Maureen F Gorsen

Practice Areas

MAUREEN GORSEN practices at the intersection of public policy, litigation, and regulatory advocacy with a keen sense of her clients’ business objectives. She is a member of Sidley’s Environmental practice, focusing on enforcement defense and regulatory compliance. Maureen has defended clients in both federal and state enforcement matters, including hazardous waste, stormwater, air quality, AB 32 (carbon credits, LCFS, GHG and ESG disclosures), Prop 65, product labeling, food packaging, gasoline market regulation and business and tax regulation. She develops strategies for regulatory and permit compliance for environmental, financial, tax, consumer products, and supply chain regulation issues. Maureen also assists clients in developing corporate policies to reduce product liability risks and meet sustainability, ESG, climate, supply chain, anti-slavery and human trafficking, and conflict minerals statutes. She has a proven track record of coordinating responses to corporate emergencies, surprise government investigations, and catastrophic events, where quick action and strategic insight are critical to protecting a company’s brand.

She is the former general counsel and deputy secretary for law enforcement for the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) where she served Governor Schwarzenegger at the inception of AB 32 and led state and district attorney prosecutors in statewide environmental enforcement actions. She is the former director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), where she directed regulation of waste, soil, and water cleanups under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and brownfields laws. Maureen spearheaded the California Green Chemistry Initiative and resulting laws governing chemicals under the California Safer Consumer Products rules and other states’ products programs and federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) modernization. She is also the former General Counsel of the California Natural Resources Agency where she served Governor Wilson in CEQA, coastal act and endangered species act reform.