Sam Boden
K&L Gates
Environmental Committee Meeting
Sam Boden is an associate in the environment, land, and natural resources group in the Harrisburg office. Sam assists a broad range of clients on the environmental aspects of project development, transactions, and government enforcement matters, with a specific focus on renewable energy. He counsels clients on compliance under the full suite of environmental statutes, including the Clean Water Act (CWA); National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); Endangered Species Act (ESA); the Comprehensive, Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA); and state equivalents. Sam also monitors novel issues arising under environmental laws relating to solar, wind, hydrogen energy, and carbon capture permitting, regulation of emerging contaminants, and environmental justice considerations.
He is a graduate of Messiah College and the University of Maryland.
Gail Conenello
K&L Gates LLP
Legal Breakout: Environmental Justice
Gail Conenello’s environmental practice is focused in the areas of CERCLA and Spill Act remediations and liability actions, private cost recovery actions, environmental justice actions, RCRA, environmental insurance coverage actions, due diligence for corporate and real estate transactions, and various environmental remediation, permitting, compliance, regulatory and enforcement matters.
Notably, Gail has been on the cutting edge of issues involving site remediation and environmental justice. She has spoken before various professional and trade associations, such as the New Jersey State Bar Association, the Chemistry Council of New Jersey and the New York State Business Council, on these topics.
At K&L Gates, Gail has also counseled clients on environmental issues in order to facilitate corporate and real estate transactions. She has worked on numerous multi-million dollar transactions for a wide range of clients, from pharmaceutical companies to manufacturers, and has extensive experience assisting clients with compliance and remediation issues associated with New Jersey’s Industrial Site Recovery Act.
As a complement to her work in the environmental arena, Gail has also been involved in developing community outreach programs for major industrial clients. These outreach programs develop and maintain ongoing forums for positive working relationships and effective communication between manufacturers and key stakeholders in the local and regional communities on key issues related to the daily operations of industrial facilities and legacy site remediation issues associated with former industrial operations.
Gail is a graduate of NYU and Rutgers University. Prior to entering private practice, Gail served a one year judicial clerkship in the New Jersey Superior Court, Law Division for the Honorable Douglas K. Wolfson and the Honorable Yolanda Ciccone.
David Kearby
TRIP
Dave Kearby was named executive director of TRIP in January 2020. Dave brings experience in the surface transportation field, having served with the Associated General Contractors of Washington for more than a decade as well as chair and board member of TRANSAction, one of Washington State’s first regional transportation partnerships. Besides managing the day-to-day operations of TRIP, Dave serves as a spokesperson to the news media.
Dave has a graduate degree in Business Administration from Auburn University, is a graduate of Central Washington University and is a Certified Association Executive.
Tad Macfarlan
K&L Gates
Environmental Committee Meeting
Tad Macfarlan is an experienced environmental and land use lawyer and a partner in the firm's global Environment, Land, and Natural Resources practice group. Tad's practice focuses on the environmental aspects of project development, transactional, litigation, and government enforcement matters (both civil and criminal). His clients include developers and operators of utility-scale wind and solar projects; shale gas production, transmission and electric generation facilities; water and wastewater utilities; mine and quarry operators; hazardous waste processing facilities; other heavy manufacturing and industrial facilities; and financial entities holding or acquiring an interest in such facilities. Tad regularly provides advice with respect to the regulatory regimes governing air emissions (including greenhouse gases); wetland and stream protection; wastewater and stormwater discharges; water withdrawals; hazardous wastes and materials; threatened and endangered species; cultural resources and historic properties; and local land use and zoning requirements.
