Shannon S. Broome

Broome, who leads Hunton’s environmental practice, is the managing partner of the firm’s San Francisco office. Her prior experience as a chemical engineer in the oil and gas industry comes in handy as she counsels clients on the development of regulations and on environmental, health and safety issues. She is executive director for the Air Permitting Forum, a group of Fortune 500 companies focused on the implementation of Clean Air Act regulatory programs.

Moves to clean up industry emissions are a leading concern. “What we’re seeing is crazy, innovative ideas regarding the production of oil and gas,” Broome said after attending an industry conference in Texas in late August on emissions reduction technologies and best management practices to promote better environmental outcomes.

She wrote in an online forum: “My big takeaway is that technology will solve our environmental challenges in the chemical and oil and gas sectors, and the regulations need to be flexible enough to allow for step changes.”

That insight fit with her ongoing representation of the Texas Oil and Gas Association in discussions with the Environmental Protection Administration as it wrestles with the regulation of methane, a leading greenhouse gas. Landmark rules set in 2016 by the Obama administration to reduce methane emissions by the oil and gas sector by up to 45 percent by 2025 got a hard negative look by his successor, she said. “The Trump administration spent four years trying to undo those goals. Now the Biden administration is looking at what we can achieve by deploying innovative technologies in this area.”

Broome represents TXOGA in litigation over the rules and she filed comprehensive comments on the EPA’s proposed changes to make the Obama rules more workable, a move she called a cornerstone regulatory achievement. “There has been a notion that the EPA freezes technology in place, but it is important to fashion regulations that allow for alternative technologies as they are developed to come in and work better,” she said.

“You can’t have the regulations get in the way of the technology. And that’s where the lawyers can add value by translating new ideas for the EPA,” she said.

Broome is is co-president of the California Chapter of the Women’s Energy Network, where diversity is a chief goal. She was appointed this year to the American Bar Association’s special committee on diversity, equity and inclusion for the environmental section.

- John Roemer