Legal Experience of Tad J. Macfarlan in Environmental Law

When high-stakes environmental permitting and complex corporate transactions intersect across heavy industry, the legal architecture required to meet federal and state compliance is exceptionally demanding. Professional filings outline the extensive transactional, regulatory, and litigation background of Tad J. Macfarlan, highlighting a career spent managing large-scale energy developments, cross-border infrastructure, and multi-state corporate restructurings.

Project Development and Environmental Permitting

Macfarlan’s energy sector practice involves steering major utility-scale and industrial projects through intricate regulatory pathways. The scope of project development work spans multiple sectors:

Utility-scale wind and solar projects, advising developers on federal, state, and local environmental and land-use permitting alongside project financing.
Data center project investments, providing counsel on state and local permitting requirements.
A 1,000-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas-fired power plant in Western Pennsylvania, guiding the developer through preconstruction environmental permits.
A Western Pennsylvania petrochemical complex, ensuring compliance with major source air permitting under the federal Clean Air Act and the Pennsylvania Air Pollution Control Act.
A cross-border electric utility line, addressing environmental permits and state-federal condemnation authority.
A rare-earth metals refiner upgrading its facilities under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Clean Water Act, Pennsylvania Solid Waste Management Act, and Pennsylvania Clean Streams Law.
Midstream oil and gas operations, covering Clean Water Act pipeline permits, endangered species protections, and cultural resource preservation.
Siting and zoning compliance for bottled water production and shale gas exploration entities in Pennsylvania.

Corporate Transactions and Restructuring

Beyond greenfield development, the practice encompasses environmental due diligence and counseling for buyers and sellers in complex corporate deals. Representative matters include acting as environmental counsel for buyers purchasing multiple steel fabrication facilities across several states, and advising an investor-owned public utility during the acquisition of municipal water and wastewater treatment systems.

Additional transactional work features representing battery recycling facility operators through multi-step corporate restructurings, serving as counsel for sellers in the divestment of an international engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firm’s capitol services segment, and advising foreign buyers acquiring an American robotics production company.

Enforcement Defense and Litigation

The regulatory and litigation record spans administrative challenges, civil enforcement actions, and criminal investigations. Notable matters include representing a coalition of coal-fired power plant owners in litigation challenging the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s CO2 Budget Trading Program, designed to implement the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Legal defenses also involve representing hazardous waste incinerator operators facing U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency civil enforcement actions and Consent Decree implementations. Other matters encompass defending North American energy companies in environmental criminal investigations, handling oil and gas administrative enforcement actions regarding wetlands and waste disposal, and litigating municipal zoning appeals for bottled water producers.

Public Policy Contributions and Pro Bono Advocacy

Regulatory engagement extends to drafting public comments on major federal and regional environmental rulemakings, including the U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan, the Pennsylvania DEP’s CO2 Budget Trading Program, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s proposed high-volume hydraulic fracturing rules, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission’s low-flow protection policy, and Pennsylvania’s GP-5 general permit for natural gas air emissions.

Pro bono representations feature counseling a nonprofit nature conservancy on conservation easements, securing a precedential opinion in Mayorga v. Attorney General, 757 F.3d 126 (2014) from the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for a Salvadorian national appealing a deportation order, and successfully representing a domestic abuse victim in a Protection from Abuse appeal before the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

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