David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

I'm the policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) Climate and Clean Air Program, and our chief global warming lawyer. I rejoined NRDC in March 2001 after serving for eight years in the Clinton administration, where I was director of climate change policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and, before that, counsel to the head of the EPA's clean air program. I also served for a year at the Council on Environmental Quality. This is my second stint at NRDC -- I first started here in 1978 and worked on clean air issues for the next 14 years, helping to win the Montreal Protocol to stop depletion of the ozone layer and the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. Now we're working to cut the pollution that causes global warming here at home, and to reach agreement on global emission cuts.

Cooling with Less Warming: Time to Get the Climate-Changing Pollution Out of New Fridges and Freezers

Posted April 27, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:: carbonpollution, China, CleanAirAct, CO2, EPA, globalwarming, globalwarmingpollution, HFCs, India, MontrealProtocol, U.S.

Comments (5)

Today NRDC and its partners are asking the Environmental Protection Agency to set a deadline for getting a powerful climate-changing pollutant out of new refrigerators, freezers, and a variety of other products. The chemical, a hydrofluorocarbon known as HFC-134a, is...continued→

Leading Companies Already Meet EPA's "Fracking" Air Pollution Standards

Posted April 18, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:: airpollution, API, benzene, carbonpollution, cleanairact, climatechange, DevonEnergy, EPA, fracking, frackingairpollution, globalwarming, globalwarmingpollution, methane, naturalgas, oil&gas, SouthwesternEnergy, VOCs

One of the biggest sources of dangerous air pollution from natural gas “fracking” is the whoosh of pollution that rushes from the well, like popping the top on a soda can, in the first few days after fracking is completed...continued→

Separating Fracked From Fiction: The Truth About the American Petroleum Institute's Attacks on EPA's New Air Pollution Standards For Natural Gas Fracking

Posted April 9, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:: airpollution, API, benzene, cleanairact, EPA, fracking, frackingairpollution, jarret, methane, naturalgas, obama, oil&gas, VOCs

Comments (4)

In his January State of the Union Address, President Obama committed to developing our nation’s abundant shale gas resources “without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.” Taking a major step to fulfill that commitment, the Environmental...continued→

Cleaner Power Starts Today: EPA Proposes Carbon Pollution Standard for New Power Plants

Posted March 27, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming

Tags:: asthma, carbondioxide, carbonpollution, carbonpollutionstandard, cleanairact, EPA, extremeweather, obama, powerplants, publichealth

Comments (2)

The Environmental Protection Agency took another important step forward today to protect Americans’ health and well-being from the carbon pollution that is driving dangerous climate change. Today EPA proposed the first national limits on carbon dioxide emissions from new electric...continued→

Remembering Sherry Rowland: Scientist, Citizen, and Savior of the Ozone Layer

Posted March 19, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:: CFCs, climatechange, climatesciencedeniers, MontrealProtocol, ozonelayer, Rowland

There were many moving tributes last week to Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland, who with Dr. Mario Molina in 1974 discovered the mortal threat to the earth’s protective ozone layer from man-made chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Rowland died March 10th at...continued→

Mann Bites Dogged Attorney-General

Posted March 2, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:: climatechange, climatesciencedeniers, Cuccinelli, Inhofe, Mann, VirginiaSupremeCourt

The Virginia Supreme Court today called off the witch-hunt against climate scientist Michael Mann by the state’s attorney-general, Ken Cuccinelli. A staunch ultra-conservative and strident climate science denier, Cuccinelli used his office to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s actions to...continued→

Shooting with Blanks at the OK Corral

Posted February 23, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:: carbondioxide, carbonpollution, cleanairact, cleancars, climatechange, climatesciencedeniers, congress, endangermentfinding, EPA, globalwarming, Obama

Comments (3)

Next week a rogues’ gallery of science-denying industry associations, right-wing advocacy groups, Tea Party backers, and ultra-conservative elected officials get their day in court – two days, actually – to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding” and its other...continued→

Toxic Trio Attacks EPA's Carbon Pollution Safeguards

Posted February 3, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming

Tags:: Barton, carboncaptureandstorage, carbonpollution, cleanairact, climatechange, Congress, EPA, extremeweather, powerplants, Upton, Whitfield

In their latest attack on vital clean air safeguards, three senior House Republicans are trying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from doing its job under the Clean Air Act to protect Americans from dangerous carbon pollution from new power...continued→

Priceless Elevator Conversation

Posted February 2, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming

Tags:: ACCCE, climatechange, coal, electricity, globalwarming, NRDC, Washington

The Washington Post reported last December that “enviros, clean-coal advocates make strange bedfellows.” It seems that my organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a coal and utility lobby group called the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity inhabit the...continued→

King Kong vs. Godzilla: Does Big Oil Get a Pass Because Big Coal is Bigger?

Posted January 15, 2012 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming

Tags:: carbonpollution, cleanairact, climatechange, EPA, extremeweather, GHGdatabase, godzilla, kingkong, oilrefineries, powerplants

When EPA released the first comprehensive “right-to-know” data on America’s biggest carbon polluters last week, there was a curious reaction from the one of the biggest industries involved. As expected, the 2010 data show that coal-burning power plants are the...continued→

Scariest Christmas, and Hope for a Cooler World

Posted December 22, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:: anti-environmentalriders, carbonpollution, cleanairact, cleancars, EPA, Obama, powerplants, RalphFabri, riders, Smithsonian

Comments (1)

Smithsonian Magazine has posted some unusual portraits of jolly Saint Nick and asked readers to vote for the Scariest Santa. Here’s my choice: Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art It’s a 1939 Christmas card from a Hungarian-born American artist named...continued→

Congress Nears End of Session: Doomed Gas Cloud Rushing Toward Black Hole

Posted December 15, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:: anti-environmentalriders, blackhole, cleanair, Congress, EPA, KeystoneXL, riders

Comments (2)

AFP reports that “Astronomers have spied a giant gas cloud with several times the mass of Earth accelerating toward the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy.” “‘It is not going to survive the experience,’...continued→

Cement Plant Standards Upheld, but Carbon Pollution Still Unchecked

Posted December 9, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming, U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:: carbonpollution, cement, cleanairact, climatechange, EPA, globalwarming

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington issued its decision today in cases challenging EPA's September 2010 Clean Air Act standards for dangerous pollution from more than 100 cement plants across the nation. The Court largely rejected industry challenges to...continued→

Giving Thanks for the Montreal Protocol - Proof That Countries Actually Can Cooperate

Posted November 25, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming

Tags:: Bali, climatechange, MontrealProtocol, ozonelayer, Thanksgiving, Where'sWaldo

I just posted a report on the latest meeting of the parties to the Montreal Protocol, in Bali Indonesia. Let me add a personal reflection, as this is the Thanksgiving holiday weekend back home in America. Bali is a beautiful...continued→

108 Countries Support HFC Curbs under Montreal Protocol

Posted November 24, 2011 by David Doniger in Curbing Pollution, Solving Global Warming

Tags:: Brazil, China, climatechange, India, MontrealProtocol, ozonedepletion, ozonelayer, UnitedStates

The parties to the Montreal Protocol resumed their debate this week in Bali, Indonesia, on whether they can do more to protect the climate under the world’s most successful environmental treaty. In other posts, I’ve explained how the Montreal Protocol...continued→

About

Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.