Services

Devonshire Strategies LLC offers an array of services
to environmental change makers.

A FEW EXAMPLES:

  • Drafting advocacy documents – comments, letters, fact sheets, etc. – concerning an array of environmental topics including fossil fuels, clean energy, clean water, environmental review (particularly NEPA and CEQA), and environmental justice.

  • Drafting, analyzing, and advising on environmental legislation.

  • Providing expert advice concerning environmental review policy and implementation.

  • Writing reports and white papers concerning environmental advocacy topics.

  • Policy writing, including blogging and other types of written public policy advocacy.

  • Strategic advice and assistance for communities affected by fossil fuels and other polluting industry.

Fossil Fuel Policy

Ann was NRDC’s lead advocate in both California and Illinois concerning fossil fuel policy. In that capacity, she served as the lead negotiator for Illinois environmental organizations in an Illinois Senate-led effort to  develop a comprehensive and stringent regulatory system regulating hydraulic fracturing, culminating in the state’s Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act. She also developed and saw through to passage multiple pieces of legislation in California governing fossil fuel extraction and transportation – including AB 1167 (2023), AB 936 (2019) and AB 1440 (2019). Ann also has extensive experience concerning oil refineries, having litigated concerning a refinery’s conversion to heavy crude production and achieved a highly favorable settlement, developed a record for successful litigation concerning conversion of petroleum refineries to biofuel production, and advised local communities concerning a transition from economic dependence on the refining industry.

Environmental Review

Ann is an expert in policy and implementation of environmental review laws, including in particular the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act. She has both worked to develop policy in these spaces and, where appropriate, litigated to challenge governmental non-compliance with these laws.

Climate & Clean Energy Policy

At NRDC, Ann conceptualized and put together a team to develop an innovative analytical tool designed to be used by regulators to assess the climate impact of energy projects in conducting permitting and environmental review analysis. She is a co-author of an article describing the tool in the journal Climate Policy. Ann also has extensive experience writing comments concerning administrative agency action concerning both fossil fuels and clean energy.

Clean Water & Regulation Policy

Ann litigated multiple matters addressing governmental and industry failure to adhere to the requirements of the Clean Water Act and its state counterparts. After extensive litigation against the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) concerning its discharge of polluting phosphorus into the Chicago River, Ann and her co-counsel negotiated a settlement requiring extensive steps by the District to address the problem. Ann was also lead counsel in a challenge to EPA’s failure to take action to address the Gulf of Mexico dead zone; and led the successful effort to compel the MWRD to disinfect its effluent into the Chicago River.