Russell Fraker has broad, multi-jurisdictional experience with air, biosafety, chemical, product stewardship, waste, and water laws.
Russell represents clients in domestic and international environmental matters, predominantly through compliance counseling on regulatory regimes affecting facilities and products.
Latin America
Russell has worked throughout the Americas and has particularly deep experience in Brazil and Canada. As a member of the firm’s Latin America practice, he assists companies with a wide range of compliance issues across the region, including market access requirements for products, facility permitting and audits, defense against enforcement actions, transactional due diligence, and waste classification and management.
Among the highlights of his work on behalf of clients in Latin America, one, in particular, stands out. When a large Brazilian state issued a regulation requiring companies to propose plans to collect and manage their end-of-life consumer products, without regard to the restrictions that would apply once they were classified as wastes, Russell partnered with a local trade association to explain the problems this would cause. He proposed a basis in Brazilian law to reframe the classification, which the agency initially adopted as guidance and then formalized in regulation, giving his clients a practical path to comply with the environmental purpose of the original regulation.
Having deep experience with the laws of several countries, a comparative understanding of their legal systems, as well as environmental subject matter expertise and United States legal training, Russell is able to provide insights that do not occur to single-country practitioners. He provides actionable advice on Latin American legal problems in a form that U.S.-based clients in the global marketplace expect.
United States
Within the U.S., Russell works primarily in the major regulatory laws—air, soil, and water—as they relate to products in the electronics, chemical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology sectors. He often works with industry groups to respond to Clean Air Act regulations, submitting comments on proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules and subsequent petitions for agency reconsideration, and challenges in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals for judicial review of final rules.
Multi-Faceted Background
Russell’s parents were wildlife biologists who studied whales in the Canadian Arctic, and he spent much of his childhood living in Eskimo whaling camps. Between college and law school he spent a decade working in environmental and maritime fields throughout the Americas, from Alaska to Argentina: as an environmental consultant to the oil, forestry, and telecommunications industries; as a marine fisheries observer; and in the planning, permitting, and repair of undersea cable systems in over twenty countries.
His work in the non-profit sector includes past management positions in two conservation organizations and his current position on the National Forest Leadership Council.
More Legal and Business Bylines From Russell N. Fraker
- Brazil Updates: Biden and Lula Advance Environmental and Climate Agendas, Brazil Makes Progress on Other Chemical Regulatory Initiatives - (Posted On Tuesday, March 07, 2023)
- Brazil Continues to Implement Social, Environmental, and Climate Change Regulatory Reforms - (Posted On Friday, January 20, 2023)
- Brazilian Institute Proposes Revised Chemical Classification, Labeling, and Hazard Communication Standard - (Posted On Tuesday, October 27, 2020)
- Latin American Environmental Regulatory Tracker: December 16, 2018 - January 15, 2019 - (Posted On Tuesday, February 05, 2019)
- Latin American Environmental Regulatory Tracker: November 16 - December 15, 2018 - (Posted On Wednesday, January 09, 2019)
- Latin American Environmental Regulatory Tracker: September 16 - October 15, 2018 - (Posted On Monday, November 05, 2018)
- Brazil Proposes Sweeping Chemicals Legislation - (Posted On Friday, July 08, 2016)
- ENERGY STAR Disqualifications on the Rise: How to Make Sure Your Product Isn’t Next - (Posted On Friday, February 05, 2016)
- China Announces New Comprehensive Water Pollution Control Plan - (Posted On Friday, May 08, 2015)
- Latin American Region Environmental Report: Brazil Highlights (Volume III 2013) - (Posted On Wednesday, December 04, 2013)