E&W Law congratulates Partner Mary Ellen Ternes on receiving a new award, Recognition of Sustained Commitment to the American College of Environmental Lawyers (ACOEL), bestowed for the first time by the ACOEL Council of Past Presidents. This award honors Mary Ellen’s 18 years of active leadership and service within one of the profession’s most respected environmental law organizations.
Since her election as an ACOEL Fellow in the first elected ACOEL class in 2008, Mary Ellen committed herself to ACOEL through leadership, vision, creativity, collaboration and service to support the ACOEL’s efforts on behalf of its Fellows and its overall mission. In bestowing the award, the Council recognized Mary Ellen’s extraordinary commitment to the College and highlighted several of Mary Ellen’s significant contributions including: the College mentorship program; educational programming by the Fellows for the Fellows, as well as through partnerships with outside entities such as the Murrah Center for Homeland Security Law and Policy regarding homeland security, emergency response and preparedness; preservation of College history; strategic planning; and while President, shifting to a virtual platform during COVID, elevating environmental justice, expanding College partnerships and Fellows’ pro bono engagement regarding specific issues, particularly plastic, while always continuing to implement the strategic plan despite all challenges.
“I am deeply honored to receive this recognition from ACOEL,” said Mary Ellen. “I remain fully committed to the College mission and my wonderful Fellows, who have provided a home for environmental lawyers truly committed to the practice of environmental law, who want to support the profession and the greater good, possess the creativity to identify ways to contribute and the drive and means to see them through. Of course, no one works in a vacuum. This recognition reflects the contributions of my exceptional Fellows who joined me with enthusiasm to make real my many proposals over the years, to organize, elevate, educate, collaborate and partner with other entities to fill gaps, raise the bar and be a valuable member of the environmental law community. I am very grateful for them and to be a part of this extraordinary community.”
ACOEL is an invitation-only association of distinguished environmental attorneys recognized for excellence in environmental law. Fellows are selected for their experience, high standards of practice, and contributions to the environmental law community. Through scholarship, collaboration, and public service, ACOEL works to improve the ethical and effective practice of environmental law.
Mary Ellen is a nationally recognized environmental attorney who advises energy, manufacturing, industrial, municipal, and recycling clients on complex environmental regulatory, compliance, remediation, enforcement, transaction and litigation matters, regularly representing clients in administrative proceedings, rulemaking matters, and high-stakes environmental disputes. She is well known as a chemical engineer turned environmental lawyer, who has remained engaged as a leader in the chemical engineering community as well, and brings her chemical engineering and past work experience for EPA and industry into her environmental law practice, particularly with Clean Air Act, emergency response and preparedness, waste and hazardous waste management and recycling, remediation and administrative law, permitting and litigation.
Mary Ellen has been a prolific author and speaker, particularly regarding interdisciplinary issues, and an early leader on issues such as clean air act policy, carbon capture and sequestration and climate-related regulatory strategy, nanotechnology, plastic and microplastic, even serving as a plastic expert for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Plastic Roundtable, and an observer delegate for the Global Council for Science and the Environment to the United Nations plastic treaty negotiations.
