Adam Regele, CalChamber senior policy advocate, has been promoted to the newly created position of vice president of advocacy and strategic partnerships. Regele specializes in environmental policy, housing and land use, and product regulation issues.
In addition, he will be working to expand the CalChamber’s relationships to other businesses and associations, not only in California, but also nationally, as California state government continues its repeated attempts to expand oversight and regulation of the business community.
Last year, Regele was lead negotiator for the business community on SB 54, which dramatically changed California’s existing recycling framework for all single-use packaging while saving Californians $9 billion a year in taxes by removing a related initiative from the ballot. SB 54 creates a circular economy framework that is the nation’s most complex extended producer responsibility program and Regele remains the foremost expert on the ongoing implementation of the law.
Regele joined the CalChamber in 2018 and was named a senior policy advocate in 2021 in recognition of his efforts on behalf of CalChamber members.
He came to the CalChamber policy team after practicing law at an Oakland-based law firm — Meyers, Nave, Riback, Silver & Wilson, PLC — where he advised private and public clients on complex projects involving land use and environmental laws and regulations at the local, state and federal levels. His extensive environmental and waste regulatory compliance experience includes defending in litigation matters related to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
Before joining Meyers Nave, Regele handled state and federal environmental litigation and administrative proceedings as an associate at a Bay Area law firm that focused on environmental, natural resources, land use, labor and local government law.
He served as a federal judicial law clerk to the Honorable Edward J. Davila of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, and as a legal fellow with the Oakland City Attorney’s Office prior to entering private law practice.
Regele earned a B.S. in environmental science at the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. from UC Hastings College of Law, where he was symposium editor and research and development editor for the Hastings West-Northwest Journal.
