The Changing Face of Enforcement for the Cement Industry
SPEAKER BIOS
David Garcia
Mr. David Garcia currently serves as the Chief of the Air/Toxics Inspection and Coordination Branch in the Compliance Assurance and Enforcement Division at EPA's Region 6 office in Dallas, Texas. He has a degree in Civil Engineering and graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington. David's 15 years of work experience at EPA have been equally spent in air permits and in air enforcement.
Jennifer Sidnell
Jennifer Sidnell has been with the TCEQ or its predecessor agencies since September, 1982. During her tenure with the Agency, she has worked in various agency programs including having served as a water quality investigator, the Wastewater Enforcement Coordinator, and Section Chief of the Wastewater Enforcement Section. In August, 1996 Jennifer began serving as the Director over water programs in the Field Operations Division and in February, 2001 she moved to assume the responsibilities of Special Assistant for the Office of Compliance and Enforcement (OCE) reporting directly to the Deputy Director. She also managed the Information Technology (IT) Section which is responsible for the development, implementation and maintenance of all OCE data systems. In February 2002 she began serving as Special Assistant for the Office of Permitting, Remediation and Registration reporting directly to the Deputy Director where she addressed Toxicology and Risk Assessment and Remediation issues and the IT Section.
Since November, 2002, Jennifer has served as the Director of TCEQ's Field Operations Division. In that capacity she is responsible for management and operation of almost 800 field staff located in 16 TCEQ Regional Offices in Texas. She oversees the implementation of 26 agency programs that are mandated to perform investigations at the approximately 220,000 regulated facilities across the state. The Field Operations Division handles citizen requests for assistance, complaints, and nuisance odor investigations, and manages the Citizen's Collected Evidence program.
Lynne Spector
Ms. Lynne Spector is a project manager with Zephyr Environmental Corporation who has focused primarily on air permitting for the industrial community - in particular the cement industry - since 1995. During her career, she has interfaced with plant engineers, dispersion modelers, design teams, state/local regulatory agencies, and legal teams to achieve solutions to a myriad of different air compliance issues. Lynne has combined process engineering experience with regulatory knowledge to develop many permit applications for the cement industry that satisfy the requirements of the regulations and maintain operational flexibility. To ensure compliance with various permits, Lynne has also developed O&M Plans and SSM Plans, as well as fugitive dust plans for cement clients.
Lynne spearheaded the development of Zephyr's PC MACT Compliance System, a tool to assist cement clients with the cumbersome recordkeeping and reporting requirements of 40 CFR Part 63, Subparts A and LLL. This customized data management system combines software, hard-copy or electronic logs, CEM system integration and training to enable the user to collect, store and retrieve the data necessary to meet these requirements.
She has conducted audits of many cement facilities, including both hazardous and non-hazardous waste burning facilities, to evaluate the criteria and systems used to comply with EPCRA requirements. She has also conducted NSR audits for her cement clients. Lynne has developed many Emission Certifications for the cement industry. She developed extensive spreadsheets to report annual emissions, considering multiple processes at the plant, both point and fugitive emissions, and alternate operating scenarios.
Dan Nugent
Dan Nugent is the Vice President, Environmental Affairs at Buzzi Unicem USA, Inc. located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Mr. Nugent has a BS Degree in Meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University. He has 20 years of environmental permitting and compliance experience, in which 5 of those years include consulting experience with NUS Corp. - mostly in air quality permitting for the cement industry. The remaining 15 years of experience comprise of work directly for the cement industry, all with Buzzi Unicem USA (formerly RC Cement). Mr. Nugent is also the current and former chairman of various committees in PCA and CKRC.
James B. Harris
Mr. Jim Harris is an attorney with Thompson & Knight who focuses his practice on regulatory litigation and counseling. He assists clients in environmental regulation compliance, including running compliance audits and developing corporate policies, as well as in due diligence.
Jim's environmental litigation expertise includes cost-recovery actions, enforcement actions, contested permits, bankruptcy claims, regulation challenges, debarment proceedings, and criminal actions. He also represents clients in litigation challenging local government ordinances, permit decisions, and zoning actions, as well as in property tax litigation regarding challenges to valuation, situs determinations, and right to exemptions.
John F. Steib, Jr.
Mr. John Steib, Jr. joined the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) as the Program Director for the Mobile Source Inspection/Maintenance Program in August of 1994 where he was responsible for implementing the Texas centralized vehicle emissions testing program. In February 2003, John was selected as the Director for the newly combined federal and state Air Permits Division and on September 1, 2003 became the Deputy Director of the TCEQ's Office of Compliance and Enforcement. Reporting to the Executive Director, he is responsible for implementing the TCEQ's policies and regulations dealing with regulatory compliance and enforcement, while ensuring consistent application across the state of Texas. He accomplishes this with a staff of approximately 1,100 employees assigned to sixteen regional offices as well as the Austin headquarters. His responsibilities also include statewide monitoring of air and water quality, compliance support, occupational licensing, Homeland Security for the Agency, field inspections, and enforcement.
