John has decades of U.S. and international experience in environmental law and policy. He served from 2020 to 2023 as Legal and Government Relations Counsel to Methane Action which merged with Spark Climate Solutions in 2023. He received his J.D. from Indiana University School of Law. In the late 1970s into the ’80s, he worked in Congress as a legislative aide and then as Counsel to a House Subcommittee. John then served as Chief Counsel for Defenders of Wildlife for over a decade. He then served as a member of the Policy Bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development where he co-chaired the Tuesday Group of NGO and Agency representatives sharing information on the potential impacts of proposed multilateral development projects. He then served as the policy director, lobbyist, and/or board member of other conservation groups including Green America and the Environmental Investigation Agency. He was Policy Director for the Society for Conservation Biology for several years and then engaged in private law practice representing conservation groups in Congress and the courts. John serves as co-chair of the Legislative Team of the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club and as a member of the national Sierra Club’s Conservation Policy Committee and as Vice President of the Board of the Climate Protection and Restoration Initiative. He has extensive experience in environmental impact assessment.
John drafted several key parts of U.S. and international environmental and energy laws and has defended and used such laws in litigation. He has won awards from the American Bar Association, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), and the Endangered Species Coalition, among others.