Program Overview
Who Should Order
In-house and private attorneys, consultants, corporate managers, Tribal and governmental representatives, State Attorneys General, and others who are involved in natural resource damage claims
Why You will Benefit from the Replay
The second Trump Administration has brought many twists, turns (and U-turns), largely through Executive Orders, from Biden Administration environmental policies. We are very pleased to have John Cruden and Robert Percival return to the conference this year to share their insights into the implications for federal pursuit of recovery for natural resource damages and federal environmental priorities. You also will hear analysis of specific actions at the EPA that are transforming the regulatory environment. Leading practitioners will discuss how trial courts, appellate courts, and the Supreme Court are responding to environmental challenges and how industry is dealing with the shifting landscape.
In response to these changes in federal priorities and federal actions, states have moved quickly to prioritize environmental protection and NRD recovery. You will hear about New Mexico's multi-agency approach to addressing environmental challenges.
For states, water is the primary natural resource demanding protection. You will hear from a panel of experts on risks to water resources and ways to value and restore damaged water resources. The NRD recovery challenges we will cover include human service losses, including losses from climate change, and PFAS as an NRD.
We also will have an expert panel discuss challenges to the legitimacy of remedy-derived injuries, the strategic implications, and mechanisms for economic valuation of remedy-derived injuries.
We hope you will join us, either in person or remotely, for what promises to be an exceptionally interesting and informative day and a half in Santa Fe!
For those attending in person, plan to stay for the reception at the end of the first day. La Fonda is holding a block of rooms for our participants. Register for the conference early and make your hotel reservation as soon as possible to take advantage of La Fonda's special conference rate. Sleeping rooms sold out quickly last year.
~ Sarah Peterman Bell, Esq. of Farella Braun + Martel and William J. Jackson, Esq. of Kelley Drye & Warren, Program Co-Chairs
What You Will Learn
- Federal environmental and natural resource policies, priorities, and activities
- Case study of New Mexico's response to changes at the federal level
- Where state trustees are focusing their environmental and NRD priorities
- Cultural, recreational, and other human service losses as natural resource damages
- PFAS and cooperative federalism in the absence of, or roll back of, federal regulations
- Environmental case law update
- Natural resource damages from climate change
- Protection and restoration of water as the primary state natural resource
- The legitimacy of remedy-derived injury
What Participants Said
- A great conference. Excellent speakers and very useful content.
- This was an amazing conference. Relevant topics & really helpful! Thank you!
- This is my first year attending - I really enjoyed it all! Lots of useful info and presenting really well. Very professional.
- "Great Overall"
- LSI's NRD conference is the best one!
Agenda Day 1
9:00 am
Introduction & Overview
Sarah Peterman Bell, Esq.
, Program Co-Chair
Farella Braun + Martel / San Francisco, CA
William J. Jackson, Esq.
, Program Co-Chair
Kelley Drye & Warren / Houston, TX
9:15 am
Where States are Focusing Their Environmental and NRD Priorities
State Trustees and Attorneys General are pivoting to prioritization of environmental protection and NRD recovery in light of the changing landscape for cooperative federalism and shrinking federal interests
William J. Jackson, Esq.
, Program Co-Chair, Moderator
Kelley Drye & Warren / Houston, TX
Christopher G. Aslin, Esq.
, Chief of the Environmental Protection Bureau
NH Attorney General's Office / Concord, NH
Betsy Harper, Esq.
, Chief, Environmental Protection Division
MA Attorney General's Office / Boston, MA
Jacob Marx, Esq.
, Deputy Chief, Environmental Protection Division
TX Attorney General's Office / Austin, TX
10:30 am
Break
10:45 am
Special Case Study: New Mexico's Integrated Multi-Agency Approach to Addressing Its Environmental Challenges
Views from New Mexico's Secretary of the Environment Department, Natural Resource Trustee, and Attorney General, on how the State of New Mexico is ensuring the protection of New Mexico's trust resources and natural environment
The Hon. James C. Kenney
, Cabinet Secretary
NM Environment Department / Santa Fe, NM
William G. Grantham, Esq.
, Assistant Attorney General
NM Attorney General’s Office / Santa Fe, NM
The Hon. Maggie Hart Stebbins
, Trustee
NM Office of Natural Resources Trustee / Albuquerque, NM
12:00 pm
Lunch (On Your Own)
1:30 pm
Cultural, Recreational, and Other Human Service Losses as Natural Resource Damages
Update on the Ninth Circuit appeal in Pakootas and The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation v. Teck Cominco Metals, Ltd. and potential issues for a SCOTUS appeal
Paul Dayton, Esq.
