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People

Danny Worrell
Danny Worrell
Danny G. Worrell
Senior Counsel
danny.worrell@bakerbotts.com
Details
Overview
Overview Admission & Affiliations Experience News Awards and Community
Practices
Air Quality
Chemical Regulation
Climate Change
Contaminated Site Clean-Up
Crisis Management
Energy Litigation
Enforcement and Investigations
Environmental Aspects of Transactions
Environmental Civil and Criminal Enforcement and Defense
Incident and Crisis Response
Environmental, Safety and Incident Response
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)
Infrastructure
Litigation
Solid and Hazardous Waste
Water and Wetlands
Industries
Energy

Overview

Danny Worrell helps companies with environmental permits, compliance with environmental laws and in environmental cases and investigations. Many of his clients are manufacturers, but he has counseled a wide variety of companies facing environmental issues, working with them on project development and in many other ways to minimize their environmental liability.

Before practicing law, Danny worked as a geologist for ARCO Oil and Gas. As a result, he brings a technical understanding of environmental issues to his practice. More importantly, he has an appreciation for the importance of finishing projects on time, and approaches issues with an eye toward the company's bottom line and business goals.

Environmental matters are often complicated; Danny brings a meticulous, detailed approach to them. He is often able to devise creative courses of action in situations that do not appear to have good options.

He is familiar with, and uses, many different legal strategies for limiting a company's environmental liability exposure. Danny's counsel runs the gamut, from helping companies before problems arise (obtaining permits, conducting audits, and creating compliance programs) to representing them once they do (defending companies in large multi-party lawsuits and proceedings before regulatory agencies). He is also very experienced in regulatory counseling, particularly on air quality and waste management issues, and in representing companies in highly contested permitting and enforcement proceedings.

Admission & Affiliations

  • State Bar of Texas
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
  • Supreme Court of Texas
  • American Bar Association, Section of Environment, Energy and Resources
  • Austin Bar Association
  • J.D., University of Houston Law Center 1990
  • M.S., Geology, Louisiana State University 1984
  • B.A., Geology, The University of Texas 1980

Experience

Air Quality

  • Lead attorney in contested case hearing on air permit authorization for a concrete batch plant.
  • Lead attorney in administrative contested case hearing and appeals before Travis County District Court and Texas Eleventh Court of Appeals. Granted Texas Clean Air Act preconstruction permit for 800 megawatt coal-fired electric generating facility with CO2 capture unit.
  • Regulatory counseling for planning, development, and air quality permitting for a new chemical manufacturing facility to produce animal feed nutritional supplements.
  • Regulatory counseling on air quality permitting for a new alpha-olefins chemical manufacturing facility.
  • Counseling on air quality regulatory audits for chemical manufacturing and white lime manufacturing facilities.
  • Assisted client with first Regulatory Flexibility Order from the TCEQ for use of the EPA Comparable Fuels Rule allowing substitution of fuels at chemical manufacturing facility.
  • Represented clients in Single Property Designations from the TCEQ for air quality regulatory purposes.

Waste Management

  • Lead attorney in an administrative contested case hearing and district court appeal. Granted renewal and new Class 1 hazardous waste injection well permits from the TCEQ.
  • Represented client in negotiation of administrative proceedings, involving contested case hearing, on application for renewal and major modification of Commercial Hazardous Waste Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility permit.
  • Lead attorney in contested case hearing on application to obtain Municipal Solid Waste Type I landfill permit from the TCEQ.
  • Represented client in administrative contested case, district court and appeals court proceedings involving major modifications to Class 1 non-hazardous injection well permits from the TCEQ.

Water Quality

  • Lead attorney in three different contested case hearings on municipal wastewater discharge permits that settled prior to hearings on the merits.
  • Lead attorney in administrative contested case hearing and district court appeal. Granted a Texas Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit for municipal wastewater discharge.

State & Federal Superfund

  • Represented major chemical company in settling federal Superfund litigation involving former barge-cleaning facility.
  • Represented clients in state Superfund cases involving former scrap metal recycling facility, former toll chemical manufacturing facility and former electrical equipment refurbishing facility.
  • Represented clients in two different federal Superfund cases involving former a tin smelter and a former industrial waste disposal facility.

Miscellaneous

  • Assisted client with product liability litigation relating to oil well cementing operations.
  • Represented client in administrative contested case hearing involving amendment to production area authorization for in situ uranium mining permit before Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Awards and Community

Listed in Chambers USA, 2005-2011, 2014-2021 (Rank Band 2), 2022 & 2023 (Senior Statesman)

Recommended in The Legal 500 U.S., 2017-2019

Recognized as a Texas Super Lawyer (Thomson Reuters), 2018 & 2019

Listed in The Best Lawyers in America (Woodward White, Inc.), 2006-2021