Environmental counsel built into the corporate plan. We handle permitting, regulatory compliance, transactional diligence, contaminated-site liability, and ESG disclosure where environmental risk meets the deal, the board, and the operating reality.
Under CERCLA the current owner of a contaminated site answers for the cleanup whether or not it caused the contamination, alongside whoever owned or ran the site when the waste went into the ground. The buyer's one reliable exit is the bona fide prospective purchaser defense, earned before closing or not at all, and kept afterwards by taking reasonable steps against ongoing releases, cooperating with the agency and honoring any land-use restriction on the title.
Permits are the asset nobody prices. A discharge permit passes to a new owner on 30 days' notice to the agency and a written agreement between seller and buyer; an air permit may need an amendment first. A buried tank, a lapsed renewal or a neighbor's plume becomes the buyer's problem on the closing date, so we scope the Phase I and any Phase II with the consultants and read the data the way the agency will.
CERCLA lets the parties allocate liability between themselves, but only by agreement, and courts want it written plainly; a bare "as is" clause does not do it. We draft that allocation, represent clients in matters before the EPA and state environmental agencies, and bring in locally admitted counsel where a site sits under a regime of its own.
Permit strategy, applications, and renewals, plus the compliance programs that keep operations within the federal and state environmental statutes governing air, water, and waste, shaped to how the business runs.
Environmental review in mergers, acquisitions, and financings, covering Phase I and Phase II coordination, permit transferability, and historical-use analysis, so environmental risk is priced into the deal before it closes.
Counsel on contaminated and brownfield sites, including cleanup obligations, statutory defenses, and the indemnities, escrows, and representations that allocate liability among current and former owners and operators.
Alignment of environmental statements, governance, and reporting with evolving disclosure expectations, so a company's public position on climate and sustainability is accurate, consistent, and legally defensible.
Representation in matters before the EPA and state environmental agencies on notices of violation, enforcement responses, and negotiated resolutions, with technical consultants coordinated where a matter requires them.
Compliance for companies with plants in more than one jurisdiction, holding each site to its local regime and the group to a single allocation of environmental risk, with locally admitted counsel coordinated through the firm's partner network where a matter requires it.
CERCLA reaches four classes of party: the current owner or operator, the owner or operator at the time of disposal, and those who arranged for or transported the waste. Fault is not an element. A lender that forecloses and holds the property, or a parent that runs a subsidiary's plant, can each fall inside the definitions.
A Phase I under the ASTM standard lasts one year, and five of its components, the interviews, the lien search and the site visit among them, must be refreshed after 180 days. It involves no sampling. If it names a recognized environmental condition, the choice is a Phase II before signing or a price that assumes the worst.
Illinois sets cleanup objectives under its tiered approach, which keys the required standard to the land use and the exposure routes, so an industrial site can be closed with contamination left in place and a restriction recorded on title. Convert it to housing and the objective changes, and so does the cost. Every state keeps its own table.
Hazardous-waste status under RCRA is set by monthly volume: under 100 kilograms a very small quantity generator, from 100 to 1,000 a small one, above that a large one, with the duties stepping up at each line. A plant that crosses a line in one busy month takes on that month's obligations unless it planned for the episode in advance.
A public company must disclose any environmental proceeding with a government party that may bring sanctions of $300,000 or more, a threshold it may raise to as much as $1 million if it says so in its filings. A notice of violation can therefore become a disclosure event before it becomes a fine. A sustainability report is read the same way.
A Title V air permit and a discharge permit each run for at most five years. A complete renewal application filed on time keeps the old permit in force while the agency works through its backlog; one filed late does not. Transfer is a separate step, by notice for some permits and by amendment for others, and it belongs in the closing checklist.
A Phase I turns up a recognized environmental condition, perhaps a historical dry cleaner, an old UST, or a neighbor's plume. We scope Phase II sampling with the consultants and read the data the way an agency will, before anyone signs anything.
Contamination is reduced to a number, with the remediation range, permit-transfer risk, and successor exposure modeled against the deal timeline. The buyer decides with the cost on the page, years before it would otherwise surface.
Statutory defenses are preserved by doing the all-appropriate-inquiries work properly, while indemnities, escrows, and environmental reps split the exposure between past and future owners in ink.
Enrollment in the state voluntary-cleanup program, remediation to the agreed standard, and a no-further-remediation letter with institutional controls recorded, so the site's history stops following the balance sheet.
Environmental liability does not care who caused it, only who owns it now. We make sure that answer is written down before you become the owner.
Hart David Carson LLP's environmental practice covers the regulatory, transactional, and disclosure questions a company faces where its operations meet environmental law: permitting and compliance programs, environmental diligence in mergers and acquisitions, contaminated-site and liability allocation, water, air, and waste regulation, and ESG and climate disclosure. We approach the work as corporate counsel, integrating environmental risk into the deal, the governance, and the operating plan.
Before the letter of intent fixes the price. A Phase I takes several weeks, a Phase II takes longer, and the bona fide prospective purchaser defense depends on the inquiry being complete before title passes. If the deal cannot wait, the fallbacks are a price adjustment, an escrow sized to the remediation range, or a seller indemnity whose survival period outlasts the cleanup rather than tracking the general representations.
Yes. We advise on compliance with federal and state environmental statutes and represent clients in matters before the EPA and state environmental agencies, and we coordinate with technical consultants and locally admitted counsel where a matter requires their depth. We appear for the company in front of those agencies.
Liability for contamination can attach to current and former owners and operators without regard to fault, which is why allocation is negotiated rather than assumed. Representations and warranties, environmental indemnities, escrows, and statutory defenses such as the bona fide prospective purchaser defense are the tools used to assign and contain that exposure, and the right combination depends on the site, the deal, and the parties.
For a public company, existing SEC rules require disclosure of material environmental proceedings and of known trends reasonably likely to affect results, and the antifraud rules reach a voluntary sustainability report as fully as a 10-K. The SEC's 2024 climate-disclosure rule was stayed before it took effect and the Commission has stopped defending it. The EU's reporting directive reaches groups with substantial EU business, and the UK requires climate-related financial disclosure from its largest companies. We tell a board which regimes bind it and which statements it has already made binding on itself, and we align the public position with the permits and the monitoring data behind it.
Yes. The firm's offices in London and Dubai operate through partner firms, and a partner network of locally admitted counsel covers about 51 jurisdictions. Environmental regimes diverge more than most: the EU's Environmental Liability Directive attaches to the operator whose activity caused the damage, where CERCLA attaches to whoever owns the site now, so the same facility is allocated differently on each side of the Atlantic. We coordinate the local counsel and hold the group to a single allocation of environmental risk, site by site.
Buy-side and sell-side deal execution where environmental diligence, liability allocation, and permit transfer often decide price and structure.
Explore →Governance, reporting, and disclosure counsel that keeps a company's environmental and sustainability statements accurate and defensible.
Explore →Board structure, fiduciary duty, and disclosure obligations, the framework through which environmental and climate risk reaches the boardroom.
Explore →Ongoing reporting, disclosure, and compliance for listed companies as climate and environmental disclosure expectations evolve.
Explore →Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
One partner is accountable for the whole matter, and you have that partner's direct line. Chicago, London, and Dubai work to the same standard.