With over 21 years of experience in the environmental field, Mr. Thistle is a principal member of the Firm's Environmental/Litigation Group.  After a year as law clerk to a justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, he spent nearly six years as an attorney with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (now Department of Environmental Protection) prior to joining Cohen & Grigsby.  Mr. Thistle represents a diverse clientele, including manufacturers and other industrial and commercial entities, remediation contractors, real estate developers, lenders, venture capital firms, municipalities, economic development agencies, and individuals.  His practice encompasses a broad range of topical concerns, and includes compliance counseling, regulatory work, real estate and corporate transactions, Superfund and other environmental litigation, and negotiations with state and federal agencies.

  Scott’s areas of focus include:

• Environmental compliance, permitting, and regulatory work
• Environmental representation in business and real estate transactions
• Environmental litigation
• Negotiating with state and federal agencies
• Brownfields and environmental investigations and cleanups
• Environmental insurance coverage litigation
• OSHA compliance 

Bar Admissions

• Admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and Delaware, 1986
• Admitted to U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania

Education

• J.D. (Articles Editor, Villanova Law Review), Villanova University School of Law, 1985
• B.A. (cum laude), Bucknell University, 1982

Representative Matters

• Pursuant a sole-source strategic agreement with one of the Firm’s largest clients, currently engaged as environmental counsel to serve the client’s regulatory, compliance, and transactional needs on a day-to-day basis.
• Obtained a 0% allocation for a client at one of the nation's largest Superfund sites, located in New Jersey. As a result, the client, which had no nexus to the site, was the only party to receive contribution protection in the litigation's global settlement with the federal and state governments without having to make any settlement payment.
• Negotiated a consent order and agreement with Pennsylvania DEP to resolve historical air compliance issues and Title V permitting for a fiberboard manufacturer in Northwestern Pennsylvania.
• Participated in the multi-year preparation of a Western Pennsylvania client’s application for a residual waste disposal permit, as well as the prosecution of an appeal to the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board when DEP denied the permit under its harms/benefits test.
• Assisted alternative energy client with obtaining critical permit from Pennsylvania DEP to develop a new wind farm, through strategic contacts with deputy secretary of the agency, a former colleague.
• After conducting targeted due diligence, negotiated on behalf of a Southwestern Pennsylvania developer a favorable agreement with a leading international, Pittsburgh-based manufacturer for the purchase of a former R&D facility, including the negotiation of a Pollution Legal Liability insurance policy. The site presented significant redevelopment potential as a "brownfield."
• Successfully negotiated a consent order and agreement with Pennsylvania DEP to provide for the economically-feasible expansion of an overloaded city sewage treatment system in Northwestern Pennsylvania.
• Worked closely with a metal can coating company with facilities in West Virginia, California, and Pennsylvania to address ongoing air emission and OSHA compliance issues.
• On behalf of a large Pittsburgh-based company expanding its gas station locations in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio, drafted and participated in intense negotiations on protective environmental provisions in a purchase agreement. The agreement constituted the linchpin document of a successful bid package with an international oil company.
• As Liaison Counsel for a group of third-party defendants in a Superfund case based in Erie, negotiated a consent dismissal with prejudice of the third-party defendants without any of the parties having to make settlement payments.
• Developed and implemented a strategy to investigate and perform a risk-based "closure" of historical contamination from a former municipal incinerator at a site in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The strategy, which needed to address significant local sensitivities, should allow sale of the property to close later this year.
• Represented project owner in an asbestos NESHAP (emission standard) appeal before the Federal Environmental Appeals Board.
• Directed targeted, cost-effective due diligence in client's acquisition, from a large public utility, of a New York distributor of heating oil, propane, and gasoline with well over 100 sites. Also helped to "manage" known and potential environmental liabilities through the drafting and negotiation of appropriate purchase agreement terms.
• Negotiated an extremely favorable remediation agreement with an international oil company on behalf of an owner of property on the North Side of Pittsburgh that was formerly a gas station. Agreement permitted client to sell the property at fair market value and retain and pass on to buyer no liability for the onsite contamination, in part through the receipt of Act 2 liability protection at the completion of the oil company's cleanup.
• Orchestrated a de minimis Superfund settlement with the Department of Justice so that the client and other similarly-situated parties were not subject to the consent decree's "reopeners."
• Successfully navigated through New Jersey's Industrial Site Recovery Act ("ISRA") process to assist client in selling historically-contaminated industrial property in Northern New Jersey.
• Advised a bank financing an Act 2 brownfield redevelopment in Westmoreland County.
• On behalf of a private college in Southwestern Pennsylvania, participated in the first audit under USEPA Region III's voluntary environmental compliance audit initiative with the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania. As a result of the audit and resulting work product, EPA waived all potential noncompliance penalties against client.
• While at Pennsylvania DER, drafted and worked with General Assembly legislative staff to pass Pennsylvania's Plumbing System Lead Ban and Notification Act, 35 P.S.§§ 723.1-723.17.
• While at DER, successfully argued before Commonwealth Court, urging the Court to adopt DER's interpretation of the 1939 Water Rights Act. The outcome in DER's favor had major statewide implications for the agency's permitting authority under the Act.
• While at DER, rewrote the agency's wetlands protection regulations.

