keystone policy ctr

2025 pjt

https://www.keystone.org/

https://twitter.com/KeystonePolicy

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Board Of Trustees

Executive Committee

Paula Gold-Williams (Chair)

Paula's Bio

Terry Craig (Board Secretary)

Terry's Bio

Paula Glover

Alliance to Save Energy

Paula's Bio

Mitch Jackson

FedEx Corporation

Mitch's Bio

Bob Perciasepe

Center for Climate and Energy Solutions

Bob's Bio

Christine Scanlan

Keystone Policy Center

Christine's Bio

Tom Sheldon (Audit Committee Chair)

National Ecological Observatory Network, Inc. (NEON)

Tom's Bio

Clinton A. Vince

Dentons US LLP

Clint's Bio

Trustees

Paul Aliu

Novartis

Paul's Bio

Allyson Anderson Book

Baker Hughes

Allyson's Bio

Kathleen Barrón

Constellation

Kathleen's Bio

Arthur L. Caplan

NYU Langone

Arthur's Bio

Terrance D. Carroll

Unite America

Terrance's Bio

Shelby Coffey III

Freedom Forum

Shelby's Bio

Michael Doane

The Nature Conservancy

Michael's Bio

Charles Dukes

Wend Collective

Charles's Bio

John E. Echohawk

Native American Rights Fund

John's Bio

Shelley Fidler

Van Ness Feldman

Shelley's Bio

Edward M. Gabriel

American Task Force on Lebanon

Edward's Bio

Rudy D. Garza

CPS Energy

Rudy's Bio

David Goldston

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

David's Bio

Carolyn Green

EnerGreen Capital Management

Carolyn's Bio

Bruce Harris

Walmart Stores, INC

Bruce's Bio

Duane Highley

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Inc.

Duane's Bio

Carrie Houtman

Dow, INC

Carrie's Bio

Helayne Jones

(Former) Education Strategy Advisor

Helayne's Bio

Doyle Karr

DOYLE XT LLC

Doyle's Bio

Anjali Marok

Independent C-Suite and Leadership Advisor

Anjali's Bio

David McLaughlin

Conservation International

David's Bio

Kerry S. McNamara

OCP Group

Kerry's Bio

Rob Meyers

PepsiCo Inc.

Rob's Bio

Philip D. Moeller

Edison Electric Insititute

Philip's Bio

David Naylor

Rayburn County Electric Cooperative, Inc.

David's Bio

Gilberto Ocañas

Dentons LLP US

Gilberto's Bio

Alex Perera

World Resources Institute

Alex's Bio

Frank Prager

Xcel Energy

Franks's Bio

Glenn Prickett

World Environment Center

Glenn's Bio

Jon Sohn

Capital Power

Jon's Bio

I Ling Thompson

Trust for Public Land

I Ling's Bio

Brian Vallo

Pueblo of Acoma

Brian's Bio

Scott Vitters

Nike

Scott's Bio

Dr. Karen Wayland

GridWise Alliance

Karen's Bio

Trustees Emeritus

David E. Greenberg

University of Denver (Emeritus)

David's Bio

David I. Greenberg

International Seaways

David's Bio

Jerry Steiner

CoverCress

Jerry's Bio

2023 Awardees

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)

U.S. House of Representatives

About Rep. Don Bacon

Jay Faison

Founder, ClearPath

About Jay Faison

Duane Highley

CEO, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association

About Duane Highley

Norah O’Donnell

Anchor and Managing Editor, CBS Evening News

About Norah O’Donnell

Hon. Willie Phillips

Chairman, U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

About Willie Phillips

illie L. Phillips was named by President Biden to be Acting Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on January 3, 2023 and is serving a Commission term that ends June 30, 2026.

He most recently served as the Chairman of the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia, named to that role in 2018. He served on the Commission since 2014. He is an experienced regulatory attorney combining nearly 20 years of legal expertise in public and private practice. He has an extensive background in the areas of public utility regulation, bulk power system reliability, and corporate governance.

Prior to being appointed to the DCPSC, Mr. Phillips served as Assistant General Counsel for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), in Washington, D.C. Before joining NERC, he also worked for two law firms, where he advised clients on energy regulatory compliance and policy matters.

Mr. Phillips has also served on the boards of several organizations, including the board of directors for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and the Organization of PJM States (OPSI). He also has served as president of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (MACRUC), and he has held leadership roles on several advisory councils, including the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Advisory Council.

Mr. Phillips has a Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Montevallo. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two children.