Ogden Murphy Wallace / Seattle, WA
2:00 pm
Natural Resource Damages and Impacts from Climate Change
Drought and fires in the West, extreme rains and flooding in the East: How climate change does (or does not) intersect with NRD, climate superfund laws, and other methods of recovery for climate damages
Sarah Peterman Bell, Esq.
, Program Co-Chair, Moderator
Farella Braun + Martel / San Francisco, CA
Amanda G. Halter, Esq.
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman / Houston, TX
Katherine Palmquist, Ph.D.
, Principal Scientist
Exponent / Bellevue, WA
Amber Stojak
, Senior Environmental Scientist
Arcadis / Knoxville, TN
3:15 pm
Break
3:30 pm
PFAS as NRD
Case study of the issues, challenges, and details of New Jersey's first in the nation State NRD case for PFAS against 3M and DuPont at the Chambers Works Site in New Jersey: The settlement with 3M and status report on the bifurcated DuPont litigation
William J. Jackson, Esq.
, Program Co-Chair
Kelley Drye & Warren / Houston, TX
4:00 pm
Environmental Legal Issues to Watch
Lessons learned from the latest NRD trials, as well as trial and appellate decisions and SCOTUS opinions implicating the environment
Nicole R. Moshang, Esq.
Manko Gold Katcher & Fox / Bala Cynwyd, PA
Brian D. Israel, Esq.
Paul Hastings / Los Angeles, CA
5:00 pm
Reception for On Site Faculty and Attendees
Graciously sponsored by the law firms of Farella Braun + Martel and Kelley Drye & Warren LLP
Friday, September 26, 2025
9:00 am
Federal Environmental and Natural Resource Policies, Priorities, and Activities
A view of the field from the Goodyear Blimp: Expert perspectives on federal administrative, legislative, and policy goals
John C. Cruden, Esq.
Beveridge & Diamond / Washington, DC
9:45 am
EPA Priorities and Actions
Significant Executive level changes transforming the regulatory environment
Christopher I. Rendall-Jackson, Esq.
Farella Braun + Martel / San Francisco, CA
10:15 am
Break
10:30 am
Water as "The" State Natural Resource
Water as a primary natural resource demanding protection and restoration, risks to our water resources, and ways to value and restore damaged water resources
Junine So, Esq.
, Assistant Attorney General
WA Attorney General's Office / Seattle, WA
Eric Horsch
, Principal
Industrial Economics, Incorporated (IEc) / Cambridge, MA
Mark S. Laska, Ph.D.
, Founder and President
Great Ecology / New York, NY
11:30 am
A Novel Legal Theory and Related Technical Considerations: Challenges to the Legitimacy of Remedy-Derived Injury
Are remedy-derived injuries compensable?
Thomas C. Pearce, Esq.
Latham & Watkins / New York, NY
Arguments in favor of recovery and implications for remedy-selection, including the benefits of early restoration and cashing out
John D.S. Gilmour, Esq.
Kelley Drye & Warren / Houston, TX
Mechanisms for economic valuation of remedy-derived injuries
Theodore Tomasi, Ph.D.
, Managing Principal
Integral Consulting / Moorestown, NJ
12:30 pm
Evaluations and Adjourn
Faculty Bios
Sarah Peterman Bell,
Program Co-Chair, is a partner at Farella Braun + Martel focusing on environmental and natural resources litigation in state and federal courts. Her practice includes environmental enforcement actions, cost recovery, citizen suits, water quality, and complex toxic tort matters.
William J. Jackson,
Program Co-Chair, is co-chair of the National Environmental Law practice group at Kelley Drye & Warren. He is currently serving as counsel for a dozen states and territories, in addition to private-sector clients, in significant remediation and natural resource damages across the country.
The Hon. James C. Kenney
is Cabinet Secretary for the New Mexico Environment Department. Before his appointment, he spent more than 21 years across two stints at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, most recently as senior policy advisor for oil and gas and earlier developing strategic compliance and enforcement efforts related to oil and natural gas exploration.
The Hon. Maggie Hart Stebbins is New Mexico's Natural Resources Trustee. She previously served as a Bernalillo County Commissioner where her priorities included cleanup of the Kirtland Air Force Base Bulk Fuels Facility groundwater contamination.
Christopher G. Aslin
is Chief of the Environmental Protection Bureau at the New Hampshire Office of the Attorney General. Prior to joining the Attorney General's Office, he was a litigation attorney focusing on land use planning and permitting, energy development, and regulatory compliance.
John C. Cruden
is a principal at Beveridge & Diamond. For more than two decades, he served as a senior leader on environment and natural resource matters at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), where he supervised some of the department's most significant litigation, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Love Canal, and Bunker Hill litigation.
