When Tiernan Sittenfeld got glimpses in high school at not only the grandeur of America's landscapes but also the degradation that was happening within them, she was drawn to understand how we can best conserve them. She did not anticipate being on the front lines of the wider climate advocacy struggle for as long as she has. Find out how organizing and connecting with others can sometimes help you find your own voice.
Guest Tiernan Sittenfeld had glimpses in high school of not only the grandeur of America's landscapes but also the degradation that was happening within them when she saw clear cuts up close. She was drawn to understand how we can best conserve these lands and the communities linked to them and took advantage of the first opportunity to earn an Environmental Studies certificate in college and take an international study program in Kenya. Those experiences, and a term spent working on a state senate race, made her see the overlap between conservation and politics.
She began her career as an organizer leading student communities and expanded into more general audiences, exercising her public speaking skills and community building skills along the way. When she needed to decide whether to pursue a law degree, she realized she’d found a place where she could grow all sorts of skills and tackle bigger and bigger challenges.
In this episode, find out from Tiernan how organizing and connecting with others can sometimes help you find your own voice…on Roads Taken with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode’s Guest
Tiernan Sittenfeld currently serves as Senior Vice President for Government Affairs at the League of Conservation Voters where she has worked for the past 17 years, tirelessly advocating for sound environmental laws and policies to help protect our planet and the communities that are most impacted by climate and environmental change. She lives in Washington DC with her husband and two sons, where she has been named by the National Journal as one of the top 50 people changing the game in Washington.
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
For another story about making a career fighting for better environmental policy, listen to our episode with Kira Lawrence.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Tiernan Sittenfeld: I worked on a state senate race. And that really opened my eyes, not just to things like recycling, but also to politics and to sort of systemic change. So I feel like that fall was sort of a combining of my interest in environmental conservation and also in the politics and electing people who are gonna fight.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: When Tiernan Sittenfeld got glimpses in high school at not only the grandeur of America's landscapes but also the degradation that was happening within them, she was drawn to understand how we can best conserve them. She did not anticipate being on the front lines of the wider climate advocacy struggle for as long as she has. Find out how organizing and connecting with others can sometimes help you find your own voice…on today's Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today I'm here with Tiernan Sittenfeld and we are going to talk about things that are worth preserving and fighting for in professional and personal life, I'm sure. So Tiernan, thank you so much for being here.
TS: Leslie, thank you for having me. And can I say it was so nice to see you in person at reunions and I'm really grateful to you for doing this podcast. It's been a real treat to get to hear what some of my classmates are up to. So happy to get to be with you.
LJR: Good. And I'm sure that they're gonna feel the same after they hear about some of the things you've been up to. So we will not let them wait anymore. And I'm gonna start this by asking my same two questions, which are, when we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think he would become?
TS: I love those questions. So who was I when we were in college? I came to Dartmouth largely because I was really interested in the environment, in the outdoors. I grew up in Ohio, but then before getting to Dartmouth, I had the chance to go backpacking in Montana and Wyoming one summer and then in Alaska the next summer. So discovered incredible mountains and these beautiful vistas, but also for the first time, saw really massive clear cuts. And so went back to my high school and was really interested in environmental issues and even more interested in getting to spend time outdoors. So I grew up with a dad who had gone to Princeton. I went to a lot of Princeton reunions. I had always thought I was gonna apply early to Princeton, and then I spent a few minutes on the Dartmouth campus. It was February. It was freezing. But it was also so beautiful and it became clear to me that I really wanted to go to Dartmouth. So I was thrilled to be there.
I would say from the moment that I arrived, I loved my Dartmouth outing club trip and loved spending time with my friends. And for me, just having that sort of early interest in the environment and things like reading Al Gore's book back in 1992 [LJR: Oh yeah.] was a real awakening. So I would say certainly looking back, I don't regret it, but I spent a lot of time hanging out with my friends, having a good time, probably not as much time taking advantage of the incredible outdoor opportunities as I anticipated, but loved my classes.
