Episode 9: Jeff Ruch of PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) (Part 2 of 2)

Thank you for listening to the Audible Café podcast.


With our public employees enduring the fifth week of their forced
furlough during a government shutdown resulting from the actions
of a despotic and vindictive President Trump, this interview —
and my interview with Kyla Bennett from PEER last week — couldn’t
be more timely.


In today’s episode, I am sharing my interview with Jeff Ruch,
Executive Director of PEER - Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility. PEER is a watchdog of our public environmental
agencies, and works extensively to empower public employees so
that they are literally peers within their agencies, with a seat
at the table that respects and relies on their knowledge and
expertise to set and enforce policy, and honors their years of
service and dedication. This honoring of our nation’s
environmental laws and policies and employees is sorely missing,
to say the least, under the Trump administration. Which means
that PEER has been receiving many, many calls from deeply
concerned and disenfranchised public employees.


Jeff has been the Executive Director of PEER since 1997. He
helped to start PEER and for the first four years served as
General Counsel & Program Director for the organization.
Prior to founding PEER, Jeff was the Policy Director and a staff
attorney at the Government Accountability Project, representing
whistleblowers from both the public and private sector. Before
coming to DC, Jeff worked in California state government for 17
years, mostly in the State Legislature as counsel to various
committees where he drafted literally hundreds of laws on topics
ranging from energy conservation to the rights of employed
inventors.


We’re grateful to Jeff for taking the time to talk with us. And
we’re especially grateful to him for his years of devotion to the
people who serve our country as public employees in environmental
agencies. Protecting the protectors - it is not an easy job. But
these public servants do not deserve to be disrespected,
harassed, and harmed by abusive government practices. And neither
do the great diversity of species who live all across our nation
— whether in public parks or on other lands — who literally
depend on our environmental agencies for their lives.


So please, after you listen to the show, visit PEER’s website,
learn about the campaigns they are working on, and support them.
Our public agencies are responsible for ensuring that the lands
and waters and living beings in their care are protected and
allowed to flourish. Public employees hold the future of our
nation in their hands. Let’s not let dictatorial,
corporate-funded politicians keep them from doing their jobs!


Thank you for listening.


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Note: During this interview, Jeff Ruch describes the censorship
and bureaucratic and legal punishment of a government scientist,
Dr. Charles Monnett, who was one of the first to report polar
bear mortality as a result of drowning — a deeply sad result of
melting ice flows due to climate change. The images associated
with this phenomenon are terribly disturbing and yet have served
to bring the shocking truth of climate change before the public
eye in a way climate change reports cannot. At one point in our
discussion, the deceased polar bears are referred to as
“floaters,” not in any negative way at all. I considered editing
that descriptor out of the interview because it upset me, but
then stopped myself. The importance of the scientist’s work— and
especially the resulting media storm that ensued when he reported
it appropriately in an “observational note” in a scientific paper
and Al Gore picked up on the story and put it his book “An
Inconvenient Truth” — brought important attention to the plight
of these majestic creatures. I decided that I can’t let my
personal, emotional reaction to a word outweigh my goal of
staying true to... truth. At Audible Café, we strive to uphold
the values of free and independent journalism. I hope you will
agree this is more important than softening the blow of human
destruction of the earth and its creatures. We must all face this
truth, and act now to address it.


SHOW RESOURCES


www.peer.org


Dr. Charles Monnett Polar Bear Case