Lawyers embrace US climate practice at $700 an hour

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Jan. 24: $500, said Rick Glick, president of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. The range is in line with fees for attorneys in other practice areas, said Edward Zaelke, a partner in the 28-person renewable-energy practice at New York- based Chadbourne & Parke.

PG&E paid Akin Gump $400,000 for lobbying Congress in the first half of 2007, according to a federal disclosure statement. Not all the activity was climate-related and the team did more than lobby, Gutermann said. He declined to elaborate.

Companies in all U.S. sectors are turning to lawyers to help them build systems to monitor, report and verify carbon credits, lawyers say.

The world carbon-trading market tripled to about $30 billion between 2005 and 2006, according to the World Bank. Such a market in the U.S. may reach as much as $300 billion by 2020, Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, said in U.S. House testimony last year.

The model proposed by Warner, a Virginia Republican, and Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, is similar to the European Union’s emissions program. Heavy polluters must buy credits to comply, while cleaner companies can profit by selling them.