Prior to joining the TCEQ management team, John spent eleven years at Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., Austin Division where he served as a Program Manager in support of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Exploration Programs and the Lockheed Launch Vehicle Program. Before joining Lockheed, John completed a twenty year Navy career which began as a deck seaman on a light cruiser. His highly decorated career progressed through the enlisted grades through Chief Petty Officer and into the officer ranks to retire in 1983 with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
Patrick Raher
Mr. Pat Raher serves as director of Hogan & Hartson's environmental group. He practices principally in the environmental and transportation law areas with an emphasis on legislative, rulemaking, and judicial consideration of highly complex technical and engineering situations that affect the clients with whom he works. Pat has been an appointed member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Clean Air Act Advisory Committee since 1992.
Pat works closely with trade associations, in-house legal staff, and engineering and scientific support personnel to vigorously pursue client objectives. He assists clients by taking complex scientific, engineering and health issues and presenting them to legislative committees, governmental agencies, and the courts in a form that conveys the client's goals and positions and highlights their compatibility with relevant environmental goals.
Pat lectures on environmental issues to trade associations, environmental groups, and foundations interested in environmental law. He has practiced before the federal courts in most circuits as well as before the EPA and the California Air Resources Board.
Albert R. Axe, Jr.
Mr. Al Axe, Jr. of Winstead PC is a member of the firm's Environmental & Administrative Law Advocacy Group. Al has over twenty-five (25) years experience representing business and industrial clients in legislative, environmental and related litigation matters, with 24 of those years involving the representation of clients in the cement industry. In addition to the cement industry, he has provided legal advice and counseling to clients in the following industries: construction, pulp, paper and forestry, electronic, semiconductor, nonferrous metals, chemical (including agricultural chemicals), petroleum refinery, flexographic printing, lime, beef slaughtering and processing, waste disposal, and mining. He provides general business and regulatory counseling related to the permitting of new and existing industrial plants and solid and hazardous waste management facilities, federal and state enforcement proceedings, and property contamination issues. He advises clients with regards to federal, state and local regulation of air pollutants, wastewater discharges, hazardous and solid waste and injection wells. He handles business-related and regulatory-related litigation, including superfund and toxic-tort cases. He also represents clients in various administrative proceedings before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Al is a member of the Environment, Energy and Resources Section, the Litigation Section, and the Administrative Law Section of the American Bar Association, a member and Past President of the Administrative Law Section of the Austin Bar Association (formerly Travis County Bar Association), and a member and former Chair of the Southwest Section of the Air and Waste Management Association. He is listed in The International Who's Who of Environmental Lawyers 2006.
James C. Morriss
Mr. Jim Morriss, an attorney with Thompson & Knight, focuses his practice on environmental permitting, compliance counseling, legislative lobbying, and administrative and judicial litigation before local, state, and federal environmental agencies and state and federal courts. He has extensive experience in counseling clients in environmental risk management, including the design and implementation of environmental auditing programs and environmental management systems, and in the investigation and disclosure of environmental liabilities and contingencies.
Jim represents clients in a variety of industry and commercial sectors including steel, metals recycling, organic and inorganic chemicals, petroleum refining, plastics, cement, oil and gas exploration and production, transportation, and real estate development.
Roger Brower
Mr. Roger Brower is a Principal with Zephyr Environmental Corporation. He has been an air quality scientist and consultant since 1977, focusing on complex air permitting and compliance, expert testimony, and state-of-the-art air quality modeling.
Roger specializes in complex New Source Review and air quality permitting issues as well as regulatory compliance issues. He has successfully obtained both major and minor construction and operation permits for the cement industry and others. For example, he was Project Manager for the permitting of the $260 million modernization at the Lehigh Cement Company's Union Bridge, Maryland plant. In assisting clients with their regulatory compliance, he has performed NSR enforcement and regulatory interpretation support, environmental compliance audits, including those under EPA's Audit Policy, risk assessments, and developed innovative permitting strategies. In addition to managing and providing technical support, he has provided expert testimony for cement and other clients in the area of air quality impact assessment.
Roger has a strong technical background. He has been involved in the development of state-of-the-art air quality dispersion models for over 25 years. He helped develop key aspects of the new U.S. EPA AERMOD model. He also was the lead investigator of a state-of-the-art health-based risk assessment examining risks of multipathway exposures involving development of unique wet and dry deposition models. He has authored technical papers on cement plant NOxx control, plume model development and evaluation, risk assessment, and air quality meteorology.
