Clean Air Act and fuel additives. He also is recognized as a reasonable, well-versed spokesman on broader energy and environmental issues and is quoted regularly in the national media, including offering commentary on network television and radio.
Scott taught law, policy development and communications at the University of Maryland (University College) and at Johns Hopkins University. Earlier in his career, he served as director of forensics at the University of Texas at Austin.
Raya Salter
Member
New York State Climate Action Council
Raya Salter is an attorney, consultant, educator and clean energy law and policy expert with a focus on energy and climate justice. Raya is a member of the New York State Climate Action Council, the body that is developing the plan to implement the nation's leading climate law. She is also the Lead Policy Organizer for the NY Renews Climate Justice Coalition.
Raya is an experienced advocate, having practiced energy law and regulation in multiple jurisdictions, including New York and Hawaii. She has written widely on energy policy, and her book, "Energy Justice, Domestic and International Perspectives" was released by Edward Elgar in 2018.
?Ms. Salter is an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University School of Law. She serves as Board Member for EESI and as an Advisory Board Member for Evergreen Action. Raya is also a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and co-chair of the Climate Change Energy Transitions Subgroup.
In previous roles, Raya was Senior Attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a Regulatory Attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, where she worked to engage utilities, regulators, policy makers, and opinion leaders to foster clean and renewable grid modernization.
Prior to becoming an environmental advocate, Raya worked as a regulatory attorney at the law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf in New York City, representing energy industry participants in matters relating to regulation by state public utility commissions and federal agencies, transactions involving energy assets, participation in organized electric markets and inter and intra-state transmission.
Ms. Salter is published in the field of electricity law and regulation. Her articles have appeared in publications including the Electricity Journal and ElectricityPolicy.com. She has also written white papers for the World Bank and the Galvin Electricity Initiative.
Before becoming a lawyer, Ms. Salter worked in community-based organizations teaching technology to youth and adults and developing summer and after school programming. Ms. Salter has a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and a B.A. in economics from Wesleyan University.
? Raya Salter has over 20 years of experience as a lawyer and advocate working for the nation's most prominent firms, environmental and social service organizations.
Victoria D. Sullivan
Director, Climate Policy
Duke Energy
Vicky Sullivan is a Public Policy Director of Climate at Duke Energy. She is an expert energy and environmental policy and government relations professional. Vicky provides superior policy-relevant analysis, advocacy, and communications.
Michael B. Gerrard
Founder & Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
Columbia Law School
Michael B. Gerrard, Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School, teaches courses on environmental law, climate change law, and energy law, and is director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He is also Associate Chair of the faculty of Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
From 1979 through 2008 he practiced environmental law in New York, most recently as partner in charge of the New York office of Arnold & Porter LLP. Upon joining the Columbia law faculty in 2009, he became Senior Counsel to the firm. His practice involved trying numerous cases and arguing many appeals in federal and state courts and administrative tribunals, handling the environmental aspects of numerous transactions and development projects, and providing regulatory compliance advice to a wide variety of clients in the private and public sectors.
A prolific writer in environmental law and climate change, Gerrard twice received the Association of American Publishers' Best Law Book award for works on environmental law and brownfields. He has written or edited eleven books, including Global Climate Change and U.S. Law, the leading work in its field (second edition published in 2014, co-edited with Jody Freeman) and the twelve-volume Environmental Law Practice Guide. Among his other books are The Law of Clean Energy: Efficiency and Renewables (2011), The Law of Adaptation to Climate Change: U.S. and International Aspects (2012) and Threatened Island Nations: Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a Changing Climate (2013).
Since 1986 he has been an environmental law columnist for the New York Law Journal. Gerrard was the 2004-2005 chair of the American Bar Association's 10, 000-member Section of Environment, Energy and Resources. He also chaired the Executive Committee of the New York City Bar Association, and the Environmental Law Section of the New York State Bar Association. He has served on the executive committees of the boards of the Environmental Law Institute and the American College of Environmental Lawyers. Several independent rating services ranked Gerrard as the leading environmental lawyer in New York and one of the leading environmental lawyers in the world. Gerrard has taught courses at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and New York University Law School, and was a visiting distinguished scholar at Vermont Law School. He has also lectured on environmental law in Great Britain, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Italy, Malta, China, Taiwan, India, Japan, Chile, The Marshall Islands, Canada and throughout the United States.