FIFRA: Finding a Balance between the Incentive to Innovate with Research and Development Costs

Stefanie M. Perrella is an economist in the Intellectual Property and Transfer Pricing Practice at NERA Economic Consulting in Washington, DC, a global company focused on applying economic, financial, and quantitative analyses in business, legal, and public policy contexts. She has extensive experience analyzing economic issues related to pricing, valuation, competition, innovation, and regulation in industries such as agricultural chemicals. Ms. Perrella has acted as a consulting economist in multiple FIFRA arbitrations. Additionally, she co-authored numerous valuation studies for tax, litigation, and business planning purposes and is experienced in valuing tangible and intangible property and preparing damage calculations across a variety of industries including pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals, and automobiles. In her work, she has used accounting, financial, statistical, and econometric analyses in various business contexts (e.g., transfer pricing, sale or acquisition of intangible and tangible property, compliance with regulations, and strategic analyses) for companies. She also works on liability, damages, injunction, and other economic issues across industries in licensing/contract, antitrust, patent, and tax disputes. She is currently engaged in preparing a public policy study spanning issues such as valuation, regulation and innovation. She received B.S. degree (summa cum laude) in International Affairs with a concentration in Finance and M.A. degree in International Economic Relations from American University.

Mr. Naidu has extensive transactional, litigation and regulatory compliance experience involving a diverse set of environmental areas including CERCLA, FIFRA, brownfield redevelopment, eminent domain, natural resource damages, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, TSCA, OSHA, RCRA, oil spills and nanotechnology. He also advises clients on federal and state statutes and environmental, health and safety regulations. 

He has written several articles on these subjects, including a treatise published by the Oxford University Press entitled Biotechnology & Nanotechnology Regulation Under Environmental, Health, and Safety Laws (2009). His articles on nanomaterials have been published in Chemical Week and Industry Week.

Roger Martella is a partner in the Environmental Practice Group at Sidley Austin LLP. He recently rejoined Sidley Austin LLP after serving as the General Counsel of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, concluding 10 years of litigating and handling complex environmental and natural resource matters at the Department of Justice and EPA. 

Mr. Martella was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate as EPA General Counsel. In that role, Mr. Martella served as EPA’s chief legal advisor supervising an office of 350 attorneys and staff in Washington and 10 regional offices. In particular, Mr. Martella lead the team responsible for developing for the first time under the Clean Air Act the federal government’s climate change legal framework and options in response to the landmark Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA, which held greenhouse gases to be air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. His efforts included developing a full range of legal options for decision makers related to greenhouse gas regulation, alternative and renewable fuels, the development of regulatory carbon sequestration controls, and the intersection of climate change and natural resource issues including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. Recognized for his knowledge on legal approaches to addressing climate change, Mr. Martella focuses specifically on dissecting the extraordinarily complex and interrelated ramifications of climate change on numerous provisions of the Clean Air Act relating to mobile and stationary sources, as well as other laws, such as the ESA and NEPA. Mr. Martella’s experience in this area enables him to work to forecast for clients the likelihood of upcoming regulations and controls in the area of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability, and to develop strategic approaches to be best prepared for such controls. Mr. Martella also focuses on international climate issues, working with Chinese institutes on climate and clean energy issues and advocating for conformity between United States climate rules with the European Union. Since the April 2007 Massachusetts decision, Mr. Martella has been invited to address climate change regulation more than twenty five times in the United States and abroad.

Claudia O’Brien is a partner in the Washington, D.C. Office of Latham & Watkins and co-chair of the Firm’s Global Climate Change Practice Group. Her practice is focused on climate change and emerging trends in air quality control, risk policy and pesticide and toxic substances. Ms. O’Brien represents companies and industry groups in petitions, agency rulemaking and litigation under federal and state environmental statutes.

Ms. O’Brien joined the firm after six years at the Environmental Protection Agency, where she worked on water, air, and toxic substance issues, including drafting regulations to implement the Clean Air Act’s first national cap-and-trade program, to address acid rain emissions from power plants. While working full time at EPA, Ms. O’Brien attended law school at Georgetown, where she received her JD in 1994. She received her B.A. from Yale University in 1987. She is admitted to the bars of Virginia, the District of Columbia, the Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth and D.C. Circuits and the US Supreme Court.