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Please contact
John Fitzgerald
, SBC Policy Director, if you have any questions regarding SCB Policy issues.
About SBC's Policy Director
John M. Fitzgerald is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. He has worked with an array of conservation organizations and governments to evaluate strategies and secure improvements in federal and international law and policy in the areas of natural resource conservation, anti-corruption measures, international development, and socially and environmentally responsible investing. In recent years, for example, he helped various groups work with United States Representative Pelosi and United States senators Leahy, Lugar, and others to improve United States environmental and governance standards for multilateral development banks.
John served in the Policy Bureau at the U.S. Agency for International Development, evaluating and reporting to Congress and the public on the environmental impact of USAID and proposed World Bank projects. His early methods for ranking nations' stewardship of natural and human resources contributed to development of a foreign assistance initiative, the Millennium Challenge Account and Corporation.
As chief counsel at Defenders of Wildlife for ten years, John was a leader in the Endangered Species Coalition. He lobbied and coordinated litigation to improve the protection of endangered and sensitive species in domestic and international law. He prepared and coordinated the lawsuits that ended United States agencies' assistance in building the Three Gorges Dam in China and required listing decisions for hundreds of candidates for listing under the Endangered Species Act. He drafted the original dolphin-safe tuna labeling law. John helped to strengthen oil spill legislation in the United States as well as sanctions available against nations that undermine international conservation agreements. He helped to initiate several reforms and facilitated key listings under the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species. John also helped to negotiate the Convention on Biological Diversity and prevent efforts to weaken its provisions.
John served as a legislative aide and subcommittee counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than five years, contributing to the development of Superfund, energy conservation, and other initiatives.
Fitzgerald came to Washington, D.C. in 1977 to establish the office that evolved into both the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and the National Public Interest Research Group Network after directing the Earlham College office of the Indiana Public Interest Research Group and chairing the statewide Board of InPIRG throughout law school.
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