What a tangled web they weave...
Bernadette Del Chiaro
Clean Energy Advocate
(916) 446-8062 ext. 103
Expertise
renewable energy, solar power and distributed generation, energy efficiency, fossil fuel and nuclear power plants
Background
Ms. Del Chiaro directs Environment California’s Clean Energy Program and serves as the primary contact for energy issues. Since joining staff in 2002, Ms. Del Chiaro has been the lead advocate of the Million Solar Roofs campaign. She also helped lead the Clean Energy L.A campaign, a successful coalition effort to establish a 20% by 2017 renewable energy standard at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Ms. Del Chiaro advocates in the state legislature, before the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission, and before municipal agencies and governments on clean energy issues. She’s been quoted and published in numerous media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, and Bloomberg News.
Prior to joining Environment California’s staff, Bernadette served as Organizing Director for the Toxics Action Center where she coordinated the successful campaign to clean up Connecticut’s “Filthy Five” coal-fired power plants. She remains on the Board of Directors for the Toxics Action Center and is a former Board Member of the New England Grassroots Environment Fund. In 1998, she graduated from * Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, and from 1995-1996, Ms. Del Chiaro staffed the local campaign office to stop the proposed Ward Valley nuclear waste dump in Needles, CA. Del Chiaro holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Conservation and Resource Studies from the University of California at Berkeley.
******
* Green Corps - Field School For Environmental Organzing
Following Earth Day 1990, a wave of environmentally minded college graduates left academia looking for a way to put their values to work. Since most environmental organizations were looking for experienced staff, few opportunities were available for these recent grads.
In 1992, U.S. PIRG, the Federation of State PIRGs, launched Green Corps as a graduate school for environmental organizers - with a difference. This program not only gave participants a solid academic grounding in their field of choice; it provided concrete field experience, established relationships between the participants and the major environmental organizations they hoped to serve in, and even paid participants to enable them to engage full-time in their chosen work.
The one-year Green Corps program intersperses intensive classroom instruction with multiple campaign efforts. Trainees gain hands-on experience running field campaigns to win environmental protections and public health initiatives. Throughout the year, each trainee receives specific individualized feedback on all aspects of his or her work, as well as local mentorship from environmental organizers throughout the nation. At the end of the training, the Green Corps program facilitates trainees’ placement in permanent positions with leading environmental and social change groups.
Green Corps
44 WINTER ST. FL. 4
BOSTON, MA 02108
617.426.8506
617.292.8057 FX
******
U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), stands up to powerful special interests on behalf of the American public, working to win concrete results for our health and our well-being. With a strong network of researchers, advocates, organizers and students in state capitols across the country, we take on the special interests on issues, such as product safety,political corruption, prescription drugs and voting rights,where these interests stand in the way of reform and progress.
Staff - (meet the CULT LEADERS)
http://www.uspirg.org/about-us/staff
Gary Kalman (NPR)
Federal Legislative Office Director
202-546-9707 x311
Prior to joining U.S. PIRG, Mr. Kalman worked with a team of producers to develop the nationally syndicated NPR program, Justice Talking. In a partnership with the New York Times, NPR and the University of Pennsylvania, he led the development and design of Justice Learning
Ed Mierzwinski (AARP)
Director, Consumer Program
202-546-9707 x314
He edited the 1993 edition of AARP’s “Your Credit,” a guidebook focused on the credit needs of older women. From 1993-95, he served on the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council. He is a past member of the boards of two large consumer-owned cooperative businesses, Northeast Co-ops, a food wholesaler, and the University of Connecticut Bookstore Co-op.
Douglas H. Phelps (Sierra Club/Human Rights Campaign)
President, Chairman
Mr. Phelps is also Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Fund for the Public Interest, which raises money for and provides technical assistance to nonprofits such as the PIRGs, Sierra Club, Human Rights Campaign, and Environmental Action. Mr. Phelps chairs the board of Green Corps, the environmental leadership training school, and serves on the Boards of Green Century Funds, the nation’s first environmentally responsible mutual fund family, and the National Environmental Law Center.
John Krieger
Staff Attorney
(202) 546-9707
Mr. Krieger lobbies Congress to eliminate waste and fraud in the government contracting process and to reform the federal approach to transportation funding.
Last Spring, Mr. Krieger teamed up with Congressman Rahm Emanuel and Senator John Kerry to draft and pass legislation prohibiting the use of offshore tax havens by corporations receiving federal government contracts.
Mr. Krieger received a Master’s in International Law from American University’s Washington College of Law, where he specialized in comparative constitutional law and international protection of human rights.
associate editor of the Journal of Law and Public Interest and working as a counselor at the Richmond Children’s Law Center focusing on alternative adjudication for non-violent juvenile drug offenders.
