About the Acting Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
Larry Starfield
Larry Starfield serves as the Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA). He is responsible for managing the nation’s environmental enforcement program, with approximately 3,000 environmental professionals.
Starfield has more than 30 years of experience in the environmental field. From 2001 to 2011, he served as the Deputy Regional Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6, where he was responsible for the management of the 850-person regional office in Dallas, Texas. During his tenure, the Region oversaw issues under all environmental statutes, including those arising in response to the Shuttle Columbia disaster, Hurricane Katrina, and the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
From 1997-2001, Starfield served as the Regional Counsel for Region 6 where he managed an office of 60 lawyers that provided legal advice to the Regional Administrator and Region 6 program offices regarding the interpretation and implementation of federal environmental laws. Before joining Region 6, Starfield spent 10 years with EPA's Office of General Counsel in Washington, D.C., where he served as an attorney-advisor, Assistant General Counsel for the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and Acting Associate General Counsel for Solid Waste and Emergency Response.
Before coming to EPA, he worked in Paris, France, from 1985 to 1987 as the correspondent for the Bureau of National Affairs on French environmental issues. From 1981 through 1985, he was an associate with the law firm of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, in Washington, D.C., where he worked on environmental and energy issues. Prior to that, he clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton in the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware.
He is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and Yale Law School.