Advanced Search
January 26, 2024
To help commemorate EESI’s 40th anniversary, Policy Associate Nicole Pouy and Senior Communications Associate Alison Davis sat down with Board Chair Emeritus Richard L. “Dick” Ottinger as he looked back on his career path leading up to the founding of EESI. Ottinger represented Westchester County, New York, in Congress from 1965 to 1971 and 1975 to 1985. In that time, he was a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and founded the bipartisan Environmental and Energy Study Conference, which later became the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.
My interest in the environment began in my youth, as a boy scout, where most of the merit badges I earned were environmentally-oriented. Since then, my life has been a series of incredibly fortunate breaks. I attended Cornell University and then Harvard Law School, which deferred my draft to Vietnam. After Harvard Law, I joined the Air Force—where I was assigned to reconfigure their environmental procurement regulations.
I quickly learned that I did not want to spend my life at a law firm, and instead moved to Washington, D.C., where I joined the Agency for International Development’s procurement division. While I was there, President Kennedy announced the launch of the Peace Corps. In a big stroke of luck, I was brought in to set up their procurement division. I was one of the first people on staff.
In another fortunate break, there was a call to set up a Peace Corps program in South America. They needed someone who spoke Spanish, and I happened to have taught myself Spanish! So, we went ahead and set up our first program in Chile. I was then hired to expand the Corps’s work across the west coast of South America. Many of the programs there worked to establish solutions to severe environmental problems, aiming to protect public health, communities, and agriculture. It remains one of the most interesting things I have ever done.
In yet another lucky break, one day, after I had been with the Peace Corps for five years, the Democratic chairman of Westchester County, New York, invited me, out of the blue, to run for Congress. Clashes with then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller put me in the news and helped me win. I left Congress in 1985, wanting to get involved in environmental education. In another stroke of luck, the chancellor of Pace University called me up and asked me to join the law school faculty. I was selected as Law School Dean and helped formulate Pace’s environmental law program, which is now number one in the country.
The environment has played an enormous part in my life, and one of the greatest achievements I have had has been to be part of the formation of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), which is a leading national environmental organization celebrating its 40th year of success.
When the head of the Democratic party of Westchester County in New York invited me to run for Congress, I told him he must be crazy—at that point, there had never been a Democratic representative from Westchester County, and I had only ever run for local office before. But I ran, and following more lucky breaks, I succeeded.
The district lay along the Hudson River, and that river was very important to the District community. But the state had badly neglected it—the river had become a sewer and fish were disappearing due to the pollution. So, I made it a priority issue in my campaign. However, Nelson Rockefeller, New York’s governor at the time, was furious that I was running on the basis of his neglect of the Hudson—it got me onto the front page of the New York Times! That ultimately helped bring attention to the issue and give me name recognition that otherwise would have been impossible to get.
After I won the Congressional seat, I delivered on my promise of cleaning up the Hudson with tremendous help from the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association. My first action in Congress was to introduce the Hudson River Compact Act, which set up a three-part committee between the states of New York and New Jersey, and the federal government, to manage the Hudson River cleanup. The law passed, and the river was cleaned up by the Rockefeller Administration.
It has been pretty up and down, depending on presidential appointments. The sixties and seventies were truly a heyday for the environment. Many of the most significant laws and policies were established in that time, received strong bipartisan support, and were signed into law by President Nixon. For example, the National Environmental Policy Act established the Council on Environmental Policy. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was founded to administer environmental laws. The Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act were all born out of this era. It was a very exciting time to be a part of the formulation of these laws. Things continued to improve in the late 1970s under President Carter, who was a real trailblazer—the first president to emphasize the importance of energy conservation.
In the 1980s, under President Reagan, we were much less fortunate. Reagan appointed James Watt as Secretary of Interior and Anne Gorsuch as EPA Administrator, who tried to unravel as much of the progress of the 1970s as possible.
Jumping to recent times, Donald Trump’s administration was an environmental disaster. He withdrew the country from the Paris Agreement, halted climate actions that the EPA had established, denied climate change and science, and fired expert groups on which EPA relied for sound scientific information. Fortunately, President Biden has made a great effort to restore environmental regulations. He signed into law the massive bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Unfortunately, at the same time, the Supreme Court is stacked with people who are working against climate solutions, for example, by overriding the EPA’s greenhouse gas emission regulations.
During the “bad days,” when presidents have been antagonistic toward the environment, the Environmental and Energy Study Conference, and now EESI, have played an important part in educating Congressional staff as well as the public.
When you are a freshman Congressman, it is near impossible to make changes to major national policies. But if you specialize in something, you can. So, I specialized in the environmental issues of the day.
I, along with about a dozen members from both parties started the Environmental and Energy Study Conference to inform Congress about the environmental issues that came before it. Before the 1970s, there was very little attention paid to the environment, and even the work that had been done previously—by Thoreau, Teddy Roosevelt, Rachel Carson—was referred to as “conservation” measures.
