About EPA

About the Acting Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Land and Emergency Management

Barry Breen

Barry BreenBarry Breen

Barry Breen is the Acting Assistant Administrator of the EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM). In that capacity, Barry is responsible for managing the EPA’s hazardous and solid waste management programs, hazardous waste cleanup programs including corrective action under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Superfund and federal facilities cleanup and redevelopment, Brownfields program, oil spill prevention and response program, chemical accident prevention and response program, underground storage tank program, and emergency response program.

Barry joined OLEM (then known as the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response) in 2002. Previously, Barry was the Director of the EPA’s Office of Site Remediation Enforcement, and before that led EPA’s Federal Facilities Enforcement Office. Prior to joining the EPA, Barry was Editor-In-Chief of the Environmental Law Reporter and Director of Publications at the Environmental Law Institute. He was a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s criminal division, and an Assistant to the General Counsel, Department of the Army. In that capacity, Barry served as an active-duty Army Captain.

Barry teaches environmental law as an adjunct professor at American University law school. He has an undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and a law degree from Harvard Law School. He was the Managing Editor of Sustainable Environmental Law, which won the Association of American Publishers’ Award for Best New Book in the Scholarly Legal category. He has written eight of the annual competition problems for the National Environmental Moot Court.

Barry received the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive Service, the EPA’s Award for Exemplary Leadership in Human Resources Management, the Army’s Meritorious Service Medal, and American University’s Faculty Award for Outstanding Adjunct Teaching.