It was, I think, even the first opportunity to get the environmental studies certificate, so I decided to pursue that. It definitely didn't help with my GPA, taking economics. I think it was literally just like the economics, but I did not do well in it. But I did get that certificate and I was an English major. I actually was, as much as I was passionate about the environment and environmental protection, conservation, my mom was a teacher, so I thought I wanted to be a teacher. So as I was leaving, Dartmouth was kind of struggling between do I go become an organizer or do I become a teacher? I seriously considered both.
I actually didn't really go through corporate recruiting. As much as I loved my friends and had so much respect for the jobs that other people were going to pursue, mostly in New York, I was kind of the one who made the wacky decision to go be a campus organizer and work with students out west. But I think I'm getting ahead of ourselves in terms of where did I think I would be?
You know, I feel like I've never. I've had like great interests and always I think grew up in a house, a household, and with parents who felt like it was really important to make a difference and to give back. And as I said, I had this passion from very early on in the environment, but I didn't have some master of plan. I toyed with law school a couple different times, but I feel like I'm so lucky and so grateful to be able to do the work that I do to be able to do it with the people I do it with.
LJR: Actually, it was kind of the ethos that you brought to Dartmouth already. You knew the environment and something about like not only being in it, but advocating for it was gonna be part of who you were. Did you do much of that? I mean I know we all kind of had that like, Oh, it's bucolic here and outdoor and we have the opportunity. I know you said you didn't take advantage of like being in the outdoors, but were you already kind of a fighter spirit in terms of the environment in that period of your life?
TS: Yeah, I mean, when I got back from these sort of like eye opening, life changing backpacking trips out west and in Alaska and high school, I did come back and get my dad to start recycling at his office, which literally meant him bringing home a garbage bag full of stinky cans like once a week. Or I, you know, put like the two liter plastic bottle in the toilet. I started an environmental group at my high school. So by the time I came to Dartmouth, I really did have a passion and considered myself an environmentalist and wanted to study it and was really interested in the, what was then the environmental studies foreign study program FSP.
LJR: In Kenya.
TS: In Kenya, yes. Which was amazing. Mine was led by Bwana Jim or Jim Hornig and I definitely wanted to both sort of engage and I worked on a state senate race on my off term. I was actually gonna work at Bagel Basement, which I was really quite excited about and I still love bagels. But then I had an opportunity to work on a state senate race. This was in the fall of 1994, our junior fall. And that really opened my eyes, not just to things like recycling, but also to politics and to sort of systemic change. So I feel like that fall was sort of a combining of my interest in environmental conservation and also in the politics and electing people who are gonna fight, which is for protecting the environment today, for fighting the climate crisis, for fighting for environmental justice. But I think those sort of brought some of my interests together.
LJR: Right, and it's so funny though that you brought up the Al Gore book because it kind of shows: of course people have been talking about our need to take care of our planet for probably eons, but that was really the beginning of what is now our environmental movement. And I've recently been talking to classmates who were really at the beginning of the technology field, just kind of booming the way it did in our adulthood. And it's kind of funny to think we got in so early on that ground floor, and in some ways we've been making a lot of progress and in some ways we haven't.
And because it was so early for us, we didn't have the structures around us to be able to like put us in the places where we could make a difference immediately. You had to figure that out yourself. You had to find that internship. So although there were classes in this new environmental study certificate you were doing that, you were making these things happen, there wasn't a lot of structure around you to say this is how you make a life in environmental justice was there? Did you get any support on that?
TS: I would say not. I mean, not in a bad way. I think as you're saying, it was just more nascent. There wasn't that much there. I mean, I think now the opportunities, both in the advocacy world when it comes to the environment and especially the climate crisis, the organizing world, but even at Dartmouth, all of the classes and the support and the networks, I mean, I think it's truly incredible.