Elizabeth Hitchcock
Public Health Advocate
(202) 546-9707
She has served for several years on the board of Earth Share, has been chair of their national board since 2006
Lisa Gilbert
Democracy Advocate
202-546-9707
Prior to joining U.S. PIRG, Ms. Gilbert worked with the Fund for the Public Interest. She spent two years as a campaign director running large citizen outreach campaigns in Washington, D.C., Seattle, Wash., Chicago, Ill., and New York, N.Y., to pass legislation on social justice and environmental issue campaigns for organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign, Sierra Club and Environment Washington. She then worked for three years as the national trainer for the Fund
Jeff Bernstein
Policy Analyst
206-518-6125
He later worked for two years in the California State Legislature as Principal Aide to Assemblymember Hannah-Beth Jackson. He has advised and represented democratically worker-owned companies and numerous public interest organizations such as Access for All. As the attorney for Access for All, Mr. Bernstein successfully defended the public’s right to access the beach in Malibu against David Geffen in a highly publicized battle.
Prior to attending law school he served as a United States Peace Corps
Nicole Tichon
Federal Tax and Budget Reform Advocate
(202) 546-9707 x 370
Nicole served as the Legislative Assistant for banking, labor and judiciary issues for the late Congressman Norm Sisisky of Virginia, as well as a Legislative Correspondent for Senator Carl Levin of Michigan. During her undergraduate studies, Nicole interned in the Executive Office of the President in both the Vice President and President’s speechwriting offices.
Kevin Leppmann
Internet Organizer
(617)747-4388
Before joining PIRG, he worked for ten years as a data specialist for Verizon Business, and in 2008, he helped unionize the VzB New York-New England operations groups under the IBEW/CWA
founder of the annual HONK! Festival of activist street bands in Somerville, MA
Jane Regan (PBS, AP, Reuters)
Communications Director
(917) 509-4575 (202) 546-9707
Jane Regan is an award-winning multimedia journalist and filmmaker who has focused on social justice and human rights issues throughout her 25-year career, working on documentaries for PBS and BBC as well as shooting and producing news videos for AP Television and Reuters TV
co-founding a human rights-oriented news agency, the Haitian Information Bureau, from 1991 through 1999.
Larry McNeely
Health Care Reform Advocate
(202) 546-9707
Mr. McNeely lobbies Congress for legislation that will tame rising health costs, and offer consumers better choices in the health care marketplace.
Prior to joining U.S. PIRG, Mr. McNeely dedicated nearly a decade of his life to work as a community activist, political organizer, and union representative.
Janet Domenitz
Executive Director, MASSPIRG
617-292-4800
She currently serves on the board of Massachusetts Common Cause
Ms. Domenitz is also a board representative and executive committee member of the Consumer Federation of America, and was a founding member of Earth Day Greater Boston
Laura Etherton
OSPIRG Advocate
(503) 231-4181 ext. 305
As Field Director from 2001-2005, Laura led
the organization’s field efforts to stop the rollbacks of the nation’s
landmark environmental laws, including fighting proposals to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and defending the Roadless Area Conservation Rule to protect nearly 2 million acres of national forests in Oregon
Allison Cairo
Executive Director, NJPIRG
732-247-8177
directed NJPIRG’s AmeriCorps program, New Jersey Community Water Watch, and directed a number of state-wide campaigns, including NJPIRG’s New Voters Project and campaigns to reduce global warming and promote college affordability.
Diane Brown
Executive Director, Arizona PIRG
602-252-9227
she served as a Campus Organizer and Citizen Outreach Director
In 1989, she went on to serve as Executive Director of Illinois PIRG and to establish the Illinois PIRG Education Fund. While in Illinois, she served on the Board of Directors of the League of Women Voters of Chicago Governance Board, the Illinois Campaign Reform Coalition Steering Committee, the Monsignor John Egan Campaign for Payday Loan Reform Executive Committee, and Earth Share Illinois.
Most Recent Report
The Three Trillion Dollar Question: What Health Care Reform Can Save For Families, Businesses and Taxpayers 8/04/2009
Without health care reform, the United States is projected to spend over $40 trillion on health care in the next decade. Experts estimate that thirty percent of that spending – up to $12 trillion dollars – will be wasted on ineffective care, pointless red tape, and counterproductive treatments that can actually harm patients.
U.S. PIRG: The Federation of State PIRGs
44 Winter Street, 4th Floor, Boston, MA 02108
Federal Advocacy Office: 218 D Street SE, Washington, DC 20003
******
Environment America—The new home of U.S.PIRG’s environmental work.
Environment America’s roots are with the state PIRGs. On issues ranging from protecting the environment to reforming politics to stopping consumer rip-offs, the state PIRGs won hundreds of victories, while pioneering new strategies for making social change for more than 30 years.
In 2007, Environment America was created to be the new home of U.S. PIRG’s environmental work, and to work on the issues that the different state-based PIRG and Environment groups faced at the federal level. Often, when we protect the environment at the state level, we have the duty to go even farther—to protect all Americans through national legislation, or to stop federal schemes that endanger our air, water or open space.
To find out more, visit www.environmentamerica.org.
Consumer Protection
U.S. PIRG stands up to powerful special interests on behalf of the American public.
Fighting against dangerous toys, abusive credit card fees and practices, and predatory lending and identity theft, U.S. PIRG advocates for better laws and regulations that protect the consumer.
http://www.uspirg.org/issues/consumer-protection/consumer-protection
