Advisory Board

Michael R. Brower

Senior Federal Policy Director,
Mosaic Federal Affairs LLC/Hiscock & Barclay LLC

Michael R. Brower is Mosaic Federal Affairs' Senior Federal Policy Director and Principal responsible for the firm's operations, projects and legislative objectives and priorities. Michael is a retired career Naval Officer and Aviator who commanded Sea Strike Squadron Twenty-Two in the first Iraqi War and personally flew 43 aircraft carrier-based combat sorties. He also served in the Secretary of the Navy’s personal office as Special Assistant for Air Warfare communicating United States Navy legislative policy to the Congress for Secretary of the Navy Lehman, Secretary of the Navy Webb and Secretary of the Navy Ball. Michael is an ACORE member from the outset and is a long-time Leadership Council member.

After two decade-plus career in naval service, Michael was a state agency executive director, bank director, farmer, a federal and New York State legislative affairs consultant and Director, Community and Governmental Relations at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF). Throughout his external relations career, Michael has focused on authorizations for appropriations and appropriations legislation, renewable energy and energy tax policy matters,  project finance, and federal and state agency project awards. Michael helped establish Mosaic Federal Affairs, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the New York law firm Hiscock & Barclay LLP, in January 2006.

Michael was directly engaged in helping craft the first ever Energy Title (IX) in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 and has since played a direct role shaping biomass definitions and tax components in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Energy Infrastructure, the Energy Security Act of 2007, and the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008. Michael co-chaired the ACORE Biomass Definition Subcommittee with Colonel Bill Holmberg and co-authored the ACORE Biomass Definition unifying the present 16 federal definitions presently in statute and regulation. The ACORE Biomass definition was submitted to Congress in 2012 and awaits inclusion in appropriate 113th Congress energy policy legislation.

Michael enjoys extensive development experience with energy crops, distributed generation, district heating and cooling, biomass conversion to liquid fuels projects and has very recently been tasked to prepare for several MSW/residues to energy and biodigester developments including landfill gas/biogas (methane) distributive power generation.

Most recently, Michael was a presenter at 4th Annual Renewable Energy Technology Conference & Exhibition (RETECH) in Washington, D.C. (October 2012); a delegate on a U.S. Department of Commerce, Gold Key Renewable Energy Trade Mission traveling to Republic of the Philippines and Thailand (September 2012); a featured speaker, “Advancing Federal Biomass Policy Through Legislative Initiatives,” at the 2nd Annual World Congress of Bioenergy-2012 in the Global Bioenergy Economy and Policy Forum in Xi'an, China (April 2012) and is slated to be a Congress session chair and featured speaker at the 3rd Annual World Congress of Bioenergy in Nanjing, China (April 2013).

Michael lives in Syracuse, New York, and commutes nearly weekly to Washington on Mosaic Federal Affairs LLC business.