Sarah Y.

Dicharry

Sarah is a member of the firm’s Energy and Natural Resources Industry Team, where she advises exploration and production companies regarding their rights and obligations under the complicated legal framework governing federal oil and gas leases. With the recent focus on offshore wind energy development in the United States, Sarah also has developed extensive knowledge regarding the regulatory framework governing offshore wind leases.

Sarah regularly counsels federal lessees regarding the complicated federal leasing framework, including concerning issues arising under the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Management Act, the Royalty Simplification and Fairness Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Mineral Leasing Act, the Indian Mineral Leasing Act, the False Claims Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Within the context of these various statutes and their implementing regulations, Sarah advises companies regarding the scope of their rights and obligations, limitations on agency authority, responding to agency-initiated audits, etc. Sarah also helps clients develop comments on proposed rulemakings that affect federal leases. In addition to providing regulatory advice, Sarah advises and represents clients in corporate transactions, including asset acquisitions and divestitures (e.g., acquisition of offshore leases, sale of offshore pipeline segments).

To date, Sarah has represented numerous clients in dozens of administrative and judicial appeal proceedings, including royalty disputes involving the Marketable Condition Rule, civil penalties, vented and flared production, and refund demands; lease maintenance issues such as suspensions of operations and suspensions of production; and compliance with operational and safety regulations. Sarah is a highly effective litigator whose laser focus on the facts and ability to develop and present novel legal arguments have led to several precedent-setting victories that have benefited her clients and the industry as a whole. Recent rulings have, among other things, allowed federal lessees to collect interest on certain royalty overpayments, precluded the federal government from enjoying a royalty windfall at the industry’s expense, and more generally reaffirmed federal agencies’ obligation to comply with the APA’s rulemaking requirements.