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.

COMMENTARY | BLM Unclear on Transparency

by Chandra Rosenthal | July 24, 2024
According to the latest Interior Department quarterly report on its backlog of unanswered FOIA requests, BLM leads as its least responsive agency ...

COMMENTARY | Science or Scam – NOAA Fisheries Gaslighting

by Guest Contributor | July 23, 2024
We keep hearing that we should "follow the science." Sometimes, though, scams are coated in scientific veneer ...

COMMENTARY | Project 2025: Wingnut Wing Flapping

by Jeff Ruch |
The realities of a second Trump term are scary enough without the need to spend time worrying about boogeymen conjured up by the Heritage Foundation ...

COMMENTARY | EPA Lacks a PFAS Containment Strategy

by Tim Whitehouse | July 17, 2024
To stop the forever chemical crisis, EPA must interrupt the flow of PFAS reaching our water, soil, and food chain every day ...

COMMENTARY | America’s Ailing Overgrazed Rangelands

The latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management paint a bleak picture of the ecological health of America’s public rangelands ...

COMMENTARY | Trump’s Enemies List: Dismantling the Civil Service

by Peter Jenkins | July 10, 2024
If elected, Donald Trump will likely pick up where he left off – going after the federal merit system founded more than 140 years ago ...
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