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.

BLOG: EPA Continues to Approve Bee-Killing Insecticides

by Peter Jenkins | January 8, 2020
With over 40 percent of insect life threatened with extinction, the EPA continues to issue emergency exemptions to toxic pollinator-killing insecticides ...

BLOG: EPA Science Advisors Slam EPA’s Proposed Water Rule

by Tim Whitehouse | January 6, 2020
A working group of the EPA's Scientific Advisory Board blasts the Administration's efforts to drastically scale back U.S. clean water protections ...

BLOG: Dark Waters and the Threat of PFAS Chemicals

by Kyla Bennett | December 4, 2019
We aren’t usually in the movie promotion business, but we did want to tell you about the movie Dark Waters and how it relates to our work at PEER. Dark Waters is a recently released movie based on a true story about a lawyer and a community who fought DuPont chemical ...

BLOG: WOTUS Redefinition: New York

by Kyla Bennett | November 18, 2019
Impact of proposed Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) redefinition on wetlands and waters in New York: a case study ...

WOTUS Redefinition: South Dakota

by Kyla Bennett | August 26, 2019
Impact of Proposed Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) Redefinition on Wetlands and Waters in South Dakota ...

WOTUS Redefinition: New Mexico

by Kyla Bennett | August 1, 2019
Impact of Proposed Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) Redefinition on Wetlands and Waters in New Mexico ...