David T. Buente Jr.

David joined Sidley in 1990 from the U.S. Department of Justice where he was the Chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section, Environment and Natural Resources Division from 1985 to 1990, directing all federal civil and criminal environmental enforcement litigation while supervising 150+ trial attorneys in the largest litigating section in the Department.  Prior to that, he handled a broad range of federal environmental trial and appellate litigation for EPA and other federal agencies as a Justice Department trial attorney (1979–1984) and also served with the Interior Department’s Solicitor’s Office (1978–1979) and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office (1975–1978).

The breadth of David’s practice is reflected in his recent work, which includes:

Civil Litigation:

• Has represented numerous companies, including American Electric Power, Birla Chemicals, Continental Carbon, Duke Energy, Exxon Mobil, General Electric, Georgia Pacific, SABIC, and Willamette Industries in Clean Air Act NSR enforcement cases by federal and state governments and NGOs. These included several trials and numerous consent decrees.
• Has also represented several corporations in Clean Air Act Title II enforcement cases by DOJ/EPA concerning mobile source emissions regulations including a settlement in a recent, precedent-setting case involving Harley Davidson’s marketing of tuning kits.
• AEP v. Connecticut. Represented American Electric Power (AEP), Duke Power Co., Xcel Energy and the Southern Co. in a precedent-setting climate change nuisance case. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision holding that the Clean Air Act displaces any federal common law right to seek abatement of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel fired power plants. The leading Supreme Court blog called this litigation “the biggest-ever case on the issue of global warming.”
• Comer v. Murphy Oil Co., 5th Circuit and Village of Kivalina (9th Circuit). Represented Duke in successfully opposing climate change nuisance cases, twice winning dismissal of the Comer case from the district court and 5th Circuit and in Kivalina from the district court and the 9th Circuit. 
• Alec L. et. al v. Jackson et. al., D.C. District. An NGO filed suit on behalf of teenagers against six federal agencies claiming that the “public trust doctrine” requires that the federal government drastically reduce GHG emissions from U.S. businesses. David represented the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in this precedent-setting case as an intervener-defendant; the district court granted NAM’s motion to dismiss which was affirmed by the D.C. Circuit and certiorari denied by the Supreme Court.

Criminal Litigation:

• Represented Duke Energy subsidiaries in a Clean Water Act prosecution over the companies' North Carolina coal ash ponds and on a related EPA Compliance Agreement and over an oil spill in Southern Ohio.
• Representing a major transportation company and a petroleum refiner in Clean Air Act criminal investigations which were declined.
• Defended an Ohio-based iron foundry in a U.S. EPA criminal investigation of the foundry’s compliance with the Clean Air Act, and related Ohio EPA civil enforcement actions. Criminal case declined and civil case settled.
• Represented the former owner of a New York chemical plant with respect to a federal grand jury investigation arising out of the plant’s compliance with the Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Criminal case declined and civil case settled.
• Represented a Midwest chemical plant company in convincing DOJ not to pursue a criminal investigation over Clean Air Act Leak Detection/Repair issues. Civil case settled.

CERCLA:

• Negotiated consent decrees for remediation/natural resource damages at numerous EPA CERCLA National Priorities List Sites, including General Electric/Housatonic River, M.A.; Ford/Tibbetts Road, N.H.; and W.R. Grace/Wayne Township, N.J.
• Advised a corporation in a dispute with the federal government over relative remedial responsibilities for a former nuclear weapons materials processing plant in Connecticut. The claim was settled with substantial recovery for the client.
• Represented Coronet Industries, Inc. in settling a mass-joinder toxic tort suit in Florida state court where roughly 1,000 individuals allege wrongful death, personal injury, medical monitoring, and property damage associated with purported exposure to chemicals from historic phosphate mining operations.  Also assisted Coronet in negotiations with EPA and the state environmental regulatory agencies concerning site assessment and remediation (which negotiations have led to the entry of multiple state and federal administrative agreements), and helped to manage the interplay between regulatory and litigation issues. Similarly, David advised Duke Energy over tort claims involving coal ash ponds in North Carolina.

David and Sidley’s Environmental group represented non-government organizations (NGOs) in challenges to West Virginia National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) and surface mining permits for a proposed shale mine as amicus in litigation in Maryland over public access to the Potomac River, and a challenge to a federal institution’s NPDES permit for a discharge into the Potomac. David recently brought a Clean Water Act citizen’s enforcement suit in Maryland over sewage pollution which was successfully settled, and also negotiated the pre-suit resolution of a Clean Water Act issue with a rock quarry in Pennsylvania. For his work David was given the Potomac River Protection Award for 2015 by The Potomac Riverkeeper.

David is an active member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Sections on Environment, Energy and Resources and Litigation, serving as the Vice-Chair, American Bar Association, Environmental Litigation Committee.