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“What’s Happening at US EPA: Environmental Enforcement & Beyond”
Sylvia Quast is the Regional Counsel for EPA Region 9, where she leads an office of 86 attorneys and staff responsible for the enforcement of the federal environmental laws in California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. While at EPA, she has also served as a Senior Advisor in EPA Headquarters on Clean Water Act rulemakings and related issues, as well as Lead Region, representing all the Offices of Regional Counsel across the agency back to Headquarters.
Before coming on board at EPA, she was the Executive Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, where she shared management responsibility with the U.S. Attorney and the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for a 175-member Office, oversaw environmental enforcement actions in California’s largest federal judicial district, and served as the District’s Tribal Liaison. From 2005-2008, Ms. Quast was an attorney at the Resources Law Group in Sacramento, where she provided strategic conservation advice to philanthropic organizations and individuals, as well as local governments. While at RLG, she served as finance coordinator for the Proposition 84 campaign, which secured $5.4 billion in bond funding for clean water and conservation in California, and helped to develop a long-term restoration plan for the San Francisco Bay Salt Pond project, the largest wetland restoration project in the western United States. Prior to 2005, Ms. Quast was a senior attorney with the United States Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division in Washington, D.C., where she litigated numerous environmental cases in the United States Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeal, and the district courts. She also prepared Department officials for Congressional hearings, press conferences, and other public presentations and appearances. Among her other responsibilities, she served as the Department’s representative on the United States Coral Reef Task Force.
Please contact Nina Bell at nbell@ucdavis.edu with any questions.