And of course, now with climate change literally touching every facet of our world, our economy, our lives, like, it's not like you can put it over there like, Oh, this is that environmental thing, which I sort of felt was a little bit of the perception at the time as we were graduating. So as I said, most of my friends went to New York or Boston to do some kind of consulting or investment banking, and I was the one who went to work with students at UC Davis and trained them to do things like go…And I was sort of nervous about public speaking and didn't do a lot of it, but I was then all of a sudden thrown into this environment where I was going into like 2- or 300-person classes at UC Davis trying to recruit people to come volunteer for the environment. Whether it was trying to ban the use of a chemical on campus called methyl bromide that was particularly harmful to the farm workers there. Or trying to get to protect rainforest up in British Columbia from being turned into phone books, which of course do we even have phone books anymore. I’m clearly dating us. But so started off as an organizer and I give a lot of credit to the organization that I first worked for for several years after college actually, for giving me the opportunity and the training and the responsibilities that I had. You know, again, starting off where it's relatively low stakes, working with students on a college campus, but then becoming a field organizer where I worked with students and also just people more broadly. Started to do more press conferences, more building of coalitions to show it's not just those tree hugging environmentalists, but actually protecting national forests, protecting our water, our air—These are things that everybody cares about. So did some of that in Oregon. And then a bit of a crossroads was when I thought seriously about going to law school. This was after I had been in the work world for four years, which of course at the time, that felt like an eternity [LJR: ages] right? I was like, I need to go to grad school. I should go to law school. I should have known that it probably wasn't for me. I have so much respect for lawyers and have many close friends who are lawyers, but I was at a good friend who was at Lewis and Clark, which has a great environmental law program, and seeing her textbooks at the time, you know, these massive books. I was not like, Oh, let me dig in. That was fascinating. I realized what I love is the sort of the organizing and the advocacy being out there in the world, making the case to regular people or to elected officials, whether at the local level, state level, or now all of my work is of course, at the federal level engaging with the Biden Harris administration and with Congress.
So I ended up not going to law school and instead moving to DC where I've been since 2000. Again, I thought I'd maybe come to DC for two years and then go to law school because I still had that in mind. But of course, now it's 22 years later, and here I am.
LJR: Well, because that seemed like a way that we could probably make change, right?
TS: Exactly.
LJR: You know, through a legal means. But as you came to realize, the relationship building and the coalition building, all of that is as important, if not more important. And so, as you said, you've kind of moved through these strata from student to local to now really on a federal level, and you've been involved with the same organization in that 17 years?
TS: So I moved here in 2000 and
LJR: Or 22 years…
TS: …working for, well no, 17 is correct in terms of my current organization, but I moved to DC in 2000 thinking again, I’d be here for a couple years and then go to law school. That was at an organization called US Perg, which is now its sort new home or new name is Environment America.
But I was there for about five years. And then in 2005, I really wanted to be at the intersection of environmental policy and environmental politics. So I moved over to the organization where I am now, which is the League of Conservation Voters or LCV. We work with about 30 state LCVs across the country. So maybe our classmates are familiar with the state-based organizations. And you know, I, at the time, I thought I had worked for the state version and then the federal version of the same organization. I was nine years out of college, you know, ended up not going to law school, but I thought I can never envision that I would work for the same organization for nine years, again, like this was an amazing sort of first organization, first run, and now it's time to try something different. And so I never anticipated that it'd be 17 years later that I'd be sitting here talking to you about what I'm doing and feel, you know, more grateful than ever to be what I am and doing what I'm doing. And to feel like, you know, given, you know, what's happening in the world with the floods, the fires, the droughts, the hurricanes, and the disproportionate impact that all of that has on frontline and fence line communities of color, that I just feel so lucky to be doing this work and feel like it really matters. And so, yes, really grateful.
LJR: Yeah. And so important and so at this, you know, thinking back, Oh, that was so nascent. Now it's felt like this uphill climb, I'm sure forever and ever and ever. But we're starting to seek glimmers of actual action, and that is in large part due to people like you and organizations like yours.
TS: Oh, thank you.
LJR: So I'm sure it is. So tell us kind of that inner workings of how an organization that is really talking to the local citizen like me and trying to figure out. How, what's the best message to get her to vote for people that are gonna do the right thing? How does that whole process work and what do you see as the kind of, when your work is done well, what does the world look like?