Brian Montag
K&L Gates LLP
Legal Breakout: Environmental Justice
Brian Montag is a practice group coordinator for the firm's global Environment, Land, and Natural Resources practice group. He represents clients in regulatory, enforcement, and litigation matters in various industries and manufacturing sectors, including construction, quarry, asphalt, cement, telecommunications, glass, paper, and chemical operations. Brian has served as outside counsel to leading State and Federal trade and business associations. He also has extensive experience representing clients in administrative, State and Federal court proceedings, as well as before the US Department of Justice, US Environmental Protection Agency, US Department of Transportation, and State transportation and environmental agencies regionally and nationally. Brian has served in leadership roles and as lead counsel in landmark environmental regulatory and litigation matters, including settlements involving environmental justice, Superfund, air, water, and solid and hazardous waste matters, as well as products liability and toxic tort litigation.
Brian is named in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers to Business and has been listed in Best Lawyers in America in the areas of Administrative/Regulatory and Environmental Law since 2005.
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Professional Background
Brian has served as lead regulatory and litigation counsel for numerous mid-size and Fortune 500 clients throughout his career. He served as lead counsel in a complex federal environmental litigation in which the United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, ruled in favor of his client on precedent setting environmental justice issues. Brian also served as lead counsel for a group of 65 companies in a nationally recognized solid waste litigation in which he successfully negotiated a global resolution with the government. Brian has taken leadership roles in representing clients at several of the top ten Superfund sites listed on the National Priorities List. He has also provided advice and counseling to companies in matters involving new facility construction and modifications, where he has managed complex permitting and compliance issues in all phases of these projects. Brian has also advised companies in developing community advisory panels and outreach projects to gain local support for manufacturing operations and related environmental permitting; he has developed a national network of liaison groups and organizations to assist in communications, as well as environmental and economic development support for these projects.
Cliff Rothenstein
K&L Gates
Legal Breakout: Environmental Justice
Cliff Rothenstein is a government affairs advisor in the firm’s Public Policy and Law practice in Washington, D.C., He brings more than 30 years of knowledge developing and executing federal environmental and transportation legislation, policies, and regulations. He has extensive experience working with businesses, national trade associations, and other clients with interests in federal environmental policies, including policies at the intersection of environment, energy, transportation, and infrastructure. Cliff brings both substantive and political knowledge and has provided Congress, administration officials, and industry leaders strategic advice on Superfund and recycling policies and on other environmental and transportation-related issues.
Cliff advocates on behalf of clients on numerous environmental and transportation policy issues including: Superfund and solid waste, recycling and sustainability, PFAS and toxic chemicals, water and water resources, clean air, and environmental reviews for major transportation and energy infrastructure projects. In today’s rapidly changing political and regulatory climate, Cliff has made it a priority to stay abreast of current environmental policy developments at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and throughout the Administration, on Capitol Hill, and around the country and keeps clients informed with timely, relevant, and informative updates, political insights, and analyses. He helps clients identify and assess the risks and opportunities in response to various issues and develops and executes client-specific strategies such as drafting regulatory comments and consulting and meeting with key lawmakers and administration officials.
Cliff’s diverse public policy experience includes: serving as Deputy Assistant Administrator at the EPA under President Clinton; senior advisor to former Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Chairman, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT); and Director of Legislative Affairs and Policy Communications at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). During his distinguished career, Cliff was the lead staff negotiator for the Senate EPW Committee on Superfund, recycling, and brownfields legislation. He also led EPA’s Superfund negotiating team resulting in amendments to Superfund and the enactment of the Brownfields law, and he led FHWA’s development and advocacy on legislation to reauthorize the nation’s surface transportation law leading to enactment of MAP-21.
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Professional Background
Cliff has more than 30 years of congressional and federal executive experience. His diverse public policy and management experience includes service as a professional staff member for almost a decade on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under former chairman Max Baucus. While with the committee, he advised members and congressional staff on virtually all environmental matters including Superfund, brownfields, recycling, the Clean Air Act, and on transportation issues before the committee. During his tenure with the committee, Cliff played a key role in the enactment of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1986, the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, and the Congressional Review Act of 1996.
