Climate Change
Global climate change presents an array of risks, challenges and opportunities to business, government, and other public entities. Our firm has the comprehensive and creative expertise necessary to help our clients avoid or minimize these risks, to meet emerging challenges and to seize favorable opportunities.
As environmental law has grown in scope and complexity, Hopping Green & Sams has grown in breadth and depth. The firm maintains a bench of attorneys who practice across the entire spectrum of environmental and land use law. This enables the firm to field cross-functional teams of lawyers who join forces to confront multifaceted issues in this arena. Climate change is a high-profile example of such a multi-faceted issue. Of particular interest in Florida is the State’s on-going initiative seeking to require all emissions sources to substantially reduce their carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades. Capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide, for example, is one way for Florida’s electric utilities to comply with the government’s goals. But the available solutions are legally complex. Our clients in the electric utility industry will need to consider legislation, rule-making, power plant siting, pipeline permitting, air permitting, waste disposal, underground injection controls and other implications of their CO2 reduction plans. Our firm has unrivalled experience in our ability to effectively identify, understand and address all of these interwoven legal concerns as a coordinated team.
Concerns over climate change are increasingly reflected in state and local government programs that require land use and development. Our lawyers working in these seemingly unrelated regulatory programs address these issues on behalf of our clients. For example, when evaluating land use changes proposed by landowners, developers or local governments, the Florida Department of Community Affairs is now considering the extent to which land development patterns would promote efficient use of energy and other resources. Major legislative initiatives regarding transportation concurrency - which attempts to ensure that adequate transportation facilities are available to accommodate the impacts of new development - are being framed so they are based upon formulas which measure the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) of new development projects. "Green building" techniques are increasingly favored by local governments around the state and are being proposed as new state requirements.
Cross-Practice Integration: Fully addressing issues of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions requires a deep understanding not only of air quality, but of water resources and land use as well. Our firm has more than a dozen attorneys, with many different legal skills, working on these issues at the legislative and regulatory levels. We are a recognized voice in Tallahassee and throughout Florida for many power companies and other regulated interests. We represent them those interests through the legislative session, the agency rulemaking process, project permitting and, when necessary, litigation. The depth and breadth of our firm allow us to proficiently and effectively handle even the most complex environmental or land use law issues from beginning to end.
Timely Information and Analysis: Through our firm’s legislative and regulatory involvement, as well as our leadership in non-governmental organizations involved in climate change issues, our firm provides valuable and timely information, insight, and analysis to our clients. We help our clients separate rhetoric from reality.
We Know Florida. As climate change issues reach the forefront of Florida’s legislative and regulatory environment, we stand ready to continue to assist our clients in meeting these challenges, while achieving their business goals.
Our Climate Change Team was featured in the February 11 2008 issue of Forbes magazine [click here to read the article].
Practicing Attorneys: James S. Alves, Richard S. Brightman, Peter C. Cunningham, William H. Green, Robert A. Manning, Frank E. Matthews, Eric T. Olsen, Gary V. Perko, Michael P. Petrovich, Douglas S. Roberts, Gary P. Sams, Angela M. Uhland.