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DESPITE A SOPHISTICATED lobbying campaign to defeat neonic restrictions, Maryland was one of the few states to pass a law banning neonic-based products in consumer products. Industry threw its weight against even this minor bill, which exempts neonics in landscaping and agriculture.

And vanEngelsdorp played a prominent role in nearly defeating the legislation.

In January 2016, the University of Maryland, College Park campus held a summit bringing corporate representatives and researchers together to talk about solutions to the bee crisis. Maryland, California, Massachusetts, and other states were considering restrictions on neonic products. The Obama administration had encouraged an approach that brought together a wide array of stakeholders, known as the Managed Pollinator Protection Plan, or MP3, method of resolving the issue.

State officials tapped the Keystone Policy Center — the same chemical industry-funded nonprofit in charge of CropLife America’s Honey Bee Health Coalition — to manage the process.

VanEngelsdorp, addressing the summit, presided over a PowerPoint that listed a Monsanto affiliation in small type at the bottom, according to Luke Goembel, an official with the Central Maryland Beekeepers Association.

The presentation, said Goembel, made the case that “Varroa mites, not pesticides, were the primary cause of hive losses” and included “an image of a vampire baby to represent a Varroa mite.” VanEngelsdorp, he said, made a mocking comparison, showing a graph with a chart showing the rise of pirate next to a chart showing the increasing loss of hives over time, an “attempt to present the concept ‘correlation does not prove causation,’” and to “ridicule the concern over increasing pesticide use.”

“I was shocked,” Goembel said, “because the journals are full of research that describes many avenues by which pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, almost certainly lead to hive losses.”

The summit included a broad range of speakers, but beekeeper activists complained the discussion was dominated by pesticide makers.

Speaker after speaker claimed that hive loss was only “due to Varroa mites, not pesticides,” according to Bonnie Raindrop, another official with the Central Maryland Beekeepers Association, who attended the event. Only a small percentage of the attendees, Raindrop said, were beekeepers, and those who did make it were separated from one another. The rest, she said, “were people who knew nothing about bees,” including lobbyists, lawn care professionals, and representatives of agribusiness.

“They had a very controlled format,” said Raindrop, “with one beekeeper at each table, the rest industry people, and we were asked to make recommendations for what the MP3 policy should look like.”

Both Raindrop and Goembel brought up the role of neonicotinoids and other systemic pesticides killing bees, but said other participants at the summit shot them down.

The Keystone Policy Center moderators kept the conversation focused largely on mites, “and said beekeepers weren’t doing their due diligence to control mites using chemicals,” she added.

Asked about the beekeeper’s criticism of the Maryland summit, the Keystone Policy Center’s spokesperson, Chavez, said in a statement that the event “involved outreach to a wide variety of stakeholders” and encouraged the public to view the final report produced from the event.

One month after the summit, legislators in Annapolis, Maryland, took up a bill to ban consumer neonics. During the House of Delegates debate over the legislation, a panel of opponents — including representatives from Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration, pesticide industry representatives, and the owner of commercial nursery — repeatedly cited the survey taken by the Keystone Policy Center at the summit as evidence that researchers did not think pesticides were a problem.

Several cited vanEngelsdorp by name, claiming the University of Maryland professor had provided research showing that neonicotinoids did not pose a threat to Maryland hives.

At the hearing, state delegate Clarence Lam, a Democrat, noted that hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles identified neonicotinoids as a prime driver of bee decline and scoffed at the industry attempt to use the MP3 summit as a counterexample.

“Presenting data like this is pretty specious,” Lam said. “It’s marginally better than presenting data from a Facebook poll and saying this is what the data shows and this is what the science shows.”

In the end, the industry blitz failed, and, later in 2016, Maryland passed the Pollinator Protection Act. A similar measure passed that year in Connecticut to limit the use of neonics on flowering plants, and last year, Vermont enacted restrictions on consumer use of neonics.

Regulators in Oregon, after outcry following an incident in which 50,000 bees suddenly died in a Target parking lot as the result of the spraying of a neonic-based pesticide, have moved to prevent the use of neonics on linden trees. But in most of the country, there are largely no limitations on the chemical. California regulators also announced an effort to freeze new applications by pesticide companies that would expand the use of neonics.

Gary Ruskin, the co-director of U.S. Right to Know, a watchdog group following pesticide industry influence, which shared some of the emails obtained via records requests between industry and academics with The Intercept, said, “vanEnglesdorp’s close ties to the pesticide industry raise serious questions about the worth and reliability of his research.”