Commentary

Senior Counsel

Peter has been an environmental, land use, and consumer attorney and advocate since 1983. He has held various roles in Washington, DC including Of Counsel at the Center for Food Safety; Vice President for U.S. Government Policy at Conservation International; Director of International Conservation at Defenders of Wildlife; and Staff Attorney at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Additionally, he worked as a contracted consultant on endangered species recovery efforts with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Turner Endangered Species Fund in New Mexico. Prior to that, he served as an Attorney and Policy Analyst for the U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, and was also in private law practice. His career has centered on bringing the best science to bear in environmental protection efforts; he has specialized in working with scientists so their findings can inform good policy, as well as in federal litigation. Most of his work has been in aid of wildlife conservation in the fields of pesticides, genetically modified organisms, invasive species, wildlife disease prevention, international trade, land use conflicts, and other areas. Peter received his law degree from the University of Puget Sound (now Seattle University) School of Law and also has a master’s degree in Environmental Studies from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, with a focus on conservation biology.

Change is Possible! National Parks Reclaim Their Skies

by Paula Dinerstein | May 24, 2023
The first serious inroads have been made into curbing swarms of commercial air tours rumbling across some of America’s most besieged national parks ...

COMMENTARY | Questions About BLM’s Conservation Rule

by Chandra Rosenthal | May 8, 2023
There are serious concerns about many provisions of the new BLM conservation rule and its potential negative impact on public lands ...

COMMENTARY | EPA’s Whack-a-Mole “Forever Chemicals” Posture Is an Intolerable Failure

by Kyla Bennett | May 3, 2023
The agency must treat PFAS as a class of chemicals regulated in the same manner as the European Union and other countries ...

COMMENTARY | New Green Guides Must Address Renewable Energy

by Monica Mercola | April 26, 2023
Concern about climate change creates fertile ground for misleading marketing claims around renewable energy and other environmental issues ...

COMMENTARY | Don’t Let Plastics Overtake the Earth

by Colleen Zimmerman | April 22, 2023
We are recommitting ourselves to finding ways to rapidly reduce our dependence on plastics and their impact on the environment and human health ...

COMMENTARY | Letter to the EPA: Take Action on “Devil’s Bargain” Pesticides

by Peter Jenkins | March 27, 2023
The environment needs protection from neonic-coated seeds, which are by far the broadest pesticide/insecticide application across the country ...
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