Robert Brager is recognized as one of the country’s top environmental lawyers, providing counseling, litigation, and negotiation services for Beveridge & Diamond clients since 1981.
Both a litigator and a counselor who uses his decades of experience in environmental law to help clients make reasoned judgments in complicated and difficult situations, Rob provides dispassionate, analytical thinking based on unbiased facts that have survived skeptical challenge.
Mr. Brager chose a career in environmental law due to the interplay of science with bias and the variability and breadth of the environmental law practice. Early in his career, a partner gave Rob two ten-hour assignments with a deadline of fewer than twenty hours. Despite the seeming mathematical impossibility of completing both assignments on time, he was able to do so without difficulty, and he learned a valuable lesson about dealing skeptically with the impossible.
Accomplishments of which Rob is particularly proud include a case where his opponents asked the court to find that the Clean Air Act required EPA to set a zero rather than a one in a million risk standard. Had that argument prevailed, Rob’s clients would have been forced to close their facilities. He explained why it was impossible to differentiate zero risk from one in a million risk due to complexities in animal testing and the limits inherent in statistical analysis. The court relied on Rob’s explanations to rule in his clients’ favor.
In another notable matter, EPA issued a Clean Water Act permit without a mixing zone by relying on a state certification that was withdrawn shortly after issuance. Rob convinced the court that this action was irrational, and it reversed EPA’s decision even though it held that EPA had the authority to do as it had done.
Rob is a former B&D Managing Principal. He lectures and publishes articles on the air toxics, permitting, and enforcement provisions of the Clean Air Act, as well as on cost-effective means of avoiding and defending against enforcement actions and prosecuting and defending cost recovery and natural resource damages litigation.
Rob served as law clerk for Judge Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr. of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
More Legal and Business Bylines From Robert Brager
- EPA Issues New Policy Calling for Closer Coordination Between Civil and Criminal Enforcement - (Posted On Monday, April 22, 2024)
- EPA Leverages Controversial IRIS Value for Ethylene Oxide to Fast-Track Overhaul of Clean Air Act Regulations of Chemical Manufacturers - (Posted On Thursday, April 13, 2023)
- EPA Leverages Controversial IRIS Value for EtO to Fast-Track Overhaul of Clean Air Act Regulations of Chemical Manufacturers - (Posted On Wednesday, April 12, 2023)
- EPA Letter of Concern Cements Use of Title VI/Environmental Justice as Permit Challenge Tool - (Posted On Thursday, October 20, 2022)
- Getting Beyond the Beyond Campaigns: Top Tips for Preparing to Defend Your Project - (Posted On Friday, October 07, 2022)
- Ethylene Oxide Update: Second Risk Review Process Resolves EPA-OIG Conflict; EPA Advances Sterilizer Agenda - (Posted On Thursday, August 11, 2022)
- Strategic Considerations for Responding to a Clean Air Act 114 Request - (Posted On Friday, March 11, 2022)
- EPA Forges Ahead on EO Actions without Completing Review of the Controversial IRIS Value or Its Use in Rulemaking - (Posted On Wednesday, December 08, 2021)
- After Months of Delay, EPA Quietly Takes Steps Toward Community Outreach on Ethylene Oxide Risks; OIG Once Again Urges EPA to Expedite Community-Specific Notifications - (Posted On Saturday, February 27, 2021)
- After Months of Delay, EPA Quietly Takes Steps Toward Community Outreach on Ethylene Oxide Risks - (Posted On Friday, February 19, 2021)