Robert E. Yuhnke

Robert E. Yuhnke served as an Assistant Attorney General who provided legal counsel to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources regarding regulations and litigation strategies for cleaning up air pollution from the steel industry. Later he created the clean air program at Environmental Defense Fund with primary focus on stopping the acidification of forests and watersheds from acid rain caused by sulfur pollution emitted from coal fired power plants and copper smelters. He also created the transportation program at EDF and played a major role working with key members of Congress in drafting or negotiating provisions of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. After EDF ended its transportation program, he created the transportation program for the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) where he worked with legislators in six states to enact programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and with metropolitan planning organizations to coordinate land use policies with transportation investments to reduce regional VMT growth, congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. He is a graduate of Yale Law School (’72).