Baker Hostetler’s Green Business and Sustainability Team has emerged as concerns over the environment, including climate change issues, continue to gain prominence. With the explosion of public policy initiatives at all levels of government, Baker Hostetler has positioned itself to counsel our clients on a full range of related legal issues. In doing so, we are prepared to assist clients in navigating the new regulatory landscape resulting from climate change, green chemistry and environmental sustainability initiatives at both the national and state level. We have gone beyond the boundaries of the regulatory framework and are also poised to assist private clients in developing, deploying, acquiring, selling and/or investing in the technologies and practices to address these new legal mandates and to take advantage of opportunities associated with them.
Our team features attorneys who understand the business needs of companies seeking solutions to the myriad environmental laws and regulations that affect their ability to do business—companies that are also facing the coming constraints of limited or changing energy availability facing our nation and world.
Baker Hostetler’s Green Business and Sustainability Team includes eight practice components and various sub-specialties. Each of these practice components draws upon the expertise of the firm’s environmental lawyers, who routinely assist clients in addressing emerging regulatory requirements with respect to greenhouse gas emissions, other aspects of climate change and other environmental sustainability initiatives.
Technology, Products and Processes
When companies explore the possibility of developing a green product or employing green processes, they frequently turn to the experience of Baker Hostetler.
Our attorneys are frequently involved in the development of new technology and products. We help clients understand the state of the marketplace, competitor positioning and intellectual property issues. The team provides such services as:
- Patent advice
- Patent and trademark prosecution
- Trade secret litigation
- Copyright protection
- Internet business/e-commerce counsel
- Obtaining environmental permits
- Meeting regulatory requirements governing the adoption of a green product or process
We also work closely with our clients to ensure compliance with green advertising regulations; our team includes the former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection—the division responsible for the development of the FTC’s Green Guides.
Land Use and Green Building
Baker Hostetler has a long history providing counsel to owners, developers and other interests in the real estate sector. Our attorneys have significant experience helping clients identify, understand and manage the legal issues related to sustainable building projects and land development—including the strategic management of the complex entitlement process required to develop land.
Our attorneys counsel clients during all stages of the development process:
- Due diligence
- Land acquisition
- Contract negotiation
- Entitlement processing
- Design
- Financing
- Post-development management (leasing/selling)
During the critical entitlement process, we help clients minimize legal risks by coordinating the work of the entire consultant team so that outcomes are timely, cost effective and fully integrated into the client’s post-entitlement development strategy. This review goes beyond a familiarity with legal constraints, also taking advantage of opportunities associated with adopting building designs and operational practices that involve a reduced carbon footprint, a reduction in impacts on water supply, improved transportation mobility and more effective use of energy (including alternative energy sources).
We routinely deal with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and related state and local agencies and have a strong understanding of the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. Our experience spans such issues as wetland mitigation, habitat preservation and impacts on endangered species, conservation management, water management and related disciplines.
In addition, we have experience in assisting clients in the sale and redevelopment of Brownfields sites and in managing the complex environmental issues associated with such sites.
Transactions and Finance
Growth-oriented companies in the green sector face particular challenges. Baker Hostetler’s attorneys serve as counsel to cutting-edge ventures, providing comprehensive advice and support throughout their life cycle.
Team members help green companies navigate through organizational issues, business structure, project finance and the acquisition of venture capital. We assist clients in identifying funding sources and often help prepare clients for their presentations to those sources.
Members of our team assist clients in monetizing their intellectual property and maximizing the value of their technology. They also help clients identify ideas that are worthy of copyright or trademark, and they work with clients to seek out technology for potential acquisition. When government funding is involved in a project, we review the grants to ensure the company will maintain intellectual property rights throughout the process, among other issues.