Memberships

• Member; Governing Council Member, 1999-2002; Nominating Committee, 2003; Pennsylvania Bar Association's Environmental, Mineral and Natural Resources Law Section
• Member; Governing Council Member, 2000-2003; Nominating Committee, 2004; Allegheny County Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section

Professional Activities

• Faculty Member, Advanced Real Estate Law in Pennsylvania, National Business Institute (June 2001)
• Faculty Member, Avoiding Environmental Liability in Pennsylvania, National Business Institute (January 2001)
• Faculty Member, Wetlands, Pennsylvania Bar Institute (Fall 1989)
• Coeditor-in-Chief, Newsletter of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Environmental, Mineral and Natural Resources Law Section (1995-2002)
• Coordinator for the Regional Air Quality Roundtable, a former not-for-profit organization of Pittsburgh-area manufacturing companies devoted to the study and discussion of developments under the Federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Group was established by Cohen & Grigsby, P.C. and the former Earth Sciences Consultants, Inc.
• Organizer, North Side Clinic, Christian Legal Aid of Pittsburgh

Seminars & Speeches

• Presenter, Liability of Upper Management for Environmental Policy and Compliance, American Foundry Society, Northwest Pennsylvania Chapter (January 2005)
• “Ask the Expert” Kiosk, Environmental Due Diligence and Act 2, The Business of Brownfields Conference, Pittsburgh (November 2004)
• Presenter, The New Pennsylvania Residual Waste Regulations, Project Management Institute, Pittsburgh Chapter (September 1992)

Publications

• Co-Author, Environmental Disclosure Obligations for "Mothballed Sites," Cohen & Grigsby Review (Winter 2005)
• Author, Environmental Updates in Brief, Cohen & Grigsby Review (Fall 2005)
• Author, DEP Institutes New Procedures for "Act 2," The Lawyers Journal (July 23, 2004)
• Author, Brownfields Development Made Easier, Cohen & Grigsby Review (Summer 2004)
• Author, Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act, Cohen & Grigsby Bulletin (January 2002)
• Author, Environmental Highlights, Cohen & Grigsby Review (Spring 2001)
•  Author, Y2K and Environmental Noncompliance, Cohen & Grigsby Review (Spring 1999)
• Author, Environmental Compliance in Pennsylvania Goes On-Line, Cohen & Grigsby Review (Winter 1998)
• Author, Underground Storage Tank Deadline Fast Approaching, Cohen & Grigsby Review (Summer 1998)
• Author, Congress Passes Law to Protect Lenders and Fiduciaries from Liability for Environmental Cleanup, Cohen & Grigsby Review (Spring 1997)
• Co-Author, State Air Regulations Now Apply to More Paint and Surface Coatings Operations,  Dynamic Business (June 1993)