Bart E. Cassidy

Biography:

Bart Cassidy is a partner at Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox LLP. Bart combines his legal, technical, and business skills to assist clients with a broad spectrum of environmental issues, including air and water quality control, waste management, storage tank issues, and business and real estate transactions. Prior to entering the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1989, Bart served for approximately four years as a technical analyst to the vice president of the Grumman Corporation, where he provided technical and management expertise to the Fortune 150 company on environmental, energy, and occupational safety issues. Bart's engineering education and experience have proven to be a valuable asset in providing environmental regulatory counseling to clients, particularly in the highly technical realm of air quality control, and in litigating environmental matters before federal and state courts and administrative tribunals.

Bart's representations extend from private individuals through major international corporations, relating to regulatory compliance counseling, environmental litigation, and complex transactions including the following matters:

• negotiating a major federal consent decree, with a value of approximately three quarters of a billion dollars, in the context of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") national petroleum refinery enforcement initiative;
• defending electric generating units in response to state and federal enforcement actions concerning compliance with air quality regulatory requirements;
• negotiating terms of wastewater discharge permit requirements for chemical and industrial manufacturing facilities, as well as consent agreements reflecting schedules to achieve compliance with relevant issues;
• appealing numerous air quality, water quality, and solid waste permits in response to objectionable conditions, lack of operational flexibility, and onerous or inapplicable compliance obligations;
• defending environmental permits against third party challenges, including defending a major international municipal waste management company in response to third party citizen suit and permit challenges;
• drafting and negotiating environmental agreements for the purchase and sale of complex industrial facilities, including petroleum refineries, chemical plants, and metals processing facilities;
• providing immediate counseling to industrial facilities in response to emergency incidents resulting from the release of regulated constituents to the environment, including coordinating response actions, responding to governmental inquiries, and addressing requests from the media;
• challenging EPA actions before the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal, including EPA applicability determinations regarding regulatory standards and promulgation of major EPA regulatory programs such as the Clean Air Interstate Rule ("CAIR") and the Clean Air Mercury Rule ("CAMR");
• drafting and coordinating comments concerning both federal and state major rulemaking initiatives on behalf of interested parties; and
• addressing environmental contamination of soils, surface water, and groundwater, including overseeing consultant work relative to regulatory standards, pursuing indemnity/contribution from relevant parties, and achieving satisfaction of alterative attainment standards in the most cost-effective and timely manner.

 

 

Bart is an adjunct professor at the Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law, and has been listed in Tier I for Chambers USA - America's Leading Lawyers for Business since 2005. He has also been listed for environmental law and land use/zoning in Pennsylvania's Super Lawyer since 2004 and was listed in environmental law and environmental litigation in the 2010 edition of Best Lawyers® in America. Bart is AV Preeminent Peer Review Rated through Martindale-Hubbell®. He has written and spoken on numerous occasions concerning various aspects of environmental law, notably including air and water quality law and government enforcement of environmental standards.

Upon graduation from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Bart earned six prizes for academic excellence, including the award for highest achievement in appellate argument competition, the Frank H. Gelman Prize for excellence in the subjects of real property and real estate transactions, and the Peter McCall Prize for the highest grades in his class over all three years. He also became a member of the Order of the Coif. Bart earned a master of science degree in civil engineering with a concentration in environmental engineering from the Polytechnic University in New York, and a bachelor's degree in engineering from Swarthmore College with a concentration in environmental engineering and chemistry.

Education:

• University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D., summa cum laude, 1992
• Polytechnic University in New York, M.S.C.E., 1989
• Swarthmore College, B.S., 1985

Memberships:

• Bar admissions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, District of New Jersey, Third Circuit Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals
• Licensed professional engineer in Pennsylvania and New York
• National Society of Professional Engineers
• Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers
• Pennsylvania Bar Association, Environmental, Mineral, and Natural Resources Law Section