Seneca Economics and Environment, LLC has developed a high level of expertise in the complex field of litigation focused on environmental enforcement issues. Our team can marshal resources to assist counsel either in settlement or at trial.

Through our combined understanding of economics, finance, and engineering, we have developed strong capabilities to:

• Challenge methodological errors in the economic benefit analysis and other related analyses prepared by expert witnesses or staff members working on behalf of a regulatory agency or an environmental citizen group.
• Analyze and respond to “gravity calculations” put forward by plaintiffs to assign monetary penalties to non-economic aspects of a case, such as the seriousness of the violations.
• Calculate the targeted entity’s ability to pay civil penalties.
• Determine the value of “supplemental environmental projects,” i.e., mitigation projects that governmental agencies frequently accept as a basis for reducing the gravity component (but not the economic benefit component) of civil penalties.

With our appropriate academic training and decades of experience, we work closely with clients and counsel to provide rigorous analyses.  Our effective communications have led to major reductions in penalty demands and expedited resolutions of environmental disputes.  Our help has assisted many clients in resolving issues with regulatory agencies and citizen groups on terms that both sides have found acceptable, thereby avoiding the costs and uncertainties of protracted litigation.

Our services include:

• Management consulting.
• Document review.
• Preparing analyses and expert reports.
• Prepare calculations based on the use of EPA computer models, such as its “BEN” and “ABEL” models.
• Assisting directly or indirectly in settlement negotiations.
• Providing expert testimony, both in depositions and at trials.

While most of Seneca’s engagements have focused on calculation related to economic savings due to alleged or actual noncompliance with environmental requirements, Seneca has also performed ability-to-pay calculations for over 30 clients. The diversity of these clients include a chemical manufacturing company, a foundry, an auto repair shop, a manufacturer of brass faucets, a seller of marine vessels, a lumber company, several “Jiffy Lube”-type enterprises, several food processing firms, a landfill, and a small conglomerate. Other engagements have included ability-to-pay analysis of counties in Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, and New Mexico; a major city in Pennsylvania; a city in New Mexico; the City of Los Angeles; the Office of the Criminal Sheriff of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, which has the same geographical contours as New Orleans; and various individuals.