Elizabeth “Betsy” Lake is a partner in the West Coast Land Use and Environment Group in Holland & Knight’s San Francisco office. Her practice focuses on energy, land use, and complex project permitting, compliance counseling, natural resource and environmental transactions, and regulatory and legislative development.
Land Use and Complex Project Permitting. Ms. Lake represents project proponents and public agencies in land use, environmental review, permitting, due diligence and litigation matters for complex land use, energy, and development projects, involving environmental impact statements/reports (NEPA/CEQA), waters and wetlands issues and permits (CWA/Porter Cologne, NPDES), endangered species (ESA/CESA) consultations and incidental take statements, brownfields issues (CERCLA/RCRA/Polanco), and local entitlements (zoning and subdivision ordinances) or California Energy Commission (CEC) approvals. Such projects include linear transmission, pipelines, and undersea cable projects, natural gas and renewable energy power plant projects, military base reuse (BRAC) projects, and residential and mixed-use development projects, among others.
Compliance Counseling. She represents clients in environmental management, audit, and enforcement matters involving federal, state and local agency regulation of water quality, hazardous materials and waste management, radioactive and medical product and material management, worker safety (OSHA/Cal OSHA), air, wetlands, protected species and land use. Clients include municipalities, power plants, sewer districts, and industrial facilities, among others.
Natural Resource and Environmental Transactions. Ms. Lake represents property owners, developers, project proponents, corporations, and public agencies in transactions, including development agreements (DAs and DDAs), habitat conservation planning, federal land leasing and concessions, conservation easements, conservation banking and mitigation transactions, and military base transfers and brownfields developments.
Regulatory and Legislative Development. She represents clients in the enactment and amendment of environmental and land use statutes and regulations.
Ms. Lake is a lecturer on the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the California Environmental Quality Act, and a participant in the Council on Environmental Quality National Environmental Policy Act Task Force.
