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William Helmer, Prominent Environmental and Energy Attorney, Joins Green Seifter's Albany Office

Posted on: Monday, 14 May 2007, 09:00 CDT

Green Seifter today announced that William S. Helmer, former Special Counsel for the New York Power Authority and a state leader in environmental and energy law and policy, has joined the firm's Albany office.

"We are excited that Bill Helmer is joining us as a Member," said Laurence G. Bousquet, Member of the Board of Managers. "Bill's experience, talents, and relationships will enable us to better serve our clients on a statewide basis in areas of the law that are both critical to our clients and to the development of business in the State. He will complement the strong presence we established in Albany with Kevin McAuliffe and former PSC Chair Maureen Helmer."

Mr. Helmer spent the last six years securing new federal licenses for the Power Authority's major hydropower projects on the St. Lawrence and Niagara Rivers. His most recent projects include completion of multi-year process of obtaining a new 50-year license for the Niagara Power Project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the completion of negotiation of relicensing settlement agreements with the City of Buffalo, Erie County, and other parties and with Niagara University.

"Bill was instrumental in our successful effort to secure new 50-year licenses for the St. Lawrence and Niagara Power Projects," said Thomas J. Kelly, former President of the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation and current Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the New York Power Authority. "His extraordinary competence in the complicated areas of energy and environmental regulation will serve him well as he rejoins the ranks of the private bar."

Prior to assuming his post at the Power Authority, Mr. Helmer served as Chief of the Attorney General's Environmental Protection Bureau under Attorney General Dennis Vacco, where he managed a staff that included five criminal prosecutors, thirty civil litigators, six scientists, and over two dozen other employees. Under Mr. Helmer's leadership, the Bureau maintained offices in Buffalo, Albany, and New York City and handled a docket of over 600 cases in state and federal courts.

He has provided counsel in connection with a wide array of energy production facilities, including fossil-fueled plants, major hydroelectric dams, cogeneration projects, nuclear generating stations, and municipal solid waste incinerators. He has practiced in virtually every area of environmental law, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the State Environmental Quality Review Act. Other areas in which Mr. Helmer has practiced extensively include mining and other extractive industries, wetlands regulation, forest preserve law, and conservation easements.

"I am delighted to be joining the firm at this time of significant advances in the fields of environmental and energy law," Mr. Helmer said. "I believe that we are at the very start of an exciting era when economic development and environmental protection will fully and finally converge to the benefit of public as well as private interests. Green Seifter is ideally suited to provide the kind of counsel that will be indispensable to public and private parties as critical projects go forward in the new era."

Mr. Helmer has extensive experience in the superfund area at the both the state and federal levels and has been credited with fashioning a series of "brownfields" agreements in the early 1990's that later served as models for New York State's Voluntary Cleanup Program and its statutory successor, the Brownfield Cleanup Program. At the Attorney General's office, Mr. Helmer was instrumental in the completion of a number of complicated and controversial brownfields projects, including the successful Super Steel project at the Glenville Industrial Park in Schenectady County.

Additionally, Mr. Helmer spent over a decade in private practice litigating commercial, municipal, real property, and environmental cases. A seasoned courtroom advocate, he has argued ground-breaking cases before the New York Court of Appeals and the Appellate Division for the Third Department (see e.g., Adirondack League Club v. Sierra Club, et al., 92 N.Y.2d 591; Matter of Brodsky v. Zagata, 222 A.D.2d 48).

Bill is currently a Co-chair of the Energy Committee of the Environmental Law Section of the New York State Bar Association and serves as a member of the Executive Committee of that Section and of the Association's General Practice Section. He serves on the Board of Directors of the New York Catholic Chorale, artists in residence at Siena College in Loudonville.

Green Seifter is a diversified law firm of more than 30 attorneys with offices in Syracuse and Albany. The firm provides counsel on such issues as mergers and acquisitions, business transactions, economic development, government relations, litigation, commercial bankruptcy, trusts and estates, employee benefits, commercial real estate, employment, energy, environmental and land use law, and tax planning and advocacy.

For photo, please email Tara McKenney at tmckenney@gslaw.com.

Source: Business Wire

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