Cliff also worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency as the Deputy Assistant Administrator and the top administration official overseeing legislative reforms to the Superfund, solid and hazardous waste, brownfields, recycling, and underground storage tanks programs. His efforts resulted in enactment of the Superfund Recycling Equity Act of 1999 and the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act in 2002. He also successfully led the agency’s implementation of provisions in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 regulating gas stations and underground storage tanks and testified before the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
Cliff also served as director of the Office of Legislative Affairs and Policy Communications at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), where he coordinated daily with senior political officials at US Department of Transportation and where he served as the primary point of contact with Congress on the surface transportation reauthorization and other legislative and policy matters. During his tenure at FHWA, he led the development and advocacy efforts on legislation to reauthorize the nation’s surface transportation law including provisions to streamline project delivery and expand investments in highways, bridges, and multimodal transportation projects that were included in MAP-21. Cliff also coordinated FHWA’s discretionary grant programs for highway and bridge improvement projects and managed FHWA’s relationships with Congress on highway-specific projects and issues.
Karl Rove
General Session
Widely respected for his robust knowledge of major political issues, Karl Rove is one of the most sought-after political pundits and advisors of our time. Rove served as senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush overseeing the Offices of Political Affairs, Public Liaison, Intergovernmental Relations and Strategic Initiatives and as deputy chief of the White House Policy process. Before the White House, he ran Karl Rove & Co., a public affairs firm that consulted on over 75 conservative campaigns for statewide and Congressional offices. Editor and columnist Fred Barnes called Rove “the greatest political mind of his and probably of any generation.”
Chris Stirewalt
American Enterprise Institute & NewsNation
Board of Directors Meeting (Open to all attendees!)
For more than two decades, Chris Stirewalt has been a leading and trusted voice in U.S. politics. One of today’s liveliest political commentators, he is highly regarded for his candid and straightforward analysis of our current political climate — using his signature ‘tell-it-like-it-is’ approach to cover the most significant issues of the day and provide his expert outlook for the future. Stirewalt is also the bestselling author of the books Broken News: How the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back, a deeply researched, conversation-provoking study of today’s profit-driven news cycle and how it can be repaired, as well as Every Man a King, a dynamic account of America’s populist tradition. Today, Stirewalt is the political editor for NewsNation, America’s fastest growing cable news channel.
Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Stirewalt is an expert storyteller and astute speaker who keeps audiences engrossed with his trademark humor while breaking down complex political issues. He offers candid and witty insights on the current political climate and the latest happenings on Capitol Hill and in the White House, as well as a breakdown of how our political party system reached its current state of polarization and what he sees coming down the pike in Washington and across the nation. Stirewalt is a quickly rising star on news and within political circles whose speeches offer the perfect balance between meaty and hard-hitting takeaways and entertaining personal and professional anecdotes.
In addition to being the political editor as NewsNation, Stirewalt is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, focusing on American politics, voting trends, public opinion, and the media. He is also a contributing editor for The Dispatch, where he publishes a weekly column and his newsletter, Stirewalt on Politics. As co-host of the “Ink Stained Wretches” podcast, he helps listeners cut through media bias and separate fact from fiction in the news they consume.
Previously, Stirewalt served as the politics editor for Fox News Channel, where he helped coordinate political coverage across Fox. While at Fox, Stirewalt appeared in front of some of the largest audiences in cable news history, including tens of millions of viewers for debate and election night coverage. The podcast he co-hosted with Dana Perino, “I’ll Tell You What,” was so successful that it was spun off into a television show of the same name leading up to the 2016 election — an industry first. Joining FNC’s Washington bureau in 2010, Stirewalt made daily appearances on multiple Fox network programs, including America’s Newsroom, Outnumbered, Special Report with Bret Baier, and Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. He was also a part of the Fox News Decision Desk team, where he called races on election nights, and hosted the Fox Nation Halftime Report streaming show.
Prior to joining FNC, Stirewalt served as political editor for The Washington Examiner where he wrote a twice-weekly column and led political coverage for the newspaper. He also served as politics editor at the Charleston Daily Mail and West Virginia Media. Stirewalt began his career at the Wheeling Intelligencer in West Virginia.
He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia.