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Chemicals and Petrochemicals
Russell Frye has worked on a wide variety of issues in the chemical and
petrochemical sectors. He has represented companies manufacturing
adhesives, antimicrobial pesticide products, carbonless copy paper, dyes
and pigments, fragrances, plastics, solvents, and various petrochemical
products. He has addressed the environmental issues in financing of plastics
production facilities, natural gas liquids plants, pipelines, and oil and gas
storage and transfer facilities. Mr. Frye’s familiarity with the
petrochemical industry dates back over 30 years, when he edited
engineering guidelines for Mobil Corporation. He has been involved in
issues ranging from oil exploration and production waste disposal to new
source review (NSR) requirements for complex refinery projects. Over the
years he has provided advice to or represented in litigation many industry
trade associations, including the American Chemistry Council, the American
Petroleum Institute, the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association,
the Pulp Chemicals Association, and the Society of Independent Gasoline
Markers of America.
Cities and Counties
Russ Frye understands the special circumstances of local governments, which
often play dual roles of environmental and health regulator and permitted
operator of water, wastewater, or solid waste facilities. Mr. Frye has
represented city and county governments in numerous citizen suits aimed at
releases from wastewater management and solid waste facilities. He also
has assisted in the defense of toxic tort actions against a city in its role as
public water supplier. Mr. Frye has made presentations on environmental
liability issues to the American Water Works Association and the Association
of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies.
Financial Institutions
Having represented both private and public financial institutions, Russell
Frye brings valuable practical experience helping industrial and commercial
clients deal with environmental problems, and he understands issues from
the perspective of both the lender and the borrower. During the 1990s,
when he headed up the environmental practice worldwide for multinational
law firm Chardbourne & Parke, Mr. Frye addressed numerous types of
environmental issues arising in many different types of financings. He
helped some of the world’s largest banks develop mechanisms to minimize
environmental liability exposure for sensitive projects (such as financing
nuclear waste storage equipment) and for complex, non-traditional financing
structures (such as defeased-asset financing). He has advised both
commercial banks and multilateral development banks on the development
of policies and procedures to identify projects and transactions with
potential environmental problems and to minimize both legal liability and
public criticism for the lending institutions. Mr. Frye also has counseled
lenders involved in work-out situations where there were substantial
environmental permitting, compliance or contamination concerns.
Food Products
Russell Frye has advised clients in the food products sector on both
compliance with environmental laws and on food safety issues. He has
represented food additive producers, restaurant chains, cow/calf
producers, chicken farmers, and pet food manufacturers. In this work, Russ
has become familiar with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation of
direct and indirect food additives, standards for contaminants in fish tissue
and fish consumption advisories, FDA establishment regulations, and
regulations under the Virus-Serum-Toxin Act. He has successfully litigated
against USDA actions allowing Canadian beef into the U.S. without sufficient
analysis of the risk of transmitting Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
(“BSE” or “Mad Cow Disease”) and has negotiated with FDA on a variety of
issues involving exposure to 2,3,7,8-TCDD (“dioxin”). Recently, Mr. Frye
has analyzed the potential for enforcement under the Emergency Planning
and Community Right To Know Act for failure of feedlots to notify EPA of
releases of ammonia and other pollutants, as well as the impact of nutrient
water quality standards guidance on agriculture. He also is involved in
issues arising from the use of treated wastewater for irrigated agriculture..
Forest Products
Russell Frye has extensive experience with all aspects of environmental
issues in the forest products industry, representing the American Forest &
Paper Association, the National Council for Air & Stream Improvement, and
numerous individual forest products companies. He was the primary
attorney advising the industry on EPA's "Cluster Rule," EPA and state
responses to the discovery of dioxin discharges at bleached pulp mills,
regulation of methanol as a hazardous air pollutant, and other critical
environmental issues for pulp and paper mills of the last two decades. He
has represented the forest products industry in EPA proceedings and
litigation involving numerous issues concerning toxic and bioaccumulative
chemicals, such as water quality standards for dioxin and PCBs; water
quality requirements for impaired waters (TMDLs) and for the Great Lakes;
regulation of isolated waters and wetlands; exposure to cellulose fiber and
wood spores; emission standards for bark boilers and black liquor recovery
boilers; and the interrelationship of air pollution and water pollution control
requirements for solid wood facilities.
Mr. Frye has advised over a dozen forest products companies on
environmental compliance, permitting for new and expanded facilities,
contaminated site cleanup, and environmental management and
stewardship, and he has represented such companies in government
enforcement actions, citizen suits, litigation over allocation of liability for
contaminated wood treating sites, and other types of litigation. Recently,
he has spent much of his time assisting pulp and paper mills and wood
products plants with Clean Air Act enforcement and permitting matters, as
well as rulemaking and now litigation concerning Maximum Achievable
Control Technology standards for plywood and composite wood panel
manufacturers.
Foundries and Steel Mills
Russell Frye has worked on environmental issues in the foundry industry for
almost 25 years, representing both ferrous and non-ferrous founders and die
casters, as well as industry trade associations. He has worked on permitting
for new foundries and major expansions, foundry sand disposal permitting,
remediation of and litigation concerning foundry waste sites, clean-up of
hydraulic equipment leaks, wastewater and stormwater discharge
permitting, and similar issues for over a dozen foundries in seven or more
states. In the mid-1980s, Mr. Frye represented a foundry in a massive grand
jury investigation that resulted in what was then the largest state criminal
penalty for hazardous waste violations.
Mr. Frye represented the American Foundry Society (AFS) and the Cast
Metals Federation in connection with EPA’s 1985 promulgation of effluent
limitations guidelines and pretreatment standards for the Metal Molding and
Casting point source category. More recently, he helped negotiate a
settlement on behalf of several metal casting trade associations that
resulted in most foundries and die casters being excluded from National
Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs) for the
Secondary Aluminum Production source category. He currently is helping
represent AFS and the Steel Founders Society of America in a petition for
review in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit of
NESHAPs (MACT standards) for the Iron and Steel Foundries source category.
As a result of Collier Shannon Scott, PLLC’s history of involvement in the
iron and steel manufacturing sector, Mr. Frye advised the Steel
Manufacturers Association, the Specialty Steel Industry of North America,
and the American Iron and Steel Institute on numerous environmental
matters, and he has represented those organizations in litigation challenging
EPA regulations on new source review, cooling water intake structures, and
the like. He is currently the primary lawyer for Collier Shannon Scott’s
representation of steel mills in challenges in the D.C. Circuit of NESHAPs for
the Iron and Steel Manufacturing and Taconite Iron Ore Production source
categories. In addition, Mr. Frye has worked on air pollution and
wastewater discharge permitting issues for numerous individual steel mills.
Mr. Frye also has experience with steel service centers, having conducted
environmental audits and advised on acquisitions and divestitures in that
sector.
Metalworking and Machinery
Russell Frye has a deep understanding of the environmental issues faced by
businesses that manufacture metal parts, products, and machinery. In
addition to his work with iron and steel mills and ferrous and non-ferrous
foundries described above, he has represented companies that manufacture
a diverse range of products, including air conditioning equipment,
automobiles and automotive parts, bicycles, bottling equipment, cast iron
pipe and copper tubing, copper and brass plumbing fittings, forklifts, hand
tools, machine tools, valves, staplers and staples, and steel doors.
Mr. Frye has been involved in both the development and the
implementation and enforcement of many regulatory programs affecting
manufacturers, such as pretreatment requirements for discharges to
municipal sewers, restrictions on emissions from coatings and adhesives,
management of PCB-containing electrical equipment and hydraulic
equipment, solvent use and disposal, use and disposal of metalworking
fluids, use and recycling of solvents, and the management of various types
of solid and hazardous waste.
Power Generation and Public Utilities
Throughout the 1990s, Russell Frye headed the environmental practice group
worldwide for the multinational law firm Chadbourne & Parke, which was
one of the leaders in the independent power sector and project finance of
power, water, and other infrastructure projects. As a result, Mr. Frye has
addressed environmental issues in permitting and financing of coal-fired
power plants, combined-cycle natural gas turbines, gas and coal
cogeneration projects, incinerators, biomass-fired boilers, geothermal
projects, and wind farms. Prior to that, he advised one of the partners in
the first-ever conversion of a nuclear power plant to fossil fuel. Language
Mr. Frye drafted to provide fair treatment to cogenerators in the acid rain
control program was incorporated into the Clean Air Act Amendments of
1990, and he subsequently brought successful litigation in the Court of
Appeals to force EPA to withdraw an overly restrictive definition of
cogeneration in its regulations implementing the acid rain amendments.
More recently, Mr. Frye has been involved in rulemaking and litigation
concerning technology requirements for cooling water intake structures at
electric generating stations and other large facilities.
Having advised numerous multinational commercial banks and several
development banks and export credit agencies on environmental issues in
financing power plants, Mr. Frye appreciates the concerns of lenders and
the public about such projects. He has been involved in all aspects of siting
and permitting landfills for municipal waste and industrial waste and has
represented landfill operators in enforcement actions and toxic tort claims.
He has negotiated or litigated matters concerning many environmental issues
in the utility sector, including nitrogen oxides (NOx) controls, ash disposal,
beneficial use of fly ash and wastewater treatment plant sludge, landfill
leachate management, and water and wastewater treatment plant sludge
disposal. He has been involved in litigation both challenging and defending
the quality of water supplied by public and private water utilities and has
represented wastewater treatment utilities in public and private
enforcement actions, permit negotiation, and permit appeals.
Trade Associations
Russell Frye has represented national trade associations and business
organizations since the early 1980s. In some cases, he regularly provides
such organizations with environmental, antitrust, and general litigation
advice, while in other instances he has been retained by the organization,
or by an ad hoc coalition of such organizations, to provide representation
on a particular rulemaking, judicial challenge to agency action, or
participation in appellate litigation as an amicus curiae. Mr. Frye has
advised trade associations on document creation and retention policies,
antitrust compliance, attorney-client privilege and joint defense agreement
issues, use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), lobbying strategy and
regulations, defending and mitigating the risk of toxic tort actions, and
numerous other issues that trade associations face. He has represented
both industry and business associations, and technical and scientific
associations. Mr. Frye currently is representing, for example, an ad hoc
coalition of 13 trade associations and business organizations as intervenors in
litigation aimed at forcing EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from
automobiles, whose members range from the American Petroleum Institute
to the National Association of Convenience Stores.
For a detailed description of Russ Frye’s experience with various areas of
environmental, health, and safety law, as well as administrative law and
litigation and alternative dispute resolution, click here.
For more specific examples of matters Russ Frye has worked on and the
types of EHS services that FryeLaw PLLC can provide, click here.
For a list of representative clients, comments about Russ Frye and FryeLaw
PLLC by others, and examples of successes Russ has obtained for his clients,
click here.
petrochemical sectors. He has represented companies manufacturing
adhesives, antimicrobial pesticide products, carbonless copy paper, dyes
and pigments, fragrances, plastics, solvents, and various petrochemical
products. He has addressed the environmental issues in financing of plastics
production facilities, natural gas liquids plants, pipelines, and oil and gas
storage and transfer facilities. Mr. Frye’s familiarity with the
petrochemical industry dates back over 30 years, when he edited
engineering guidelines for Mobil Corporation. He has been involved in
issues ranging from oil exploration and production waste disposal to new
source review (NSR) requirements for complex refinery projects. Over the
years he has provided advice to or represented in litigation many industry
trade associations, including the American Chemistry Council, the American
Petroleum Institute, the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association,
the Pulp Chemicals Association, and the Society of Independent Gasoline
Markers of America.
Cities and Counties
Russ Frye understands the special circumstances of local governments, which
often play dual roles of environmental and health regulator and permitted
operator of water, wastewater, or solid waste facilities. Mr. Frye has
represented city and county governments in numerous citizen suits aimed at
releases from wastewater management and solid waste facilities. He also
has assisted in the defense of toxic tort actions against a city in its role as
public water supplier. Mr. Frye has made presentations on environmental
liability issues to the American Water Works Association and the Association
of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies.
Financial Institutions
Having represented both private and public financial institutions, Russell
Frye brings valuable practical experience helping industrial and commercial
clients deal with environmental problems, and he understands issues from
the perspective of both the lender and the borrower. During the 1990s,
when he headed up the environmental practice worldwide for multinational
law firm Chardbourne & Parke, Mr. Frye addressed numerous types of
environmental issues arising in many different types of financings. He
helped some of the world’s largest banks develop mechanisms to minimize
environmental liability exposure for sensitive projects (such as financing
nuclear waste storage equipment) and for complex, non-traditional financing
structures (such as defeased-asset financing). He has advised both
commercial banks and multilateral development banks on the development
of policies and procedures to identify projects and transactions with
potential environmental problems and to minimize both legal liability and
public criticism for the lending institutions. Mr. Frye also has counseled
lenders involved in work-out situations where there were substantial
environmental permitting, compliance or contamination concerns.
Food Products
Russell Frye has advised clients in the food products sector on both
compliance with environmental laws and on food safety issues. He has
represented food additive producers, restaurant chains, cow/calf
producers, chicken farmers, and pet food manufacturers. In this work, Russ
has become familiar with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation of
direct and indirect food additives, standards for contaminants in fish tissue
and fish consumption advisories, FDA establishment regulations, and
regulations under the Virus-Serum-Toxin Act. He has successfully litigated
against USDA actions allowing Canadian beef into the U.S. without sufficient
analysis of the risk of transmitting Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
(“BSE” or “Mad Cow Disease”) and has negotiated with FDA on a variety of
issues involving exposure to 2,3,7,8-TCDD (“dioxin”). Recently, Mr. Frye
has analyzed the potential for enforcement under the Emergency Planning
and Community Right To Know Act for failure of feedlots to notify EPA of
releases of ammonia and other pollutants, as well as the impact of nutrient
water quality standards guidance on agriculture. He also is involved in
issues arising from the use of treated wastewater for irrigated agriculture..
Forest Products
Russell Frye has extensive experience with all aspects of environmental
issues in the forest products industry, representing the American Forest &
Paper Association, the National Council for Air & Stream Improvement, and
numerous individual forest products companies. He was the primary
attorney advising the industry on EPA's "Cluster Rule," EPA and state
responses to the discovery of dioxin discharges at bleached pulp mills,
regulation of methanol as a hazardous air pollutant, and other critical
environmental issues for pulp and paper mills of the last two decades. He
has represented the forest products industry in EPA proceedings and
litigation involving numerous issues concerning toxic and bioaccumulative
chemicals, such as water quality standards for dioxin and PCBs; water
quality requirements for impaired waters (TMDLs) and for the Great Lakes;
regulation of isolated waters and wetlands; exposure to cellulose fiber and
wood spores; emission standards for bark boilers and black liquor recovery
boilers; and the interrelationship of air pollution and water pollution control
requirements for solid wood facilities.
Mr. Frye has advised over a dozen forest products companies on
environmental compliance, permitting for new and expanded facilities,
contaminated site cleanup, and environmental management and
stewardship, and he has represented such companies in government
enforcement actions, citizen suits, litigation over allocation of liability for
contaminated wood treating sites, and other types of litigation. Recently,
he has spent much of his time assisting pulp and paper mills and wood
products plants with Clean Air Act enforcement and permitting matters, as
well as rulemaking and now litigation concerning Maximum Achievable
Control Technology standards for plywood and composite wood panel
manufacturers.
Foundries and Steel Mills
Russell Frye has worked on environmental issues in the foundry industry for
almost 25 years, representing both ferrous and non-ferrous founders and die
casters, as well as industry trade associations. He has worked on permitting
for new foundries and major expansions, foundry sand disposal permitting,
remediation of and litigation concerning foundry waste sites, clean-up of
hydraulic equipment leaks, wastewater and stormwater discharge
permitting, and similar issues for over a dozen foundries in seven or more
states. In the mid-1980s, Mr. Frye represented a foundry in a massive grand
jury investigation that resulted in what was then the largest state criminal
penalty for hazardous waste violations.
Mr. Frye represented the American Foundry Society (AFS) and the Cast
Metals Federation in connection with EPA’s 1985 promulgation of effluent
limitations guidelines and pretreatment standards for the Metal Molding and
Casting point source category. More recently, he helped negotiate a
settlement on behalf of several metal casting trade associations that
resulted in most foundries and die casters being excluded from National
Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs) for the
Secondary Aluminum Production source category. He currently is helping
represent AFS and the Steel Founders Society of America in a petition for
review in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit of
NESHAPs (MACT standards) for the Iron and Steel Foundries source category.
As a result of Collier Shannon Scott, PLLC’s history of involvement in the
iron and steel manufacturing sector, Mr. Frye advised the Steel
Manufacturers Association, the Specialty Steel Industry of North America,
and the American Iron and Steel Institute on numerous environmental
matters, and he has represented those organizations in litigation challenging
EPA regulations on new source review, cooling water intake structures, and
the like. He is currently the primary lawyer for Collier Shannon Scott’s
representation of steel mills in challenges in the D.C. Circuit of NESHAPs for
the Iron and Steel Manufacturing and Taconite Iron Ore Production source
categories. In addition, Mr. Frye has worked on air pollution and
wastewater discharge permitting issues for numerous individual steel mills.
Mr. Frye also has experience with steel service centers, having conducted
environmental audits and advised on acquisitions and divestitures in that
sector.
Metalworking and Machinery
Russell Frye has a deep understanding of the environmental issues faced by
businesses that manufacture metal parts, products, and machinery. In
addition to his work with iron and steel mills and ferrous and non-ferrous
foundries described above, he has represented companies that manufacture
a diverse range of products, including air conditioning equipment,
automobiles and automotive parts, bicycles, bottling equipment, cast iron
pipe and copper tubing, copper and brass plumbing fittings, forklifts, hand
tools, machine tools, valves, staplers and staples, and steel doors.
Mr. Frye has been involved in both the development and the
implementation and enforcement of many regulatory programs affecting
manufacturers, such as pretreatment requirements for discharges to
municipal sewers, restrictions on emissions from coatings and adhesives,
management of PCB-containing electrical equipment and hydraulic
equipment, solvent use and disposal, use and disposal of metalworking
fluids, use and recycling of solvents, and the management of various types
of solid and hazardous waste.
Power Generation and Public Utilities
Throughout the 1990s, Russell Frye headed the environmental practice group
worldwide for the multinational law firm Chadbourne & Parke, which was
one of the leaders in the independent power sector and project finance of
power, water, and other infrastructure projects. As a result, Mr. Frye has
addressed environmental issues in permitting and financing of coal-fired
power plants, combined-cycle natural gas turbines, gas and coal
cogeneration projects, incinerators, biomass-fired boilers, geothermal
projects, and wind farms. Prior to that, he advised one of the partners in
the first-ever conversion of a nuclear power plant to fossil fuel. Language
Mr. Frye drafted to provide fair treatment to cogenerators in the acid rain
control program was incorporated into the Clean Air Act Amendments of
1990, and he subsequently brought successful litigation in the Court of
Appeals to force EPA to withdraw an overly restrictive definition of
cogeneration in its regulations implementing the acid rain amendments.
More recently, Mr. Frye has been involved in rulemaking and litigation
concerning technology requirements for cooling water intake structures at
electric generating stations and other large facilities.
Having advised numerous multinational commercial banks and several
development banks and export credit agencies on environmental issues in
financing power plants, Mr. Frye appreciates the concerns of lenders and
the public about such projects. He has been involved in all aspects of siting
and permitting landfills for municipal waste and industrial waste and has
represented landfill operators in enforcement actions and toxic tort claims.
He has negotiated or litigated matters concerning many environmental issues
in the utility sector, including nitrogen oxides (NOx) controls, ash disposal,
beneficial use of fly ash and wastewater treatment plant sludge, landfill
leachate management, and water and wastewater treatment plant sludge
disposal. He has been involved in litigation both challenging and defending
the quality of water supplied by public and private water utilities and has
represented wastewater treatment utilities in public and private
enforcement actions, permit negotiation, and permit appeals.
Trade Associations
Russell Frye has represented national trade associations and business
organizations since the early 1980s. In some cases, he regularly provides
such organizations with environmental, antitrust, and general litigation
advice, while in other instances he has been retained by the organization,
or by an ad hoc coalition of such organizations, to provide representation
on a particular rulemaking, judicial challenge to agency action, or
participation in appellate litigation as an amicus curiae. Mr. Frye has
advised trade associations on document creation and retention policies,
antitrust compliance, attorney-client privilege and joint defense agreement
issues, use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), lobbying strategy and
regulations, defending and mitigating the risk of toxic tort actions, and
numerous other issues that trade associations face. He has represented
both industry and business associations, and technical and scientific
associations. Mr. Frye currently is representing, for example, an ad hoc
coalition of 13 trade associations and business organizations as intervenors in
litigation aimed at forcing EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from
automobiles, whose members range from the American Petroleum Institute
to the National Association of Convenience Stores.
For a detailed description of Russ Frye’s experience with various areas of
environmental, health, and safety law, as well as administrative law and
litigation and alternative dispute resolution, click here.
For more specific examples of matters Russ Frye has worked on and the
types of EHS services that FryeLaw PLLC can provide, click here.
For a list of representative clients, comments about Russ Frye and FryeLaw
PLLC by others, and examples of successes Russ has obtained for his clients,
click here.
Copyright FryeLaw PLLC 2005-2008. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THIS SITE IS INTENDED TO EDUCATE MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC GENERALLY AND IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE SOLUTIONS TO INDIVIDUAL LEGAL PROBLEMS, NOR TO CREATE AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP. PLEASE READ OUR DISCLAIMER PAGE. |
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