Thomas (Tim) Means Email & Phone Number

I am a retired partner and founding member of Crowell & Moring. I practiced in the firm's Environment & Natural Resources Group and was chair of the firm's Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice.My practice focused on judicial review of agency action and appellate advocacy, primarily on issues involving federal regulation of the mining industry, principally under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (MSHA), the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA), and other environmental laws. I regularly represented mine operators, mine supervisors, mining equipment manufacturers, and trade associations in MSHA and SMCRA matters, including MSHA special investigations seeking to impose civil and criminal liability, MSHA discrimination complaints, and MSHA and SMCRA enforcement defense litigation, as well as in litigation challenging unlawful MSHA and OSMRE regulations and related regulatory actions. I often advised clients on the limits of MSHA jurisdiction and wrote and lectured on the impropriety of the MSHA's attempt to expand its jurisdiction over coal-fired power plants and other coal users.As chair of the firm's Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, I focused on judicial review of agency action, particularly in defeating agency attempts to insulate their actions from judicial review and on overcoming agency claims that courts must defer to their statutory and regulatory interpretations. Over the years, I represented clients in matters pending before numerous federal and state agencies, including NHTSA, CPSC, OSHA, FDA, FAA, NTSB, EPA, OWCP, NPS, DOJ, BLM, FWS, and the U.S. Congress, in addition to my steady diet of regulatory matters involving MSHA and OSMRE.