Our attorneys provide counsel on a full range of transactional issues:
- Acquisitions, joint ventures, joint development
- Technology transfer and licensing
- Distribution agreements
- Outsourcing
- Taxes
Energy
Baker Hostetler advises both traditional energy concerns and cutting-edge companies as they explore new options, create sustainable processes and identify renewable energy sources. Our attorneys have worked with a broad spectrum of clients in the industry, including:
- Renewable energy projects including biofuels plants, solar facilities and wind farms
- Nuclear energy projects
- Clean coal and natural gas projects
- Co-generation projects
- Conservation projects
- Power grid infrastructure projects
For many of these clients, we provide a variety of business-related legal services:
- Entity formation
- Maximizing tax and other governmental benefits
- Project finance
- Land acquisition
- Environmental issues and permitting
- Infrastructure development
- Contract negotiation
- Power sale agreements
- Acquisitions and sales
- Technology transfer and licensing
Climate Change
Baker Hostetler’s Green Business and Sustainability Team capitalizes on the firm’s strong environmental law background and national experience to provide counsel in the emerging fields of carbon capture and storage. We advise clients in multiple industries throughout the United States on such issues as:
- Emission reduction credit trading and allowance programs (cap and trade)
- Emission reduction measures counseling
- Permitting and counseling on infrastructure projects (emissions and offsets)
- Regulatory compliance and counseling including rulemaking associated with greenhouse gas legislation
Our environmental team also assists clients in understanding and responding to regulatory mandates to use and produce more green products and to identify/adopt new business practices that comply with environmental sustainability requirements being imposed on both the state and federal level.
Our client base includes companies exploring such environmentally friendly mitigation techniques as carbon capture and sequestration.
Tax and Legislative
For many clients, our counsel goes beyond established corporate and litigation issues. Members of our policy group monitor federal and state legislation to identify potential benefits or areas of concern, then develop and advocate legislative solutions.
We frequently represent the interests of clients in the climate change and renewable energy debate, interfacing with Congressional leaders, federal agencies, trade groups and environmental organizations. Through that advocacy, our team successfully obtained a tax provision in the 2008 emergency economic package that was particularly beneficial to a traditional oil-and-gas client that plans to leverage its carbon capture technology. When climate-change and green issues arise at the state level, our policy team also provides advocacy for clients likely to be affected by resulting legislation.
Our attorneys seek economic development incentives at the federal, state and local levels. We frequently secure tax incentives, grants, tax increment financing, start-up dollars, job creation/retention tax credits and interest-free loans for companies in the energy industry and other sectors. We also advise clients on the tax treatment of green assets, such as conservation easements.
Members of the team work closely with clients to navigate SEC compliance issues related to climate change disclosures.
Finally, Baker Hostetler also helps companies organize political action committees to support candidates who align with positions that are most beneficial to our clients.
Litigation
Our team includes seasoned litigators who defend innovative companies against “not in my backyard” objections to green initiatives. Attorneys routinely handle litigation involving environmental and land use issues. They have experience in a range of such matters that relate to emerging climate change and green/sustainability issues, such as disputes involving entitlement to emission reduction credits and permitting restrictions.
We put our familiarity with the FTC’s Green Guides and other advertising regulations to use in a variety of administrative and judicial proceedings. We defend claims of false advertising made against our clients who develop green products, and we assert false advertising claims against our clients’ competitors.
Clients in the green sector frequently seek the counsel of our IP litigation attorneys, who both assert and defend the intellectual property rights of our clients in green technology assets.
Transportation
We counsel many of today’s best-known alternative-fuel and hybrid automobile brands, providing guidance on their infrastructure development and distribution network issues. We also advise traditional auto manufacturers on distribution and dealer matters related to the sale of high-efficiency vehicles, among other models.
In another sector of the transportation industry, Baker Hostetler has provided legislative advocacy for mass transportation projects.
Representative Matters:
- Represented a private equity fund in the restructuring of fuel supply and power sales arrangements for a natural gas-fired cogeneration project in Colorado.
- Represented lessee in the $416 million leveraged lease of a hydroelectric facility in Massachusetts.
- Provided patent advice to a company involved in producing recyclable water bottles.
- Provided patent consultation to a company that manufactures canola seed-based oil.
- Represented a manufacturing company developing technology to produce a biodegradable shipping product.
- Handled international legal matters for a German bio-gas company.
- Advised national trade associations on FTC regulations related to eco-friendly, green and sustainable terminology.
- Represented global energy leader in the acquisition of assets from a wind energy company.
- Represented developer in the permitting of a 5,100-acre development (with a building envelope of 1,600 acres) hailed as a model of sustainable development thanks to its restoration plan, water consumption self-containment, solar power building requirements and pedestrian-friendly layout.
- Developed distribution networks and infrastructure for the highest-profile alternative fuel/hybrid automobile manufacturers.