Tom Russial is a member of the Global CCS Institute’s North American Team. For over 25 years, Tom has been involved in the design and implementation of energy research programs. He was lead attorney for the U.S. Department of Energy on numerous multi-million dollar demonstration and commercial scale projects in the Clean Coal, Carbon Sequestration, Energy Efficiency, and Smart-Grid Programs. Tom has extensive knowledge and experience in federal contracting and financial assistance policies and procedures, federal and state incentives, private financing mechanisms, environmental requirements, and legal and regulatory analysis. He has worked closely with senior government officials, public utilities, independent power producers, technology developers, equipment vendors, financing institutions, investors, and other stakeholders. After retiring in 2009 as Chief Counsel at the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, Tom has maintained a private law practice focused on energy related matters and has been writing and speaking on legal and regulatory issues facing deployment of CCS technology in the U.S. and worldwide.