Free Declaration in Support - District Court of California - California

Case 3:07-cv-04936-CRB

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Filed 03/07/2008

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BRIAN C. BUNGER, ESQ. (SB#142001) District Counsel ALEXANDER G. CROCKETT, ESQ. (SB#193910) Assistant Counsel BAY AREA AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT DISTRICT 939 Ellis Street San Francisco, CA 94109 Telephone: (415) 749-4920 Facsimile: (415) 749-5103 Email: [email protected] Counsel for DEFENDANT THE BAY AREA AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT DISTRICT UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION SAN FRANCISCO CHAPTER OF THE A. PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE, et al., Plaintiffs, ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) CASE NO. C-07-4936 CRB DECLARATION OF ALEXANDER G. CROCKETT, ESQ., IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR SANCTIONS Date: Time: Place: Judge: April 11, 2008 10:00 a.m. Courtroom 8, 19th Floor Hon. Charles R. Breyer

14 vs. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, et al., Defendants.

I, Alexander G. Crockett, Esq., hereby submit this Declaration in support of the Motion for Sanctions being submitted concurrently herewith in the above-captioned action. 1. I am an attorney in good standing and admitted to practice in California (California State

Bar No. 193190), as well as in the District of Columbia. I am employed as Assistant Counsel for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District ("Air District"). I make this Declaration in support of the Air District's Motion For Sanctions. I have personal knowledge of the matters set forth herein and could and would testify competently thereto if necessary. 2. I have been practicing law in California and the District of Columbia for over ten years.

In that time I have gained considerable experience in both litigation and non-litigation matters involving state and federal air quality laws. I have appeared in numerous cases involving air quality matters, 1
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Case No. C-07-4936 CRB CROCKETT DECL. IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR RULE 11 SANCTIONS

Case 3:07-cv-04936-CRB

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before multiple state and federal courts at both the trial court and appellate level. 3. I have been employed as Assistant Counsel at the Air District since August of 2003. In

that capacity I have become an expert in all aspects of the air pollution laws of California and of the United States as they apply to stationary sources of air pollution. In particular, I am the attorney in the Air District counsel's office with primary expertise and responsibility for all matters concerning power plants. I have worked on the adoption of Air District regulations applicable to power plant emissions, I have worked Air District matters involving the permitting of power plants, and I have worked on civil penalty matters involving violations by power plants of Air District regulations and related regulatory requirements. I have handed a number of challenges to Air District permitting actions with respect to power plants, including administrative appeals at the state and federal level, as well as subsequent judicial appeals. As a result of this experience, I have become one of the most highly trained and experienced attorneys practicing in the San Francisco Bay Area in the specialized world of air quality law as it applies to power plants. 4. Prior to my employment with the Air District, I was employed as an associate with the

law firms of Allen, Matkins, Leck, Gamble, and Mallory, LLP and Beveridge & Diamond LLP in San Francisco, and Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington D.C. In each of those jobs I worked on numerous environmental litigation matters, including multiple cases involving challenges to government agency permitting actions under the federal Clean Air Act. During law school I also had internships at the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice, and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, and in each of those internships I worked on Clean Air Act cases. I received a J.D. degree from the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., in 2007. I received a M.Sc. degree from the London School of Economics in London, England, in 1994. I received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Cambridge University in Cambridge, England, in 1992 and 1998, respectively. A copy of my resume summarizing my experience and qualifications is attached hereto as Exhibit 1. 5. I am the lead attorney assigned to the above-captioned matter on behalf of the Air District

and have been since it was first filed. I have performed essentially all of the day-to-day legal work on the matter, in consultation with District Counsel Brian C. Bunger, Esq., who has ultimate responsibility 2
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for all Air District legal matters. 6. I have kept a record of all of the time I have spent working on the above-captioned

matter, as set forth in the spreadsheet set forth in Exhibit 2 hereto. I certify that the hours shown in Exhibit 2 were actually expended performing work on the topics indicated. I also certify that the hours I spent on the topics indicated were reasonable and necessary to fulfill my professional, legal, and ethical duties to my client the Air District. 7. The amount of time reflected in my timesheets in Exhibit 2 is a conservative statement of

the amount of time I have spent in responding to Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint, as it shows only time I have spent since the First Amended Complaint was filed on December 14, 2007. I also spent significant amounts of time in this case after Plaintiffs' initial Complaint was filed, and a good deal of that work was relevant and necessary to preparing the Air District's response to the First Amended Complaint as the initial Complaint and First Amended Complaint are very similar in a number of respects. In an abundance of caution, however, and in order to ensure that the Air District claims fees only for attorney time directly resulting from the filing of the First Amended Complaint, I have listed only time spent since the First Amended Complaint was filed. 8. My expenditure of time responding to the First Amended Complaint in this matter has

been detrimental to the Air District, and to the public on whose behalf the Air District works, in that it has prevented me from devoting as much time to other important Air District business as I otherwise could have. For example, as noted above, some of my other duties include pursuing claims for civil penalties for violations of important regulatory requirements designed to protect public health and the environment. To the extent that I have had to devote time to this matter, I have had less time to work on enforcement cases. 9. An hourly rate of $500 per hour is a reasonable fee for the work I have performed in this

matter, based on the rate an attorney with a similar level of skill and experience in the specialized area of power plant permitting practicing in San Francisco would charge for this type of work. I am informed and believe that at least one of Plaintiffs' attorneys in this matter has claimed a rate of $500 an hour for his work in connection with a challenge to a permitting action related to another proposed Bay Area power plant, and I believe that the skill and experience necessary for representation of the Air District in 3
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Case No. C-07-4936 CRB CROCKETT DECL. IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR RULE 11 SANCTIONS

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this matter is of a similar nature and that the work that I have performed and will perform for the Air District is of a similar level of difficulty. 10. I anticipate spending additional time working on the above-captioned matter after the

date of this Declaration. I anticipate that I will spend time completing work on the Motion to Strike that I anticipate filing on behalf of the Air District's in response to the First Amended Complaint, which I intend to file no later than March 3, 2008, and I also anticipate that I may spend time replying to Plaintiffs' oppositions to that Motion and the Rule 11 Motion for Sanctions. I also anticipate spending time preparing for and attending the hearing on these motions. I intend to continue to document the time I spend working on this matter, and intend to supplement this Declaration at a later date to provide evidence of my further work on this matter. 11. I discussed the Air District's intention to seek sanctions under Rule 11 with Plaintiffs

attorney Joshua Arce, Esq., on several occasions before commencing work on the Air District's sanctions motion.

I certify under penalty of perjury of the laws of California and of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed at San Francisco, California, on February 15, 2008.

__________/s/_______________________________ Alexander G. Crockett, Esq.

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Case No. C-07-4936 CRB CROCKETT DECL. IN SUPPORT OF MOTION FOR RULE 11 SANCTIONS