Environmental Compliance Under Pressure: Clean Air, Clean Water, Hazardous Waste, and OSHA

Brittany Barrientos, Partner | Stinson LLP

Brittany Barrientos is a partner in the Kansas City office of Stinson LLP, where she represents clients on environmental, health and safety matters across regulatory, transactional and litigation work. Her environmental practice covers the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, solid and hazardous waste laws, Superfund, TSCA and PHMSA, along with state and local requirements, and a significant share of her practice is devoted to OSHA matters. She defends agency enforcement actions, contests OSHA citations, and counsels clients through inspections, information requests and investigations.

• Education & Credentials

Brittany received her J.D. from the University of Missouri in 2009 and her B.A. in Journalism from Texas Tech University in 2005. She is admitted to practice in Missouri (2009), Texas (2010), Kansas (2024) and Iowa (2025), and before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (2026).

• Recognition & Leadership

Brittany is a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. She has been selected to the 2023-2026 editions of Chambers USA and to The Best Lawyers in America® list for 2023-2027, and was named to the Missouri Lawyers Weekly Environmental and Energy Law “POWER LIST” in 2022 and 2023. Her earlier honors include Ingram’s 40 Under Forty (2020), the Kansas City Business Journal’s “Best of the Bar” (2019) and Missouri Lawyer’s Weekly Up and Coming Lawyer (2016).

She was recognized in Missouri Lawyers Media’s 2025 Diversity & Inclusion Awards, received Stinson’s D&I Champion Award in 2024, and was named to the Missouri Pro Bono Wall of Fame for 2017-2022.

• Professional Involvement

Brittany speaks regularly on enforcement, inspections and workplace safety. Her presentations include “Civil Inspections, Criminal Investigations and ICE Raids: What to Expect and What You Can do to Prepare” (June 2025); an audience-participation walk through an enforcement action at the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation’s Environmental Enforcement Special Institute (December 2018); “EPA Enforcement: A Chemical Manufacturer’s Walk through an Enforcement Action” at ChemEdge (August 2019); “General Duty Clause: The Provision that Swallowed the Rule” at the Midwest Environmental Compliance Conference (May 2017); an Air Policy Panel Discussion at the same conference (April 2019); and her annual OSHA and health and safety updates for the New Challenges for HR programs in Kansas City and St. Louis (2023-2026).

Her writing includes the Environmental Law chapter of the Kansas Bar Association 2020 and 2021 Kansas Annual Survey of Law, the “Environmental Considerations with Respect to Real Property” chapter of the Missouri Practice Series on Real Estate Transactions (2020), and Stinson alerts on OSHA’s proposed heat standard, the Supreme Court’s rulings on the OSHA ETS, EPA’s Risk Management Program final rule, the
Clean Water Act “Worst-Case” Spill Rule, and EPA’s proposal to regulate nine PFAS as RCRA “Hazardous Constituents.”

She serves on The Missouri Bar Environmental Law Committee (2009-present) and previously served as Vice Chair of its Committee on Minority Issues (2010-2014) and on its Special Committee on Lawyers of Color (2021). She is a 2017 Fellow of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, a board member of the Diverse Attorney Pipeline Program (2018-present), and a founding board member of The Beacon (2020-present).

• Experience

Brittany defends clients in agency enforcement actions, often working with both the client and the agency to structure environmentally beneficial resolutions. On the OSHA side, she has handled compliance evaluations, inspections and citations for numerous clients, defended OSHA citations, and helped employers build workplace-safety policies and employee training.

She has been called to the scene after spills and releases to manage internal and multi-agency investigations, and she handles FOIA and local open-records issues, regularly filing information requests of her own. Her regulatory counseling covers permitting, day-to-day compliance and comments on state and federal rulemakings, and she has participated in environmental stakeholder groups and drafted state implementing regulations. She tracks emerging issues including PFAS, 1,4-dioxane and air toxics.

Her clients include municipalities, electric-generating utilities, mobile sources, and companies in the chemical, manufacturing, oil and gas, and real estate industries. She also advises on environmental, health and safety diligence and post-closing implementation in real estate and corporate transactions involving manufacturing facilities, greenfields and brownfields, pipelines, warehouses and other properties. Her pro bono work includes representing clients in Kansas City’s Marlborough neighborhood and serving as Co-Captain for the Election Protection call center.

