Ignacia S. Moreno is the CEO and a Principal of The iMoreno Group, PLC.  She provides legal services and strategic counseling on environmental and natural resources matters that arise in the context of regulatory compliance, enforcement proceedings, litigation, business transactions, project development, and government relations.  She provides clients advice on securing regulatory approvals, ensuring compliance with the law, managing internal and government investigations, responding to enforcement proceedings, conducting litigation, and otherwise addressing instances of non-compliance.

Ignacia is recognized as one of the nation’s leading environmental and natural resources lawyers.  During her 32-year career, she has served as the top environmental lawyer at the U.S. Department of Justice, been corporate environmental counsel at a Fortune 10 company, and practiced environmental law and litigation at prominent national law firms.  With her unique combination of government, corporate, and private sector experience, Ignacia has an insider’s knowledge of how to successfully navigate government regulatory and enforcement processes and find creative solutions to complex environmental and natural resources issues.

In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Ignacia to serve as Assistant Attorney General of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (Division).  The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed her (93 to 0) and she served as head of the Division from 2009-2013.  During her tenure she managed the budget and operations of a 650-person (430-lawyer) litigation division ranked as one of the top five “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government” in 2010, 2011, and 2012.  Ignacia oversaw a nationwide docket of approximately 7,000 civil, criminal, defensive, and appellate cases and policy matters on behalf of numerous executive branch agencies, including the EPA, the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, State, and Transportation, and NASA.  She also participated in nationally significant cases and matters, including those arising under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Oil Pollution Act, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, CERCLA, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and Indian law.

As Assistant Attorney General, Ignacia advised Cabinet members, agency general counsel, and other senior administration officials on litigation strategies and enforcement initiatives and policies; testified before Congress; and traveled throughout the United States to engage with communities, law enforcement officials, Native American tribes, and industry.  Accomplishments include:

• Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (led the Division’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the largest oil spill in history; oversaw successful defense of challenges to agency response actions; oversaw successful litigation of civil enforcement action; achieved record-setting civil settlements).
• Climate Change Rules and Actions (oversaw successful defense of EPA’s historic endangerment finding under the Clean Air Act, greenhouse gas rules, and related agency actions).
• Tribal Trust Litigation (negotiated and oversaw the negotiation of historic settlements totaling about $1.7 billion with 69 Indian Tribes, resetting the government-to-government relationship with the tribes).
• Environmental Justice (worked with federal agencies, communities, and industry representatives to consider and integrate environmental justice principles into the resolution of cases and matters handled by the Division).

Ignacia also served in the Environment and Natural Resources Division from 1994 to 2001 as an appointee in the Clinton Administration, where she handled a wide array of domestic and international environmental enforcement policy matters.  She developed and negotiated cooperative enforcement initiatives under bilateral, trilateral, and regional agreements in North America and Latin America, participated in government-to-government consultations in Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America on environmental enforcement matters, and conducted capacity-building efforts in Latin America and Asia.

Before her appointment as Assistant Attorney General, Ignacia was Counsel for the Northeast/Midwest Regions and International in Corporate Environmental Programs at the General Electric Company.  At GE, she provided advice and counsel to multiple GE businesses in connection with sites in a twelve-state region and abroad.  She managed complex environmental litigation and handled a wide range of enforcement, regulatory, remedial, due diligence, and natural resources damages matters under federal and state laws.  

Ignacia also has nearly two decades of experience in private practice, having previously practiced law at two prominent Washington, D.C. law firms, including as a Partner.  Her litigation practice focused on environmental and mass tort litigation with an emphasis on science-based advocacy and her environmental practice focused on regulatory compliance counseling relating to the Clean Air Act, NEPA, and other federal environmental statutes on behalf of German and Japanese automakers and other firm clients. 

Ignacia has significant experience serving on regulatory, university, think tank, and non-profit boards.  She was appointed by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe to serve a four-year term on the State Air Pollution Control Board and was elected Chair of the Board.  Ignacia was appointed by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam to a four-year term on the Board of Visitors of George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public university, where she was elected to the Executive Committee and as Vice Chair of the Audit Committee, and served as a member of the Finance and Land Use Committee.  She serves on the National Board of Directors of the Trust for Public Land where she was elected to the Executive Committee and Transactions Committee, serves as Chair of the Advocacy Committee, and has served on the Finance Committee.  Ignacia also serves on the advisory boards of the Yale Center for Environmental Justice, the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation, and the New York University School of Law Institute for Policy Integrity.  In addition, she has served as President and member of the Board of Directors of the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia (HBA-DC) and as General Counsel and member of the Board of Governors of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA).  

In 2022, Ignacia received the HBA-DC Judge Ricardo M. Urbina Lifetime Achievement Award and the HNBA Latina Commission Primera Abogada Award.  In 2013, she received the Edmund J. Randolph Award in recognition of outstanding service to the U.S. Department of Justice and the nation.  She also received the Meritorious Public Service Award and Medal from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—U.S. Coast Guard for her outstanding service in initiating and conducting litigation in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and protecting human health and the environment.  In 2009 and 1995, Hispanic Business Magazine named Ignacia as one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the United States.  She received the AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell in 2016.

Ignacia received a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law in 1990 and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Political Science from New York University in 1986.  She was born in Cartagena, Colombia and is a naturalized United States citizen.  She lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area with her family.