Martin O'Neill

Associate

Martin O'Neill is an associate in Morgan Lewis's Energy Practice. Mr. O'Neill's practice focuses on regulatory issues and administrative litigation affecting the nuclear energy industry. He has represented numerous clients in hearings before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. He also has dealt with matters involving NRC rulemaking, enforcement, security, and safeguards; emergency preparedness; license renewal; decommissioning and license termination; transportation of radiological materials; low-level radioactive waste disposal; and the application of certain federal environmental statutes, particularly the National Environmental Policy Act. Mr. O'Neill also has assisted in briefing nuclear regulatory matters in the federal courts.

Mr. O'Neill is directly involved in a variety of cutting-edge nuclear regulatory and licensing matters, including industry efforts to license a new generation of nuclear facilities. He has represented clients in proceedings involving early site permit, uranium enrichment facility, license renewal, and license transfer applications, including the pending license renewal proceeding for Entergy's Indian Point Energy Center in New York State. He recently provided legal counsel to Duke Energy and South Carolina Electric & Gas in connection with their submittal of license applications to build and operate new nuclear plants, and currently provides legal counsel to GE-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment, LLC, which is preparing a license application for a new-generation uranium enrichment facility deploying laser isotope separation technology. Mr. O'Neill also co-authored a brief submitted on behalf of AmerGen Energy Company, L.L.C. in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit concerning the NRC's alleged duty to consider acts of terrorism under NEPA.

Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Mr. O'Neill was an associate with a leading Washington, D.C. law firm where he assisted a European-led consortium in its successful effort to license the National Enrichment Facility, the nation's first commercial gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility. He served as lead associate in the related NRC adjudicatory hearings, helping to defend the license application against numerous legal challenges and to secure an NRC license for the client in June 2006.

Before entering private practice, Mr. O'Neill served as a staff attorney in the NRC's Office of the General Counsel, where he participated in the agency's Honor Law Graduate Program. During his NRC tenure, Mr. O'Neill litigated complex geotechnical and seismic issues associated with the Private Fuel Storage consortium's proposal to build an independent spent fuel storage installation in Utah.

Mr. O'Neill received his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 2000, where he was the recent developments editor of the State Bar of Texas Environmental Law Journal and an intern with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. He received his B.A., magna cum laude, in geology from Colgate University in 1994, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He has completed graduate-level coursework in hydrogeology and worked briefly as a hydrogeologist in Austin, Texas.

Mr. O'Neill is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.