TS: Well, I feel like our work is never done. As much as we make progress and have really started to, as you said, there will always be more need and more work to do. But part of what I so appreciate about the organization where I work, the League of Conservation Voters, is that we are able to work with organizations across the country. We are able to work with regular people, whether it's asking them to write a letter to the editor in their local newspaper or to make a phone call to their member of Congress saying, Vote for this great opportunity for climate change and for environmental justice and for good paying union jobs. Or whether it's saying, Would you like to take a yard sign that says climate action? Now, we engage small businesses, we work with local officials, all sort of in service of making the most policy progress that we can, and I would say not the singular issue, but one of the gravest issues and crises of our times is that of the climate crisis.
And it is a massive problem. And so we need to throw everything that we possibly can at it. So we're really focused on federal progress, both through legislative action and we did just work with Congress. It took way longer. It was not everything that we were pushing for, but still by far the biggest thing we've ever done on climate change. So maybe we can come back to that, cuz of course that's a really fun thing to talk about. But we also need to make as much progress as we can through executive action and the powers of the presidency. Getting the Biden Harris administration to do everything that they can through various rules and regulations and just common sense protections, whether it's for power plants or cars or trucks or buildings. We need to make progress at the state and local level. We need to continue to make progress in the marketplace. And of course, there's individual decisions, so this is definitely something where LCV and I would say the groups that we work with are focused on doing it all, but part of what I appreciate is different organizations have different strengths. They're really trying to complement each other. So some organizations like Earth Justice are really focused on litigation. We also really work very closely with our partners in environmental justice and have learned so much from them. And big, mostly white led national environmental organizations have a really bad history of not working as well with others, of going for sort of maximum progress at the highest levels, but then leaving communities that have forever borne the brunt, whether it's of toxic pollution, of environmental racism. And so really, especially in the last few years as our nation deals with this long overdue racial reckoning, trying to do our work in a different and more inclusive way. We're also really focused on working closely with our friends and allies in labor. So I think that's a long-winded answer. But then of course, what we're really doing is working to elect environmental champions at all levels of government, so to say, to, for someone like you, again, writing a letter to the editor, and I've had members of Congress tell me if I see that a constituent has written a letter to the editor, I know that dozens more of my constituents have the same feeling as the person who made the effort to write the letter and get it printed in the newspaper, making the phone calls, but certainly exercising the power of your vote and voting for people who are not just gonna kind of do the right thing when it's easy, but who are literally gonna wake up every day thinking, How can I lead the fight for more climate justice, for more environmental justice? How can I push for the strongest possible legislation? How can I make sure that everyone has clean air to breathe and clean water to drink regardless of where they live, their zip code, the color of their skin, where they were born? So there's so much that I love, I could go on and on.
LJR: Yeah, no, and I love the content of what you were saying, and yes, we will definitely get to the progress that has been made recently, but what I was really struck with, Tiernan, was your saying, I wasn't a public speaker and didn't wanna take that on. And that has certainly been something that has evolved in your life because not only is the eloquence there and it's all, it feels very polished, but it's really, it shows that fire and that, you know, desire that you've always had to look after not only the planet's wellbeing, but the people that are on it. And I just think, I hope you get to listen to this again because you'll hear Wow, that that's a far cry from that girl that didn't wanna speak up.
TS: Wow. Thank you, Leslie.
LJR: So you have made some progress. We have made some progress. So talk about the new infrastructure related wins that we've recently had.
