Parker’s experience includes:

• Serving as lead national wetlands and NEPA counsel to the developer of a 16,000-acre reservoir that will provide drinking water to the country’s fastest-growing counties in which the Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 404 permit, issued in February 2018, is one of the largest in nearly 20 years – authorizing the inundation of almost 6,000 acres of wetlands and 125 miles of streams, and requiring over 21,000 acres of mitigation.
• Serving as joint counsel to nine upstream and midstream oil and natural gas companies in the development of one of the largest habitat conservation plans in the history of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), designed to authorize the incidental take of five bat species associated with project development across three states for a period of 50 years.
• Serving as ESA and NEPA counsel to energy industry clients in the development of the Nationwide Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances for Monarch Butterfly on Energy and Transportation Lands.
• Serving as coalition counsel to national trade associations to address ESA listing decisions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).
• Assisting federal lawmakers in drafting legislation to streamline project development under NEPA, reform the ESA, and expedite the CWA permitting process.
• Defending one of North America’s leading railroad companies against the largest CWA citizen suit in U.S. history, with claimed damages of $4 trillion, leading to successful resolution of alleged unpermitted discharges of coal from railcars to waterbodies and wetlands throughout Washington State.
• Representing members of the oil and gas industry in the development of one of the first ever general conservation plans under the ESA to authorize incidental take of listed species.
• As an appointed special Attorney General, helping state Departments of Transportation build administrative records to support their highway projects and successfully defended them against citizen suits under NEPA.
• Developing unique protocols approved by the FWS for oil and gas companies to advance projects without first obtaining incidental take permits under the ESA.
• On behalf of a Fortune 200 company, negotiating the settlement of the second largest CWA enforcement action in Virginia history.
• Successfully defending a $250 million Kansas intermodal facility and its wetlands permit against a citizen suit challenge under the CWA and NEPA.
• Defending an international wireless telecommunications company against federal criminal investigations for alleged violations of the ESA, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, resulting in a declination of prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice.
• Authoring a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief cited approvingly by Justice Scalia in the controversial wetlands regulation case, Rapanos v. United States.