Public Health

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.

National Parks Epitomize Trump COVID Inconsistency

by Jeff Ruch | April 8, 2020
As more than 100 national park units have closed, hundreds more remain open in an uneven handling of COVID-19 by the Trump administration ...

BLOG: COVID-19 Power Grab

by Chandra Rosenthal | April 2, 2020
Buried deep in the $2 trillion coronavirus bill, was a change in the tax code that “could result in $170 billion in tax breaks for real estate investors ...

PEERMail | Anti-Science Agenda Getting a Green Light

by Tim Whitehouse | March 30, 2020
Failure to address the pandemic lies with Trump and politicians like Mitch McConnell who have a long history gutting funding of our public health agencies and ignoring the advice of scientists and health advocates ...

BLOG: How Mitch McConnell Gutted the Pandemic Response

by Tim Whitehouse | March 25, 2020
While he has been the Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell has led efforts to cut $1.6 trillion in critical funding for CDC and NIH research. And now, as our public health services are begging for resources to save lives from the pandemic, Americans are living the policy result of Sen ...

PEER Letter to Suspend Action During Coronavirus Crisis

by Peter Jenkins | March 23, 2020
A coalition of more than 90 conservation groups issued a letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt urging the department to "suspend major policy changes, changes to regulations, oil and gas lease sales and public comment periods ...
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