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Charles Howland

Charles Howland

Adjunct Professor of Law

Charlie Howland is a partner and head of the Environmental Group at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, an international law firm headquartered in New York City where he advises U.S. and foreign clients on all aspects of environmental and energy law.

Charlie joined Curtis after a 28 year career at the USEPA, where he served as a Senior Assistant Regional Counsel at the agency’s Region 3 office working on complex site cleanups and enforcement actions, as well as several guidance-writing workgroups.

Charlie focuses his practice on legal issues associated with Superfund and brownfield cleanups, particularly at complex industrial sites simultaneously impacted by federal, state, and local laws. He also works on ‘grid edge’ energy projects, including helping clients navigate the financing and siting issues necessary to site renewable energy projects on environmentally impaired lands (‘brightfields’). Charlie also understands redevelopment issues from a local perspective, having served on the Lower Merion Township Planning Commission between 2004 and 2018, the last four years as co-chair.

In 2019 the USEPA appointed Charlie to the Superfund Working Group of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which is advising the EPA Administrator on how to better ensure community acceptance of Superfund cleanups and revitalization of communities in a way that recognizes the unique challenges faced by adjacent environmental justice populations.

He currently serves as a member of the board of the Energy Coordinating Agency, which provides programs to help address the energy needs of low-income Philadelphians through energy conservation, education, heating, and home repair services.

Charlie has presented at numerous professional conferences on various environmental and energy law issues. He has taught environmental law at several different universities in the U.S. and abroad; co-developed and for several year co-taught Energy Law at the Villanova University Charles Widger Law School; and currently teaches Navigating the Regulatory State: Law, Science and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

He has been named a U.S. State Department Fulbright Fellow Specialist.  In September, 2019 he spent two weeks at the UiT: Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, helping UiT create a new Joint Nordic Master Programme in Environmental and Energy Law. In the Fall of 2022 he will serve as a Fulbright Specialist at the Tashkent State University of Law, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Charlie holds a B.A. from Cornell University, and a J.D. from the Villanova University School of Law. He has also completed executive education programs at the Harvard University JFK School of Government (Understanding Environmental Economics: Strategies for Policy Makers and Managers) and the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Energy Executive Leadership Institute).