Session:  Day 1 Open Plenary - Putting the US on a path towards a low carbon future: a fresh look at the latest developments of federal climate change legislation or regulation and what might come ahead.

Roger Martella is a partner in the Environmental Practice Group at Sidley Austin LLP. He recently rejoined Sidley Austin LLP after serving as the General Counsel of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, concluding 10 years of litigating and handling complex environmental and natural resource matters at the Department of Justice and EPA.

Mr. Martella was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate as EPA General Counsel. In that role, Mr. Martella served as EPA’s chief legal advisor supervising an office of 350 attorneys and staff in Washington and 10 regional offices. In particular, Mr. Martella lead the team responsible for developing for the first time under the Clean Air Act the federal government’s climate change legal framework and options in response to the landmark Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA, which held greenhouse gases to be air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. His efforts included developing a full range of legal options for decision makers related to greenhouse gas regulation, alternative and renewable fuels, the development of regulatory carbon sequestration controls, and the intersection of climate change and natural resource issues including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. Recognized for his knowledge on legal approaches to addressing climate change, Mr. Martella focuses specifically on dissecting the extraordinarily complex and interrelated ramifications of climate change on numerous provisions of the Clean Air Act relating to mobile and stationary sources, as well as other laws, such as the ESA and NEPA. Mr. Martella’s experience in this area enables him to work to forecast for clients the likelihood of upcoming regulations and controls in the area of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability, and to develop strategic approaches to be best prepared for such controls. Mr. Martella also focuses on international climate issues, working with Chinese institutes on climate and clean energy issues and advocating for conformity between United States climate rules with the European Union. Since the April 2007 Massachusetts decision, Mr. Martella has been invited to address climate change regulation more than twenty five times in the United States and abroad.

Recognizing deficiencies in the China environmental law framework and the challenges for multinational organizations in understanding the laws on the books, Mr. Martella created the China Environmental Law Initiative in 2007. As part of the initiative, Mr. Martella created the only known website devoted to China environmental laws and organized with the State Environmental Protection Agency (now the Ministry of Environmental Protection) two separate symposia in China. Mr. Martella has served as a visiting professor at the Environmental Law Institute of Wuhan University and the State Environmental Protection Agency, and at Tsinghua University, working with academics, officials and students on developing environmental law frameworks for China. Mr. Martella has testified as an expert on this issue before the United States Congress, worked with numerous government officials at the national and provincial level in China, and has lectured with academics and students at leading universities and think tanks in both nations.

Mr. Martella graduated from Vanderbilt Law School, where he was Editor in Chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review, and Cornell University, where he studied environmental science. Following law school, he clerked for the Hon. David M. Ebel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. Martella, elected at large to the Warrenton, VA, Town Council, devotes significant effort to public service in his community and was recognized in 2006 as Citizen of the Year by the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors for his public service and volunteerism efforts.