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Barbara Schussman, a partner in the firm's Environment, Energy & Resources practice, focuses on securing federal, state and local agency approvals needed to develop a wide range of private and public projects, including university campuses, hospitals, research and development facilities, congregate care facilities, senior housing water supply and storage projects, oil refineries, alternative energy projects, industrial scale wind and solar facilities, maritime port and airport expansions, and numerous industrial, commercial, housing and mixed use developments. Barbara counsels clients regarding compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), legislative and quasi-adjudicatory approvals required under the California Planning and Zoning Law, and permits and approvals required by other land use and environmental regulations, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, federal and state Endangered Species Acts, California Coastal Act and the Subdivision Map Act. She also is an experienced litigator and has defended approvals and environmental permits in both the state and federal courts, including the California Supreme Court.
She is the author of the CEQA chapter of Curtin’s California Land Use and Planning Law. She also teaches and lectures on CEQA and NEPA compliance and litigation issues for a variety of organizations.
Barbara’s recent successes include:
- CEQA and CEQA+ compliance and permitting for a public project to recycle agricultural and other sources of wastewater for groundwater injection and reuse as drinking water in Monterey County.
- New zoning, conditional use permit, development agreement and CEQA compliance for Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital’s $5 billion hospital replacement and expansion project in Palo Alto.
- Defense of CEQA and Clean Air Act challenges to Chevron’s Richmond Refinery modernization project.
- County and BLM approvals for a 445-megawatt photovoltaic solar project in Riverside County, and defense of CEQA litigation filed by the Colorado River Indian Tribes.
- Harbor Commission, Army Corps of Engineers and Coastal Act approvals and CEQA and NEPA compliance for two major marine terminal projects at the Port of Los Angeles.
- Defense of Coastal Act, Clean Air Act and CEQA challenges to rulemaking actions by the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
- CEQA and NEPA compliance and approvals for expansion of a drinking water reservoir in Contra Costa County and new Delta water supply diversion intake.
- Published appellate decision holding that an individual development project can be fully approved through the initiative process.
