Birch Citadel: a Law Firm on the Cutting Edge of Climate Change, Decarbonization, and Renewables

Lincoln, CA, July 29, 2024 --(PR.com)-- Today, our world is changing faster than ever, and the stakes have never been higher. The imperative of addressing climate change is no longer up for debate; now is the time for not only implementing economy-scale solutions, but aggressively accelerating the pace of implementing those solutions. Bold and aggressive action must be taken to decarbonize our economies to mitigate climate change, and thoughtful policies need to be implemented to adapt to our changing world effectively.

Founded by a former public servant, Birch Citadel is a new kind of environmental law firm that specializes in climate and energy law and policy, decarbonization, and ​renewable deployment. Solar and wind technologies, including on land, offshore, and floating, in addition to grid-scale storage, transmission, distributed generation, and a host of other new technologies and policies need to make it through procedural and permitting processes.

"Our mission is to safeguard a brighter future for us all. That means a future that is clean, sustainable, just, equitable, and prosperous for all," says CEO and founder Matthew F. Chalmers.

In addition to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Birch Citadel provides expert advice and counsel on issues ranging from air emissions, water discharge, toxic substances, hazardous waste, and other classic environmental legal matters. Yet this isn't where the law firm believes its greatest value lies.

"We see new emissions reporting requirements cropping up not just here in California with SB 253 and 261, which are going to require companies doing over $1 billion or even $500 million worth of business in the state to comply with new emissions reporting and climate disclosure requirements, respectively, we see these same trends beginning to crop up all across the world. There is a tsunami of regulatory compliance work coming, and we're working to scale up as fast as we can to be ready to help those companies when they come looking for help."

Permitting new renewable facilities can be tricky, especially long transmission corridors, or when trying to build them in biologically, culturally, or otherwise sensitive areas, such as when trying to run high-voltage lines through pristine landscapes—an expensive endeavor that can take years of diligent and careful legal representation to receive all the requisite approvals for—or one of the greatest challenges of the age of renewable energy that also yields some of the greatest potential: floating offshore wind.

"Let's set aside the incredible technical challenge of taking the technology used for decades in floating offshore oil rigs and adapting it to these colossal floating wind turbines, up to 18 megawatts in size, and just talk about what it takes to get the symphony of different state and federal agency approvals you need. You really need someone who knows how to move you through that process in order to safeguard the kind of investment it takes to make these projects work. But if you do it right, you suddenly have access to this incredible resource for the grid where the fuel is basically free."

But how do you get all of that power to where it needs to go—and how do you do that safely on an aging grid? Most of today's power grids are aging ​at the same time that our weather systems are changing due to climate change. Old wooden poles are reaching the end of their lives at the same time that storms and winds are increasing in intensity, leading to greater risk of energized lines sparking fires in dry states like California, but the phenomena is quickly spreading across the entire western United States. Utilities are now being asked to make difficult decisions about how, and when, they need to shut off power during storms, a controversial and difficult decision.

"I was in the room for years where contingency plans were being made at the state for how to handle various kinds of energy emergencies," says Birch Citadel CEO Matt Chalmers, who previously worked as a lead attorney on energy emergency planning at the California Energy Commission. "I would look around the room and see FEMA, folks from the utilities, energy experts, members of the California National Guard, and then experts from the Office of Emergency Services, folks from the Governor's Office."

Augmenting its legal services, Birch Citadel offers a wide range of consulting services, from expert advice on regulatory compliance to working with state legislators to design and even defend smart policy design. One such topic that Birch Citadel is helping with has the potential to both save lives and reduce statewide medical costs, through a simple but innovative technique: requiring UV-blocking window tinting on driver's side car windows in California.

"Simply put, we're not big fans of skin cancer. If you look at SB 898, it's a complete no-brainer: if you look at skin cancer rates in the United States, you see a shocking statistic: skin cancer is more prevalent on the left side of the body, particularly the upper body. If you get deep into the data and start running the proper analyses, you see that this is basically due to folks driving during the daytime. With a clear UV-blocking adhesive attached to driver's side windows, you can protect hard working Californians who make part or all of their living on the road from this totally unnecessary risk."

Legislation, however, is only one of the many areas of emerging policy that Birch Citadel can help organizations navigate. Administrative agencies, whether state or federal, frequently promulgate regulations with the force of law. As a rulemaking attorney—​one that specializes not in enforcing but writing and creating such regulations, and leading the sometimes multi-year effort to do so in accordance with proper procedures—Birch Citadel CEO and founder Matt Chalmers knows how to help organizations punch above their weight in helping to improve the regulatory playing field.

"In my time at the state, I saw huge multi-billion dollar corporations spend what must have been millions upon millions of dollars on these documents that they submitted to the dockets that frankly I didn't feel do much at all. At the same time, I saw passionate individuals writing from their front home office who had a hand in shaping policies that affected billions of dollars. This is a situation where money doesn't buy you a seat at the table. You just have to know what you're doing to be able to participate in those discussions in an effective way. There's no substitute for expertise in this process."

​​​If you're a part of an organization working on one of these issues, reach out to Birch Citadel today.