DENVER – June 6, 2016 – National Law Journal (NLJ) has named Greenberg Traurig, LLP shareholder Paul M. Seby to its second annual list of Energy & Environmental Trailblazers. NLJ selected Seby, a shareholder in the firm’s Environmental Practice in the Denver office, from a competitive pool of hundreds of nominations due to his groundbreaking work and significant acheivements in energy and environmental law.
Seby serves as Special Attorney General for the State of North Dakota and played a leading role in obtaining federal court injunctions preventing the implementation of three major and nationally applicable federal agency rule makings. Specifically, Seby sought and obtained this extraordinary relief on behalf of the state of North Dakota against:
- The Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management hydraulic fracturing regulations which set onerous and duplicative federal requirements over energy development involving federal lands and minerals but which intruded on state and private interests;
- EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “Waters of the U.S.” regulation which greatly expanded the definition of lands and waters subject to federal jurisdiction under the Federal Clean Water Act at the expense of state land use authority and control; and
- EPA’s Clean Power Plan regulation, which seeks to displace and transform how states generate, deliver, and use electricity by mandatory federal greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
In each case, federal courts (including the United States Supreme Court) found Seby's advocacy demonstrated irreparable harm to warrant preservation of the status quo and a substantial likelihood of success in demonstrating the agencies acted outside their legal authority.
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Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GTLaw) has more than 2,000 attorneys in 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East and is celebrating its 50th anniversary. One firm worldwide, GTLaw has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, was named the largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2017, and among the Top 20 on the 2016 Am Law Global 100. Web: www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.