Kristen Ellis Johnson, Of Counsel | Stinson LLP

Kristen Ellis Johnson is Of Counsel in the Kansas City office of Stinson LLP, where she advises clients on environmental regulatory and permit compliance under federal, state and local law. She guides clients through regulatory inspections and post-inspection records production, spill and release reporting, and voluntary self-disclosure under EPA’s audit policy, and she leads strategy in administrative enforcement actions, negotiating settlements to reduce penalties at the state and federal levels.

• Education & Credentials

Kristen received her J.D., cum laude, from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2010, along with a Certificate in Environmental Law and Urban Planning. She earned her B.A. in Oxbridge Institutions and Policies from William Jewell College in 2005. She is admitted to practice in Missouri and Kansas.

• Recognition & Leadership

Kristen is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America® list for 2027 and was named to the Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America list for 2022-2025. She was a 2023 Pathfinder with the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity and has been recognized by Stinson in multiple years as a Pro Bono Champion for more than 100 hours of pro bono service.

• Professional Involvement

Kristen has presented on inspection readiness and air permitting, including “Managing Air Inspections in the Age of Information: A Practical Guide” at the REGFORM Air Seminar (November 2023), a REGFORM Air Seminar panel on “The Impact of Environmental Justice on Permitting Decisions” (November 2021), and the Kansas City Missouri Bar Association CLE presentations “What to Expect When You’re Inspected, Environmentally” (June 2011) and “Corporate Environmental Update” (June 2012). She has also presented “Environmental Due Diligence for Lenders” to a client lending group (August 2019).

Her writing includes the Environmental Law chapter of the Kansas Bar Association 2020 Kansas Annual Survey of Law, the co-authored article “Virtual Site Reconnaissance in the Time of COVID-19” in the Environmental Banker’s Association (EBA) Journal (June 2020), and Stinson alerts on PFAS under CERCLA, drinking water health advisories and lead. She is a member of the firm’s Infrastructure Task Force and is a former School Board Director and Secretary of Citizens of the World Kansas City.

• Experience

Kristen’s compliance counseling covers spill and release reporting, air and water permitting, and Spill Prevention Countermeasure & Control (SPCC) plan compliance. When problems surface, she takes clients through inspections and the records collection and production that follow, advises on voluntary self-disclosure of discovered non-compliance under EPA’s audit policy, and develops strategy in administrative enforcement actions, including negotiated penalty reductions and supplemental environmental projects. She also protects clients’ confidential and proprietary information when they respond to agency information requests or work through the FOIA process, and she has defended clients during OSHA interviews.

Her clients include chemical and industrial manufacturers and municipalities that operate power plants and public drinking water systems, for whom she handles Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) Rule compliance, PFAS monitoring, and NPDES permit issues. She has represented landfill owners and solid waste clients in Superfund litigation, permit compliance and compliance disclosure reporting, and she advises rail and transit clients on hazardous waste shipping, mobile-source air emissions, and import inspection regulations administered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Kristen has been a key team member in litigated matters involving water rights, agency permitting decisions, RCRA exemptions, Superfund PRP suits, and endangered species and critical habitat. She works with Stinson’s Corporate Finance and Real Estate teams on environmental due diligence, including for new market tax credits, solar farms and carbon dioxide capture and sequestration projects, and she represents property owners in planning and zoning, property tax and codes-compliance matters.

SESSION 1 – Finding Environmental Compliance Gaps Before Regulators Do | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session examines how counsel can identify environmental and workplace-safety issues that may lead to regulatory exposure before they become larger problems. The discussion will cover assessing operations, permits, and existing practices, with particular attention to Clean Air Act requirements involving permitting, emissions, and reporting; Clean Water Act requirements involving discharges, permits, stormwater, and reporting; and RCRA requirements governing hazardous-waste classification, handling, storage, and disposal. The session will also address areas where environmental and OSHA obligations overlap and the importance of recognizing potential compliance gaps across these areas.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Responding to Violations, Inspections, and Regulatory Pressure | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session addresses the response when a compliance issue has already surfaced or a regulator becomes involved. Topics will include preparing for regulatory inspections, evaluating violations and information requests, managing responses to regulatory findings, and coordinating corrective action. The discussion will also examine when and how voluntary disclosure may be appropriate, considerations affecting penalty and enforcement risk, and approaches to mitigating potential consequences and negotiating with regulators. The session will close with considerations for turning lessons from compliance problems and enforcement activity into stronger, more sustainable compliance controls.