Scott M. Turner - Lawyer in Rochester, NY

Scott Turner, who chairs the Energy and Environmental practice group, concentrates in energy and environmental law, particularly in the permitting and regulation of energy and other infrastructure facilities (e.g., electric power plants, transmission lines, pipelines and landfills).

What do you focus on?

I have helped clients obtain permits for energy facilities in California, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Oklahoma. For example, I represented an energy client in obtaining its California Energy Commission certification and PSD permit for a 500 MW gas-fired merchant power plant in northern California and led the successful defense of that PSD permit before EPAs Environmental Appeals Board.

In New York, I played a lead role in the Article X certification and PSD permitting process for the Athens Generating Project, an 1100 MW gas-fired power plant (the first project to be successfully certified under the states then-current power plant siting statute). I later represented another energy client in obtaining an Article X certificate and PSD and SPDES permits for the 1816 MW Astoria Generating Station repowering project.

One particularly complex effort that I led was the successful permitting of a major landfill expansion that involved the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish Wildlife Service, and the municipality. Four state permits, four local permits, a federal permit, and an Endangered Species Act consultation were required.

My enforcement work has included the defense of air pollution enforcement proceedings brought by EPA, New York, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I successfully litigated, in federal district court and the Third Circuit, a major enforcement matter arising from EPAs challenge to a PSD permit issued by Pennsylvania for a six-unit gas turbine facility.