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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 | 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 ...

Op-Ed | Herding Cats: Biden’s Myopic Approach to Scientific Integrity

by Jeff Ruch | February 16, 2023
The president has made it clear he believes scientific integrity is an important value. Now he must show it more forcefully ...

Speaker Pelosi’s farewell gift to San Francisco should be a clean Hunters Point

by Jeff Ruch | November 22, 2022
As U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi enters her last weeks in leadership, she has the unique opportunity to leave her city an invaluable gift that has eluded it for decades — a fully remediated Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The shipyard sits on 638 acres of bayfront property in The City’ ...

Guest column: EPA has lost its way

by Tim Whitehouse | November 16, 2022
It has been more than 20 years since I worked as a senior attorney at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), using my legal training to help enforce the Clean Water Act and advise agency managers on a range of hazardous waste issues ...

Op-ed | The dirty secret behind some ‘clean energy’ offers

by Tim Whitehouse | October 26, 2022
As our climate spins out of control, an urgent need exists for clean energy advocates and watchdog organizations to ensure that protecting climate-conscious energy consumers goes hand in hand with efforts to support programs to address the climate crisis. A recent Maryland study  ...