John Pendergrass

Senior Attorney
202-939-3846
202-939-3868
pendergrass@eli.org

Expertise

• Climate Change: state programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; state environmental programs—state-federal relationship
• Environmental Management Systems (EMS): ISO 14001 and conformity assessment
• International: good governance
• Judiciary: judicial education
• Law: Superfund enforcement
• Pollution: brownfields cleanup and redevelopment; hazardous substances; nanotechnology
• Water: national pollutant discharge elimination system permit system and state programs

Profile

John Pendergrass has researched and written on a broad range of legal and policy issues focusing on what works in practice and how to improve the implementation of law. He was among the first to address improving legal and administrative mechanisms for protecting public health and the environment from the risks at contaminated sites where some hazardous substances are left in place. His research and writing on such institutional controls and long-term stewardship have led to changes in national policy and in the laws of many states. He also writes regularly about innovative state environmental and natural resource programs as well as federal preemption of state laws. He leads ELI’s Judicial Education Program to educate judges in the United States and throughout the world about environmental law. Since 1997, Pendergrass has been a member of the accreditation council overseeing ISO 14001 (environmental management systems) certification bodies in the United States. Pendergrass has been with ELI since 1988.

Education

• J.D., Case Western Reserve University, 1979
• B.S. in environmental science, Michigan State University, 1976

Selected Publications

John Pendergrass, Legal Background to Off-Site Contamination, in Robert A Simons ed., When Bad Things Happen to Good Property (Envtl. L. Inst. 2006).

John Pendergrass & Katherine N. Probst, Estimating the Cost of Institutional Controls (2005).

John Pendergrass, Institutional Controls in the States: What Is and Can Be Done to Protect Public Health at Brownfields, 35 Conn. L. Rev. 1255 (2003).

John Pendergrass, Robert A. Simons & Kimberly Winson-Geideman, Quantifying Long-Term Environmental Regulatory Risk for Brownfields: Are Reopeners Really an Issue?, 46 J. Envtl. Plan. & Mgmt. 257 (2003).

John Pendergrass, States as Engines of Sustainable Development: Some Think They Can, 32 ELR 11365 (Dec. 2002) (Envtl. L. Rep.).

John Pendergrass, Sustainable Redevelopment of Brownfields: Using Institutional Controls to Protect Public Health, 29 ELR 10243 (May 1999) (Envtl. L. Rep.).

Around the States (column), Envtl. F. (1991 to date).