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Joseph A. Brown

Partner

Joe has a wide-ranging practice encompassing administrative, state, and federal litigation and counseling clients on a variety matters including special district governance, public financing, and land development; compliance with state and federal environmental regulations; governmental rulemaking and permitting; and coastal construction and property rights.

Joe's clients include individuals, landowners, developers, industrial business interests, and state and local governmental entities.

 

 

Representative Experience

  • Advised special tax districts in general counsel capacity on a variety of issues including financing public infrastructure to support development, public bidding and construction, assessment levy and collection, public records, sunshine law, etc.
  • Represented clients successfully in variety of special tax district-related disputes, including contract disputes, property disputes, and enforcement and collection of special assessments.
  • Represented clients successfully before state and federal environmental agencies on a variety of permitting- and rulemaking-related matters.
  • Represented business interests in successful resolution of environmental permitting litigation.
  • Advised electric utilities in licensing and development of new generating facilities.
  • Advised electric facilities on due diligence review for potential purchase of existing generating facilities.
  • Represented electric utility interests in successful litigation challenging imposition of new regulatory program under the Clean Air Act.
  • Represented electric utility interests in several challenges to federal rulemakings in the 11th and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeal and in the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • Represented property owners in litigation related to beach and coastal management issues, including property rights and permitting of beach restoration and inlet management projects.
  • Represented in a variety of contract and property disputes.

Publications & Presentations

  • Florida’s Renewable Energy Projects, Florida Chamber Foundation 31st Annual Environmental Permitting Summer School (July 2017) (co-presenter).
  • Florida’s Renewable Energy Projects, Florida Chamber Foundation 30th Annual Environmental Permitting Summer School (July 2016) (co-presenter).
  • Conference Co-Chair, Florida Section Air & Waste Management Association, 51st & 53rd Annual Conference, Tallahassee, Florida (October 2015; October 2017).
  • EPA’s Startup, Shutdown, and Malfunction SIP Call, Air & Water Permitting Workshop, Tampa, Florida (September 2015).
  • Climate Change and the Clean Air Act: Reluctant Dance Partners, Environmental and Land Use Law Reporter of the Florida Bar, Vol. XXXVI, No. 1 (September 2014).
  • Air Law Hot Topics: Fine Particulate Emission Limits, NSR Enforcement and More, Florida Bar Environmental and Land Use Section Webcast (June 2014) (Co-presenter).
  • Permitting Sources of Air Toxics, Florida Treatise on Environmental and Land Use Law (June 2014) (Updating Author).
  • Clean Air Act Compliance and Enforcement, Florida Treatise on Environmental and Land Use Law (June 2014) (Updating Author).
  • Florida Treatise on Environmental and Land Use Law, Chapter 23: Air Quality (2014) (Updating Author).
  • Air Quality Regulation Update, Air & Waste Management Association, Coastal Plains Chapter (2014).

Representative Decisions

  • Marine Indus. Ass’n of Palm Beach County, Inc., v. Fla. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comm’n, No. 21-1661RP (Fla. DOAH Nov. 4, 2021)
  • Marine Indus. Ass’n of Palm Beach County, Inc., v. Fla. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comm’n, No. 21-1662RP (Fla. DOAH Sept. 20, 2021)
  • Tzodikov v. Mosaic Fertilizer, L.L.C., No 20-2949 (Fla. DOAH Aug. 5, 2020)
  • City of Destin v. Wilson, No. 20-2123F (Fla. DOAH Aug. 6, 2020)
  • Baroody v. City of Quincy, No. 4:20-cv-217-AW-MAF (N.D. Fla. June 7, 2020)
  • Jacobson v. Fla. Sec'y of State, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 28078 (11th Cir. Sept. 3, 2020)
  • Jacobson v. Lee, 411 F. Supp. 3d 1249, 1254 (N.D. Fla. 2019)
  • State of Wisconsin v. EPA, No. 16-1406 (D.C. Cir. Sept. 13, 2019)
  • EME Homer City Generation, L.P., v. EPA, 795 F.3d 118 (D.C. Cir. 2015)
  • EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, L.P., 134 S. Ct. 1584 (2014)
 

  • Listed in the annual publication of The Florida Super Lawyers®, 2020-2024
  • Listed as a “Rising Star” in the annual publication of Florida Super Lawyers®, 2013-2019