Manufacturing/Oil & Gas

Meyers Nave’s transaction and regulatory experience for manufacturing and
industrial facilities includes land use entitlement and related project development (including compliance with CEQA), environmental law compliance programs and enforcement actions, asset sales and acquisitions, corporate insurance programs and marketing and manufacturing agreements. Our team includes an attorney with 10 years of in-house experience in the legal department of a global petrochemical company where she handled environmental compliance and litigation matters relating to marketing, manufacturing and distribution operations. In addition to analyzing state and federal environmental claim liabilities, she compiled the company’s compliance manual that covered federal laws and laws of numerous states.

Representative Matters

• Tesoro Refining and Marketing Co. LLC v. County Sanitation Dist. No. 3 of Los Angeles County, et al. Meyers Nave represented Tesoro as plaintiff in federal court cost-recovery litigation against a dozen defendants including the owner of an adjacent oilfield and refinery wastewater treatment site and pipeline entities. The site is under Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board oversight, and the cost-recovery causes of action include CERCLA, RCRA and common law claims. Tesoro sought to recover millions of dollars in past costs as well as future costs in the millions or tens of millions of dollars.
• Escolle Tenants In Common v. Greka Oil and Gas, et al. Meyers Nave is defending Chevron in a California Superior Court case filed in Santa Barbara County in September 2016. The plaintiff is trying to impose joint and several liability for well abandonment and site cleanup on Chevron as a former owner and operator of oil and gas leases.
• Refineries and Associated Terminals and Pipelines. Meyers Nave represents numerous refineries and associated terminals and pipelines on air quality compliance matters. For example, when federally enforceable Clean Air Act permits were issued, Meyers Nave strategically filed appeal and variance petitions with the South Coast Air Quality Management District in a way that secured within weeks dozens of permit revisions that had been pending for several years, thereby eliminating violations for operating contrary to the permit. We have also advised on complex “source” and “facility” determinations to implement greenhouse gas requirements of the California Air Resources Board and other regulatory programs.

  As air quality and CEQA compliance counsel for another refinery, Meyers Nave interacts with SCAQMD and San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District and also assists with anticipated litigation under CEQA and the Clean Air Act. For another refinery, Meyers Nave serves as air quality counsel interacting with the SCAQMD as well as assisting on emerging regulatory issues involving refinery fence-line monitoring. For example, each time the refinery undertakes scheduled or unscheduled maintenance activities, we work to secure variances in contested and uncontested matters before the SCAQMD hearing board. We routinely advise on complex air quality monitoring, reporting, and permit compliance and work extensively with refinery process and environmental engineering teams.