About
Kristi M. Smith
Kristi has more than 20 years experience addressing complex issues in environmental and administrative law, including 14 years as an attorney at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Kristi assists an array of public, nonprofit, and private clients with legal and policy issues arising in a variety of environmental topics, providing deep expertise on the Clean Air Act (CAA or Act), emerging climate policy, and EPA regulation. She helps clients use CAA mechanisms to advance their environmental, climate, and regulatory goals, including engagement with federal, state, and local authorities through comment letters, administrative petitions, and in-person advocacy. She also assists other attorneys and regulators in identifying, prioritizing, and addressing critical air and climate issues in on-going and emerging matters.
From 2006 to 2020, Kristi was an attorney in the Air and Radiation Law Office of EPA’s Office of General Counsel in Washington, DC. In that role, she advised senior leaders and program clients throughout the Agency on legal and regulatory issues arising under the Act. Kristi led a group of attorneys addressing all aspects of state implementation under the CAA, making her a national expert on the Act’s requirements to improve air quality, including state and federal implementation plans (SIPs and FIPs), the interstate transport of pollution, air quality designations, and related issues. She also has extensive experience with stationary source permitting, the regional haze program, the general conformity obligations of federal agencies, and the potential legal and policy intersections of clean air and climate actions. While at EPA, Kristi also served as a Special Assistant to the General Counsel, gaining important insights on how the Agency gets things done and the many environmental statutes it addresses.
Prior to her time at EPA, Kristi was a staff attorney and teaching fellow in the environmental law clinic at Georgetown University Law Center, representing individuals and environmental groups in a variety of environmental matters at the federal, state, and local level. She was also a judicial law clerk at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, assisting in numerous regulatory cases against federal agencies.
Kristi holds a B.A. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Westminster College, a M.S. in Biology from the University of Miami, a J.D. from New York University School of Law, and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center.
Kristi recently moved from Washington, DC, to her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. She is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and Missouri.
You can find Kristi’s complete resume here.