(T) (202) 789-6041

  fwagner@bdlaw.com
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1350 I Street, N.W.
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005-3311
Washington

• Alternative Energy - Land Use
• Complex Project Permitting
• Endangered Species Act - Land Use
• Historical and Archeological Resources
• Infrastructure Projects
• Land Use and Natural Resources - Environmental
• NEPA and State NEPA - Land Use
• Real Estate
• Real Estate Litigation
• Takings Law - Land Use
• Wetlands - Land Use
• Environmental
• Land Use

• Tufts University (B.A., summa cum laude, 1984)
• Phi Beta Kappa
• University of Virginia School of Law (J.D., 1987)

• Pennsylvania (1987)
• District of Columbia (1988)
• American Bar Association

Mr. Wagner is a Principal in the Washington, D.C. office of Beveridge & Diamond, P.C., and is Chair of the Firm's Land Use Practice Group.  His practice involves counseling and litigation in a wide variety of land use, environmental impact analysis and public lands matters.  Mr. Wagner's practice focuses on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and related federal natural resources statutes, such as the National Historic Preservation Act, Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Before joining the Firm in 1991, Mr. Wagner served for four and one half years as a trial attorney in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice. While at Justice, he litigated matters under NEPA, the National Forest Management Act, the Army Corps wetlands program, the ESA, and the Quiet Title Act. He also handled several cases before the United States Court of Federal Claims, involving alleged takings of private property and inverse condemnation under the Fifth Amendment.

In addition, Mr. Wagner served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Misdemeanor Trial Section of the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. He tried numerous jury trials and several more bench trials in District of Columbia Superior Court during his tenure at the U.S. Attorney's Office.

While with Beveridge & Diamond, Mr. Wagner has assisted private parties and public agencies in their NEPA compliance efforts nationwide. For example, he has served as Special Counsel to the Ohio and Maryland Departments of Transportation regarding the defense of major transportation projects, and as a Special Assistant Attorney General to the State of North Dakota Water Commission. He currently serves as Counsel to the City of New Orleans in its efforts to develop a new medical center complex.. He has partnered with clients on successful projects such as the Americana Bayside development in Sussex County, Delaware, the Verizon Center in downtown Washington, D.C., and large land exchanges in Arizona for a leading copper mining company.  Mr. Wagner also has been retained by the federal government to assist in the defense of significant agency facilities projects, such as the relocation and consolidation of the Patent and Trademark Office headquarters to Alexandria, Virginia, the Department of Transportation headquarters to Southeast, Washington, D.C., and new Food and Drug Administration offices and laboratories in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Mr. Wagner regularly counsels private developers seeking Army Corps wetlands permits. He co-authored a Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of a coalition of seven major real estate associations in the controversial Rapanos case. Mr. Wagner has spoken to numerous groups concerning the aftermath of the Rapanos ruling on the federal wetlands program.

He also is lead litigation counsel for the City of Alexandria on its major land use and zoning cases and represents developers in and around the D.C. metropolitan area seeking entitlements from local planning boards and governing bodies.

Mr. Wagner is a past co-chair of the D.C. Bar Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Section. He is a frequent speaker on panels discussing the implementation of NEPA generally, and on public lands and natural resources law. Mr. Wagner currently serves on the Transportation Research Board's (TRB) Special Climate Change Task Force, and on TRB's Environmental Law Committee. 

While attending the University of Virginia School of Law, Mr. Wagner served as a member and Notes Editor of the Virginia Environmental Law Journal.