Paul Dayton,
a member of Ogden Murphy Wallace, has represented the Colville Tribe in Pakootas v. Teck Cominco Metals. In the most recent phase of that litigation, he represented the Colville Tribe on the issue of whether the Tribe is entitled to recover for lost Cultural Resources and he continues to represent the Tribe in the appeal to the 9th Circuit.
John D.S. Gilmour
co-chairs the Environmental Litigation section at Kelley Drye & Warren. His practice encompasses significant tort and environmental matters, including some of the largest contaminated sites in the country.
William G. Grantham is an Assistant Attorney General at the New Mexico Attorney General's Office. He previously served as Assistant General Counsel at the New Mexico Environment Department.
Amanda G. Halter
is managing partner for Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman's Houston office and leader of the firm's multidisciplinary Crisis Management Focus team. She represents domestic and global industrial clients on complex U.S. regulatory and environmental liability matters.
Betsy Harper is Chief of the Environmental Protection Division at the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office. Her responsibilities include supervision of EPD's civil enforcement work in cases relating to hazardous materials, radioactive waste, wetlands, clean air and water, and solid waste.
Eric Horsch
is a Principal at Industrial Economics, Incorporated (IEc). He specializes in environmental valuation, recreational use visitation, and natural resource damage assessments. He has applied a variety of revealed and stated preference nonmarket valuation methods and is experienced in several survey methods to support his work.
Brian D. Israel
is Co-Chair of the Environmental Litigation practice at Paul Hastings. He served as lead counsel to BP in the Deepwater Horizon NRD claim and as one of the trial attorneys for the Deepwater penalty trial. He is a principal author of 'Natural Resource Damages: A Guide to Litigating and Resolving NRD Cases', the definitive treatise on NRD claims.
Mark S. Laska, Ph.D.
is CEO and President of Great Ecology. His technical specialization includes habitat restoration, ecological planning and design, and he is a leading Natural Resource Damage (NRD) practitioner.
Jacob Marx
is Deputy Chief of the Environmental Protection Division of the Texas Attorney General's Office.
Nicole R. Moshang
is a partner at Manko Gold Katcher & Fox. She represents clients in the pursuit of, and in defense of, environmental claims for cost recovery, contribution, natural resource damages, toxic tort, breach of contract, insurance coverage, and enforcement and penalty actions.
Katherine Palmquist, Ph.D.,
is a Principal Scientist at Exponent. She has expertise in ecological risk assessment and natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) at large complex sites in multiple states. She has used innovative approaches to define baseline conditions and quantify reductions in ecological services while also assessing the relative importance of other stressors as causal factors.
Thomas C. Pearce
is Of Counsel to Latham & Watkins and a member of the Environment, Land & Resources Practice and the Litigation & Trial Department. He represents clients in environmental, commercial, products liability, and toxic tort litigations. He also advises clients on environmental regulatory and transactional issues relating to federal environmental laws.
Christopher I. Rendall-Jackson,
Special Counsel at Farella Braun + Martel, is an environmental litigation, land use, and regulatory lawyer. His environmental litigation experience includes high-profile Superfund (CERCLA) litigation and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) writ litigation.
Junine So is an Assistant Attorney General in the Environmental Protection Division of the Washington Attorney General's Office. The Division pursues civil and criminal litigation on behalf of the state under the Attorney General's independent authority.
Amber Stojak,
an Ecologist/Toxicologist, is a Senior Environmental Scientist at Arcadis specializing in CERCLA and RCRA-related projects. Her areas of expertise include permitting and compliance, Ecological Risk Assessment, Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA), restoration, designing and evaluating toxicity tests, and conducting biological monitoring and remedial investigations.
Theodore Tomasi, Ph.D.,
is a natural resource economist and Managing Principal at Integral. He specializes in the valuation of natural resources and environmental changes, risk management in the context of use decisions regarding resource use, and benefit-cost analysis.
Continuing Education Credits
Live credits: This program qualifies for 9.00 NM MCLE, 9.25 CA MCLE, 9.00 TX MCLE, 9.00 WA MCLE, and 9.00 ABCEP environmental professional credits. Upon request, we will help you apply for CLE credits in other states and other types of credits.
I appreciate LSI's seamless segue from registration, an informative seminar, to end result.
Ordering
Pricing
Audio and video replay files, with course materials, are available for download or on a flash drive at the same price as live attendance. Files are available for downloading five business days after the program or from the date we receive payment. Flashdrive orders are sent via First Class mail within seven business days after the program or from the date we receive payment. The course materials alone are available for $100.
Cancellation
There is a $25 cancellation fee
Purchase a Replay
The web link option allows you to stream or download. The flash drive option includes both audio and video files. Both include materials.