Douglas Kemp Mertz
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Law Offices of Douglas Kemp Mertz |
Natural resource and environmental concerns permeate legal and public policy decision-making in Alaska. Most projects of any size must deal with issues under the complex environmental and land-use regulations developed by federal and state agencies and applied in Alaska. Douglas Mertz has a unique perspective on these laws, which he has dealt with as an assistant attorney general for the State of Alaska and in private legal practice.
During his years with the Attorney General's office, his primary areas of expertise were in the environmental and natural resources fields. He first practiced in these areas in the Fairbanks office of the Attorney General, where he also served as chief assistant attorney general for that office, with responsibility for state legal matters throughout the Interior and the northern part of Alaska. Among his other duties, he represented the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environmental Conservation on various issues related to pollution control and use of state lands. After 1980, he moved to the Juneau office of the Attorney General, where he served as the primary legal counsel for the Department of Environmental Conservation. He has acted as a legal advisor to every commissioner of environmental conservation from 1980 to 1991 and to every commissioner of natural resources during the same period. He served in both the Natural Resources section and the Oil & Gas section of the Attorney General's Office.
While serving in the Alaska Attorney General's Office, Mr. Mertz was the State of Alaska's representative on environmental matters to the National Association of Attorneys General and was chair of that organization's Oil Spill Task Force. He has authored several publications on resource law and oil spill legal matters, including co-authoring and editing the National Association of Attorneys General's Oil Spills: An Initial Response Manual for Attorneys General (1990). He has successfully represented the State of Alaska in the Alaska Supreme Court on matters related to subsistence activities under state law, and in the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals on matters related to federal preemption of state environmental regulations (see Chevron USA v. Hammond, 726 F.2d 483 [9th Cir. 1984]). He also represented the State of Alaska in its investigation and litigation over corrosion problems on the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline, and in numerous lawsuits over oil and hazardous substance discharges, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Through the Oil Spill Task Force of the National Association of Attorneys General, he participated in influencing federal legislation, which became the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, and federal agency implementation of natural resource damage assessment regulations.
Since entering private practice, Mr. Mertz has acted as environmental counsel to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority in its connection with federal and state permitting of an innovative low-emission coal-fired power-plant, and with consideration of a proposed thermal energy power plant in a remote part of Alaska. He has also acted as permitting counsel to municipal authorities in connection with powerplant expansion, and has acted as counsel to a coalition of public interest groups negotiating agreements on permitting of mining activity. He has advised a number of private individuals in connection with wetland activities before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and has represented businesses faced with demands by regulatory agencies for clean-up of contaminated sites. In these activities, Mr. Mertz has worked intensively with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the State of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of Natural Resources, Department of Fish and Game, and Governor's Office. He has also monitored state legislative activities for the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Commission, an organization of local governments, fishing groups, businesses, and public interest groups formed under federal law following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and has acted as spokesperson for that organization before the Alaska Legislature. He has taught seminars and participated as a faculty member in a number of continuing legal education events related to resource law, particularly on oil spill matters.
Natural Resource and Environmental Law - Native American Legal Issues - Employee Rights Law
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