Richard L. Gordon Distinguished Achievement Award in Mineral Economics and Energy Business and Finance
From 2015 to 2019, Mary Beth Ward served as one of four judges on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board. The Board is the final decision-maker on administrative appeals of permit decisions and penalty assessments under all major environmental statutes that EPA administers.
Before joining the Board in 2015, Judge Ward served eleven years as Deputy General Counsel for the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In that capacity, she led a staff of attorneys, paralegals, and support personnel providing legal advice across a wide array of NOAA programs that manage the nation’s commercial and recreational fisheries and protect at-risk marine species. Her experience further includes sixteen years at the U.S. Justice Department as a trial attorney, Assistant Chief, and ultimately as Deputy Chief in the Environmental Defense Section, where she litigated on behalf of EPA and other federal agencies in both federal district and appellate courts. That litigation included defending rules issued by EPA under federal pollution control laws, representing the United States against claims of responsibility for costs to clean up polluted sites, and prosecuting violations of the Clean Water Act.
Judge Ward earned her juris doctor degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, and bachelor of science in mineral economics with highest honors from Penn State, and was recognized in 2016 as an Alumni Fellow, the highest award given by the Penn State Alumni Association.