Yvonne Hennessey, Environmental and Lobbying & Election Law Compliance Practice Areas chair and oil and gas co-team leader, successfully defended action brought by a consortium of environmental groups challenging the environmental review and permitting conducted by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation for the resumption of operations at the Greenidge Generating Facility, a historically coal-fired electric-generating facility looking to use gas as its primary fuel source.
The successful outcome before the lower court withstood appeal following the Appellate Division's granting of her motion to dismiss the appeal as moot, which was largely based on the more than $12 million spent by Greenidge on natural gas to resume operations at its power plant while the petitioners did nothing to preserve the status quo until the eleventh hour.
This appellate outcome in Sierra Club et al. v. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has been covered by Law360, Finger Lakes Times, and the Observer Review.