Melissa Horne

Melissa focuses her Clean Air Act practice on New Source Review and state preconstruction permitting; Title V permitting; NSPS, NESHAP, and MACT requirements; interstate ozone transport; regional haze; and climate change policy and regulation. She represents a wide variety of companies at the local, state, and federal levels, helping them interpret and comply with regulatory and permit requirements. Melissa assists clients to develop permitting and compliance strategies, respond to agency inquiries and enforcement actions, and participate in the rulemaking process.

In her ESG practice, Melissa helps companies keep pace with the rapidly evolving landscape of voluntary and mandatory sustainability and climate-related disclosures and reporting, including California’s climate disclosure laws, SB 253 and SB 261. She assists companies to navigate complex and sometimes overlapping disclosure schemes, and to understand the implications of disclosures for their business. Melissa also advises companies on the greenwashing risks associated with environmental marketing and other communications, as well in the context of transactions involving the transfer of environmental attributes. Melissa has also counseled clients on environmental justice matters and corporate sustainability initiatives.

Melissa has also helped clients to navigate the patchwork of state regulations governing PFAS and to comply with the federal TSCA PFAS reporting rule and with TRI reporting and supplier notification requirements. She also advises clients on compliance with an ever-expanding suite of state Extended Producer Responsibility laws targeting packaging and numerous hard-to-recycle consumer goods.

Melissa’s pro bono work has included assistance to cancer patients and veterans in preparing estate planning documents and health care directives and representation of clients seeking gender-affirming legal name changes. She has served as a pro bono ambassador for the firm’s Atlanta office and served on the Election Protection voter hotline through the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law during the 2020 presidential election.

Federal and State Air Quality Advice

• Provide air permitting assistance, regulatory compliance counseling, and enforcement advice under state and federal air quality laws to clients in a range of industry sectors with operations across the U.S.
• Represented a nationwide manufacturer in an EPA enforcement action focused on air permitting requirements and NSPS compliance and supervised an air permitting audit of other facilities not involved in the enforcement action.
• Advise a major utility holding company and two of its operating companies with implementation of comprehensive strategy for complying with Clean Air Act preconstruction review requirements.
• Assist national trade groups to prepare comments on major rulemakings under the Clean Air Act.
• Represent offshore wind farm in challenge to Clean Air Act permit.
• Counseled companies on California-specific air-related regulatory programs including the Advanced Clean Fleets program and SCAQMD WAIRE program.
• Assisted a pulp and paper client and a refinery to anticipate and respond to public comments, including environmental justice concerns, raised during the Title V permitting process.

ESG and Sustainability

• Regularly counsels clients on the greenwashing implications of climate and sustainability goals, selection of brand names, and consumer marketing campaigns, including customer-facing offset programs.
• Conducted comprehensive greenwashing risk analysis of corporate external communications for multiple clients, including provide internal training.
• Advise clients on climate and sustainability reporting and disclosure obligations, including advice related to California’s climate-related disclosure laws, SB 253 and 261.
• Counsel clients on transactions involving transfer of offsets, RECs, and other types of environmental attributes.
• Advised a major tire distributor in the rollout of a nationwide recycling program, including advice on state-level permitting and compliance obligations.

Additional Representative Experience

• Provide ongoing counsel to a national airline and a global waste, wastewater, and energy services company on multijurisdictional PFAS developments, compliance obligations, and operational impacts.
• Counseled multiple clients on applicability and compliance questions presented by state-level Extended Producer Responsibility programs.
• Advise multiple clients on TSCA PFAS reporting rule requirements.
• Counsel clients on TRI reporting and supplier notification requirements.

• Best Lawyers in America®: Ones to Watch: Environmental Law (2021-2025)
• Best Lawyers in America®: Environmental Law (2026)