Patton Boggs’ Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Practice Group provides innovative legal services to virtually every sector of the energy and natural resources industries – oil and gas exploration and production, processing and transmission (including LNG), electric generation (fossil-fired, nuclear, hydro and renewable), electric transmission, investor-owned and government-owned utility (electric and water), industrial electric load, industrial and commercial water user, and coal mining and financing – in the United States and abroad. 

Comprised of over 50 partners and counsel located in five offices across the United States and the Middle East, the ENR Practice Group provides strategic counseling and regulatory, public policy, transactional, and litigation assistance on nearly any energy and natural resources issue that a client may face. 

The ENR Practice Group consists of:

• Oil and gas lawyers that represent clients in the Gulf Coast, Southwest, Rocky Mountain and Mid-Continent Regions, Alaska, and the Middle East on purchases, sales, and leasings of oil and gas producing properties; exploration, drilling, and well service contracts; secondary and tertiary recovery operations; environmental compliance issues, storage, and transportation agreements; and facility construction agreements.  We also litigate, arbitrate, and mediate disputes involving every type of upstream, midstream, and downstream activity for major oil companies (private, publicly-traded, and government-owned) and independent oil and gas producers. 
• Electricity lawyers that represent nearly every type of participant in the electric industry – investor-owned and governmental utilities, independent power producers, equity investors, lenders, and large industrials – on the federal and state regulation of mergers, asset acquisitions and divestitures, electric power plant development and financing, open-access transmission and interconnection arrangements, power sales and purchases, compliance with federal standards of conduct, market-based rate and market manipulation rules, and hydroelectric licensing.  Since September 2003, we have advised on over $14 billion in transactions involving electric and gas properties (sales, acquisitions, and financings). In addition, it was our representation of a former customer of Enron that led to the release of the infamous audio tapes of Enron telephone calls that were widely publicized by major news organizations throughout the country.
• Nuclear lawyers that represent plant owners in the licensing of commercial nuclear plants by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and sellers and buyers in NRC proceedings for more than a dozen utility mergers and acquisitions, asset swaps, and asset sales.  We also represent nuclear powerplant contractors and subcontractors in the negotiation, arbitration, and litigation of engineering procurement and construction contracts.
• Natural resources lawyers that represent natural resources developers, including myriad industries, municipalities, and special districts, on the development of water, mineral, oil and gas, and real estate resources.  Our natural resources lawyers advise clients on lineal infrastructure developments, including the siting and expansion of railroad lines, transmission rights-of-way, telecommunications towers, and natural gas and oil pipelines, as well as mining, water resource, and recreational developments. They also provide strategic advice regarding federal and state agency land management plans, legislation, and regulations affecting land use decisions.
• Public policy lawyers that represent one of the largest municipal electric utilities in the U.S. with respect to enactment and implementation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  Our ENR Practice Group lawyers have also represented an Alaska oil and gas developer on emergency corrective legislation involving uncertainty in regard to state permitting actions for many resource development projects in Alaska, and represented wind and natural gas developers in Colorado on a legislative amendment to Colorado’s tax code requiring that property tax valuation for the state’s wind energy facilities placed into service after January 1, 2006, be based on the facilities’ production or income, rather than their cost or market value.

Several of our ENR Practice Group lawyers have held senior positions at various oil and gas companies, such as Amoco Corporation (now BP), Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), Shell, Qatar Petroleum, Oman Oil Company and Texaco, Inc. (now Chevron), and The Williams Companies, Inc. 

Others have held senior positions with the NRC, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Information Agency, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Transportation and Science, the State of Colorado’s Attorney General’s Office, the State of Michigan’s Washington Office, the Michigan Energy Research and Resource Association, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and positions at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).