We established the Conference as a bipartisan, bicameral effort in 1975. It was the largest of its kind that had ever been created. We had about 295 members of the House, at least 85 senators, and very strong representation from both parties. We produced a weekly bulletin sent to members of Congress highlighting the environmental issues that were going to be coming before them. That became something that really caught on, and it would become the basis for EESI’s Congressional briefings!
Ultimately, the Conference's progress faced disruptions, including disruptions imposed by limited Congressional funding. But a few of us decided that the work the Conference was doing was important and had to keep going, so in the early ‘80s, we privatized it. It then became the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, which would advise Congress through briefings in the same spirit as the Conference’s weekly bulletins.
We assembled a board of people who’d devoted their lives to the environment and the resolution of the climate crisis. It started out with a very small but very knowledgeable staff, and with about a dozen members of Congress from both parties serving as the original board of directors. EESI's longest-serving executive director was Carol Werner. Carol is incredibly smart, encyclopedic on the environment, and a great entrepreneur. She was very successful at building up the organization, both substantively and financially.
Together, we continued the work through Congressional briefings for legislators and their staff, and briefings continue to be one of EESI’s primary instruments for educating Congress today. It was so successful that industry folks caught wind of it and were anxious to get the information we were sharing—so EESI invited them to the briefings, as well. The briefings now average about 100 people, largely with Congressional staff in attendance, but also interested citizen, public interest and industry groups. It grew to being a thriving, established public-interest organization. It is tremendously satisfying.
We need to reduce our dependence on oil, gas, and coal and adopt renewable energy as quickly as possible. But the greatest challenge in this transition is the interconnection between the oil, gas, and coal companies and the communities in which those industries are prominent. For one, the fossil fuel industry has spent millions of dollars to elect members of Congress who support their continuation and greenwashing their practices to the public. Second, the industry is a major economic resource for communities that rely on them for work. There is a real need to not leave these communities behind. President Biden has recognized that in the legislation he has passed by providing support to retrain people who work in the fossil fuel industry and to assist the communities that are dependent on them so that they can then take advantage of renewable energy sources.
One of the biggest challenges is the campaign finance structure, and the massive amount of money that is required to run for Congress. I believe that is one of the great faults of our political system. These days, a campaign for an open House seat can cost more than $2 million. Running for my seat in 1964, in comparison, cost about $100,000. So, there are two main forces at work that create resistance to climate action within large portions of our legislature. One is the huge amount of dark money in campaigns. The second is the campaign efforts of the oil and gas industry, which has bought Congressional support and fed a large segment of the public with climate disinformation. It will take a great deal of effort, including from EESI, to try and correct this. A well-informed Congress is critical to getting sound legislation passed. And getting the public to understand the environmental issues we’re facing is important to influence Congress to do the right thing. That is what EESI is set up for, and what we’ve done a good job in doing.
I would cite my days in Congress as a poster child for bipartisanship. Then, members put the interests of their country and their constituents ahead of their own election considerations. People would risk their future election to do the right thing. I saw this time and again when I was in office, though you don’t see it so much anymore. There must have been over 50 environmental measures passed during my Congressional terms, all with complete and overwhelming bipartisan support. Republicans had an important role in passing those measures and most were signed into law by President Nixon.
If you want to make a difference in the future of the world, there is nothing more significant you can do than to become an advocate for the environment. Outside of that, take advantage of environmental stewardship opportunities—like taking part in a river or a park cleanup.
Working on climate, energy, and environmental issues is very satisfying, and the people who work in this field have very good values. Plus, you can see the fruits of your labor!
EESI has an extraordinary chair in Jared Blum, who has provided excellent leadership, a fabulous president in Daniel Bresette, a bipartisan board of directors of truly wonderful, prominent people, and a marvelous staff.
EESI’s work becomes more essential with each passing day. Climate impacts are ravaging communities across the countries—from flooding and drought-induced fires that drive people from their homes, to unprecedented heat waves that are killing vulnerable people—and the need for our work is huge. We play a part in informing communities and decision-makers as to what they can do and how they can benefit from climate solutions, such as renewable energy.
Recent legislation, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, will diminish our national contribution to climate change. But we have a long way to go if we are going to avoid catastrophic global climate impacts. The United States has championed renewable energy in recent years and is putting a great deal of work into reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.
We are dealing with the greatest threat to humankind and to our natural resources. Yet a substantial portion of our society says that there is nothing to worry about. As communities around the world experience destructive and deadly flooding, hurricanes, heatwaves, and droughts, those portions of society may have to learn the hard way. On the other hand, EESI can help educate the public on climate risks and solutions.
Author: Nicole Pouy
We'll deliver a dose of the latest in environmental policy and climate change solutions straight to your inbox every 2 weeks!
Sign up for our newsletter, Climate Change Solutions, here.
Top-Rated Climate Nonprofit – 4-Star Charity