2024 NEPA Case Law Review

Fred Wagner, NAEP Elected At-Large Board Member
Principal Environmental Advisor
Jacobs

Fred Wager focuses on environmental and natural resource issues, associated with major infrastructure, mining, and energy project development. He has worked on complex environmental reviews from his very first day at the U.S. Department of Justice Environment Division in 1987 until his recent arrival at Jacobs in March 2025. Over the course of his career, he has partnered with public agencies and private developers across all major sectors of the American economy to help prepare excellent NEPA documents and to defend those documents in court. Fred has worked on the successful completion of environ-mental assessments and environmental impact statements for major highway, bridge, freight and passenger rail, and transit projects, proposals to expand domestic mining production, urban sports facilities and arenas, onshore and off-shore renewable and traditional energy development, forest and rangeland management plans, and the development of a new Presidential Center in Chicago. Most recently, Fred was counsel of record in the consequential Supreme Court NEPA case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, 605 U.S. ---, 145 S.Ct. 1497 (2025).

He served as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration from 2010-2014. In that capacity, he helped lead inter-agency efforts to reform NEPA reviews and project permitting. Those efforts led to substantial legislative and regulatory accomplishments reflected in transportation reauthorization bills (MAP-21 and the FAST Act)and the origins of the Federal Permitting Council. Fred also helps clients obtain federal permit approvals across the full spectrum of environmental and natural resources programs folded into NEPA reviews, including Clean Water Act Section 404/401 permits, cultural and historic resources analyses, Section 7 ESA consultations and approvals, Coast Guard navigability reviews, and petitions before the Surface Transportation Board. Fred serves on the Board of Advisors to the Eno Center for Transportation and as Chair of the Policy and Organization Group for the Transportation Research Board. He is a frequent speaker and lecturer on a wide variety of environmental law and policy issues.

Speakers

P.E. "Pam" Hudson, Esq.
Attorney
Federal Aviation Administration

An NAEP member since 2013, P.E. "Pam" Hudson serves as an attorney in the Airports and Environmental Law division of the Federal Aviation Administration, after spending over twenty years with the Department of the Navy’s Office of General Counsel.  She has over 25 years of experience reviewing EAs and EISs, including projects involving transportation, airport development and grants, commercial space transportation, military testing and training, including ranges, military construction and unmanned aerial systems deployment. Since 2013, Ms. Hudson has authored over sixteen federal agency, academic and peer-reviewed articles, which have been cited in the Federal Register, on agency websites and journals, academic journals, and in news articles. In 2018, she was selected as the Navy’s civilian instructor of the year. She has served on NAEP's committee for the CEQ's Pilot Project on Best Practice Principles for Environmental Assessments and been an active participant in the NAEP training program. Prior to joining the federal government, she practiced at Kilpatrick Stockton, LLP, and Roetzel & Andress in Naples, Florida. She interned as a federal clerk for the Northern District of Florida for the Honorable Robert Hinkle. *Ms. Hudson's views are hers alone, and do not reflect the views of the Federal Government or the Dep’t of Transportation or FAA.

Charles P. Nicholson, PhD
Senior Environmental Planner/Scientist
HDR

Chuck has over 45 years of experience in the environmental field, starting as a wildlife biologist and later as a NEPA compliance specialist. Most of his career was at the Tennessee Valley Authority where he managed both agency-prepared and contractor-prepared EAs and EISs for a wide variety of actions. At HDR, he focuses on NEPA policy and strategy, regulatory review, and QAQC of NEPA documents. He is also co-chair of HDR’s impact assessment practice group. Chuck has chaired NAEP’s very active NEPA Working Group for many years and is an elected NAEP board member. He has B.S. and M.S. degrees in wildlife management from the University of Tennessee and University of Maine, respectively, and a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Tennessee.

Melanie Hernandez, Esq., CEP
Environmental Attorney
Scout

Melanie Hernandez is a licensed attorney and the co-founder and Vice President of Scout, an environmental and engineering company headquartered in San Diego, CA. With over 20 years in NEPA and environmental law, she leads as a senior NEPA project manager, serving clients like the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Army, and the Coast Guard. Her expertise includes managing multidisciplinary NEPA teams for projects involving new military systems, construction, and public land access. Her responsibilities also extend to developing training on environmental laws including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Historic Preservation Act, Executive Order 12114, and more. Prior to Scout, she led some of the most complex Environmental Impact Statements for the Marine Corps in the Pacific and Japan, where she lived for five years. Melanie holds a B.S. from Andrews University and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School, and is admitted to the bar in Maryland and D.C.