Staff Biography for Robert E. Yuhnke
Robert E. Yuhnke is Director of the Transportation Program at the Southwest
Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP).
After graduating from Yale Law School in 1972, Yuhnke first served as an
Assistant Attorney General in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Resources, where he specialized in bringing the steel industry into compliance
with the Clean Air Act. He then served as Assistant Regional Solicitor at the
U.S. Department of Interior with responsibility for the implementation of the
federal coal mining control program in 15 western states.
For 12 years beginning in 1980, Yuhnke served as regional counsel for the
Environmental Defense Fund's Rocky Mountain office. He developed a Clean Air Act
citizen's enforcement strategy to protect western wilderness lakes from acid
rain caused by sulfur dioxide emissions from the copper industry that lead to a
50% reduction in SO2 emitted in the 11 western states.
In Colorado, Yuhnke was appointed to the Metropolitan Air Quality Council by
Governor Richard Lamm. He was later appointed by Governor Roy Romer to the
Regional Air Quality Council, and to the Governor's 1996 Blue Ribbon Panel on
Transportation Finance and Implementation.
Yuhnke served on the national Alternative Fuels Council appointed by the
Secretary of Energy in 1989 to develop strategies for the commercialization of
bio-fuels. He authored parts of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments and Intermodal
Surface Transportation Efficiency Act in 1991, including the conformity program
requiring that metropolitan transportation plans achieve the emission budgets
for motor vehicle emissions contained in State air quality plans.
From 1997 – 2001, Yuhnke served on Transportation Advisory Committee for the
Denver Regional Council of Governments, and he represented environmental
organizations during the re-write of federal transportation law in 1998 and
2003-05. |
