Photograph of Byron R. Brown

Government Experience

  • Environmental Protection Agency—Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Office of the Administrator (2017-2018)
  • United States Senate—Senior Counsel, U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), Chairman and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) (2015-2017)
  • United States House of Representatives—Senior Counsel and Director of Oversight and Investigations, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources, Chairman and Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) (2011-2015)
  • United States Senate—Legislative Fellow, Personal Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) (2010)
  • Environmental Protection Agency—Associate Deputy General Counsel, Assistant General Counsel, and Attorney-Advisor, Office of General Counsel (2001-2011)

Education

  • University of Iowa College of Law, J.D.
  • University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communications, M.A.
  • University of New Hampshire, B.A., cum laude

Admissions

  • District of Columbia
  • Massachusetts

Byron R. Brown

Senior Counsel
Washington, D.C.
bbrown@crowell.com
Phone: +1 202.624.2546
1001 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20004

Byron R. Brown is a senior counsel in the Washington D.C. office. He is in the firm’s Government Affairs and Environment & Natural Resources groups. Byron has almost two decades of experience working at the intersection of law and policy and has experience negotiating legislation, drafting regulations, managing congressional investigations, preparing regulatory comments, and developing and executing government affairs strategies before Congress and the executive branch. Earlier in his career, Byron worked for more than a decade as an attorney in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of General Counsel, including several years as associate deputy general counsel during both the Bush and Obama administrations. After leaving EPA, Byron served as senior counsel and director of oversight and investigations for the Committee on Natural Resources for the U.S. House of Representatives and then as senior counsel for the Committee on Environment and Public Works in the U.S. Senate. He also has experience as a legislative fellow in the personal office of a U.S. Senator. Prior to joining the firm in August 2018, Byron served as deputy chief of staff for policy at the EPA, where he coordinated the agency’s work on infrastructure and led several rulemaking initiatives.

Regulatory Policy and Administrative Law

In advising clients about their legislative and regulatory strategies, Byron is able draw from his unique experience as a congressional staffer who drafted legislation establishing a new regulatory program and as well as his work as a senior appointee with responsibility for implementing that authority, including overseeing development of new regulations and securing congressional funding to stand up the new program. Byron has experience on all aspects of the regulatory process, from an agency’s collection of data from the regulated community, to the development of regulatory options, to preparing comments on proposals, to negotiating with the White House Office of Management and Budget and other stakeholders on the provisions of a final rule, and working with the Department of Justice on the defense of an agency’s action. In addition to his experience handling matters under the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), Byron also regularly advises clients on general Administrative Procedure Act matters, including advising and litigating on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and confidential business information issues.

Infrastructure and Project Development

Byron is a member of the firm’s cross-practice infrastructure team and advises clients on legislation, regulatory, and permitting issues affecting the development of infrastructure projects and the mitigation of environmental impacts. As EPA’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Byron led EPA’s involvement in the executive branch’s infrastructure initiative, including developing policy proposals to promote investment in water infrastructure and the cleanup and reuse of contaminated sites. Byron also represented EPA on the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, which was established under Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015 to streamline the environmental review and permitting process for major infrastructure projects. Byron also has experience working on litigation, rulemakings, and permitting actions under the Clean Air Act for gas-fired electric power plants in Indiana and California and treatment of biomass as a carbon-neutral energy source.

As senior counsel for the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Byron oversaw all legislative matters involving the cleanup of contaminated sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Brownfields reauthorization, recycling, and mining issues and also negotiated compromise legislation concerning tax incentives for waste-to-energy and recycling facilities among diverse industry stakeholders. 

Government Investigations

In advising private sector clients about how to prepare for congressional hearings or to respond to demands for documents or other information, Byron is able to draw on his experience as a congressional staffer leading investigations into both the private sector and government actions as well as his experience as an in-house government attorney managing responses to numerous high-profile investigations into executive branch activities. As senior counsel and director of oversight and investigations for the House Natural Resources Committee, Byron led investigations into the Department of the Interior’s moratorium on oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico, its compliance with scientific integrity and ethics rules, and government funding for construction projects, rural development, and non-profit organizations. Byron also served as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s lead oversight counsel, responsible for conducting investigations and hearings into the executive branch’s climate change policies, Waters of the U.S. rulemaking, and the Gold King Mine blowout, among other matters.

As EPA’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Byron advised senior officials on strategies for responding to congressional investigations and prepared nominees and other officials for both confirmation hearings and oversight hearings.  Earlier in his career, Byron oversaw EPA’s response to investigations by multiple congressional committees, the Government Accountability Office, and the agency’s inspector general on a range of topics.


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Admitted to practice: District of Columbia, Massachusetts


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