Jeff Harris draws on more than three decades of experience to advise his private and public sector clients on all facets of California energy law. His experience provides a unique understanding of the legal, political, and regulatory interplay of energy markets, regulation, law and policy.

While his practice is diverse, Jeff focuses on developing permitting plans for complex, multi-jurisdictional energy generation and storage projects. He excels in developing and implementing strategies for the permitting, construction and operation of renewable and conventional powerplants and a diverse array of energy storage technologies.

Jeff has experience at every stage of project development, from site control and fatal flaw analyses through licensing, financing, litigation, construction, operation and maintenance. In California’s complex and litigious regulatory environment, Jeff and his team focus on building administrative records that will withstand challenge. His clients have relied on his counsel in the licensing, purchase and sale of more than 25,000 megawatts of new capacity, including more than 22,000 megawatts of facilities licensed by the State of California.

Some representative licensing success stories include the then-largest solar thermal power plant in the California desert. Jeff has secured environmental clearances for energy storage systems of all types, including a large, urban Southern California battery energy storage project (BESS), supplying 100 MW, 400 megawatt-hours of interconnected energy storage. Similarly, Jeff served as lead permitting and regulatory counsel for large solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities with both standalone and integrated BESS located in Los Angeles, Alameda, San Bernardino, and Kern counties, among others. These BESS projects included systems intended to operate separately from existing powerplants, those intended to integrate with powerplants as hybrid systems, and battery systems intended to provide “Black Start” capabilities to restart the system after a west-wide system outage. In addition to battery storage, Jeff is lead counsel on what will become California’s largest advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) system in Kern County.

Jeff has extensive experience in advising clients on compliance issues arising from California’s extensive and complex environmental and energy regulatory regimes, including greenhouse gas (GHG) and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects. He has a proven record of helping defend clients from potential enforcement actions.

Jeff has been ranked in the prestigious Chambers USA “Best Lawyers in the U.S.” every year from 2007 to the present. Prior to joining Climate Edge Law Group, Jeff was a founding Partner in Ellison, Schneider & Harris, LLP, helping build that firm’s energy practice over twenty-six years.

Prior to entering private practice, Jeff worked for the United States House of Representatives. He was Associate Staff to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, responsible for funding federal energy and water agencies, projects and initiatives. Concurrently, Jeff served as Legislative Counsel to the late Congressman Vic Fazio on energy, water, federal lands, and endangered species issues and, as the Congressman’s Legislative Counsel, served as the Congressman’s liaison with executive branch agencies and the federal judiciary, including assisting with advancement of federal judicial appointments.

Contact

jharris@celawgroup.com
(916) 629-4141

Education:

• J.D., McGeorge School of Law

• M.A., Penn State University, Speech Communication

• B.A., University of California Davis

Bar Admissions

• California