TS: Yes. So I was outside the capital on August 12th when the House finally passed something called the Inflation Reduction Act that came a week after the Senate passed it. But this was, I would say, not just the last year and a half in the making, but we have known that we needed to really go full on and combat the climate crisis for decades. I was part of an effort to pass the first ever comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation in 2009, 2010, when President Obama first became president and we had Speaker Pelosi for the first time and we had, we thought pro-environment majorities in both the House and the Senate and thought this is our moment. And then we didn't get the job done. So we spent a lot of time learning from our failure, thinking about how do we really have authentic support? How do we become more inclusive? How do we build a more powerful coalition across the board. How do we hold our friends accountable? Cause there were, at the time, there were even Democrats who were purportedly pro-environment, pro climate action, who were kind of quietly saying, Oh, there might be blowback, or I might hear from the fossil fuel industry. Or, you know, there might be too many contributions against me if I take this climate action. So, We have worked really hard in the intervening 10 years in the run up to this Congress and this opportunity. I give so much credit to young people. I have 12- and 15-year old boys, and of course part of the reason I'm in this fight is for them, but getting to go to various rallies with them, calling for climate action has been a highlight for me as a mom. But the power of young people, the determination, cuz obviously this is not some distant threat. This is a reality today, people are suffering. Far too many people are dying from the climate crisis already, but for young people it is obviously gonna be so much worse. It's literally their future on the line. I don't mean to be hyperbolic, but it's, I think we've seen with the raging heat and how deadly that has been with the storms that this is, this is a crisis. And it is here, and we have to deal with it. So I think that has made the general public more of the need to act on climate. It's made them more likely to support candidates and people who are running for office who wanna do something about it. Working more closely with allies and environmental justice and in labor, as I mentioned, has made a huge difference. And then just having members of Congress who decided to run for office. In part, I know we probably don't wanna talk about politics on this podcast, but people who were so offended by what the former administration was doing, the most anti-environmental administration ever that they decided to run for. Because they had careers in as clean energy entrepreneurs or as climate lawyers and they thought, I need to actually like, get in there, push up my sleeves and be part of the solutions in the biggest way that I can. And so the champions who we have in Congress. So all of this kind of came together and then having this opportunity to have—Especially after the Georgia elections when John Ooff and Reverend Warnock became senators meant that we had a 50 50 Senate. So we had a chance to pass legislation and not just rely on the Biden Harris administration, which had run the strongest platform of any presidential campaign ever when it came to climate and, and making it really intersectional in terms of focusing not just on climate over here and environmental protection or clean air or over here, but doing it all together, all the while rebuilding our economy in a way that's more equitable and just, and it creates good paying jobs.
So they were focused on executive action. We knew we were gonna make progress there, and then we thought, Oh wait. We have this potentially once in a generation opportunity. So it has taken longer than it should have. The bill is not as big as we would've liked, but it is $370 billion in investments in climate solutions, in clean energy, in environmental justice. Things like 10 year tax credits for wind, for solar, for electric vehicles, incentives for buildings to be cleaner and more efficient. There's $60 billion in environmental justice for things like environmental justice block grants. There's a reinstatement of a Superfund tax to make sure that fossil fuel companies are cleaning up the messes that they have made, which again, are often in communities of color who have to deal with those consequences.
So this is a really exciting bill. In a 50 50 Senate, meaning 50 Democrats, 50 Republicans, that includes Senator Mansion from West Virginia. It's also a compromise. It's not the bill that a bunch of climate champions would've gone off and written by themselves, but it's the single biggest thing we've ever done on climate, and there's gonna be a lot more to do. So we are celebrating. We also are gonna fight some of the provisions that are in there, like one to tie more offshore wind to more fossil fuel development because clearly we need to double down on clean renewable energy and get off fossil fuels once and for all.
But this bill is really, it's win, win, win. It's good for our national security. I think the Ukraine situation has showed we don't wanna be dependent on a petro state autocrat in the future. In the way that we were with Putin invading Ukraine. It's also good for creating jobs. It's also gonna save people money on their energy bills. So again, there's so much to like. There's some provisions that we're fighting and we gotta go further. We gotta keep fighting.
LJR: Yeah. Well that'll keep you busy in the next chapter, right? So Tiernan, as you think back to those first views of the clear cuts in Alaska, or the grander of the backpacking trip that made you think, Oh, this is worth saving, is this the type of future that you envision for yourself? I mean, hopefully not, you know, wind, wind and all the, all the bad things notwithstanding is this the kind of professional future that you might have envisioned for yourself?
TS: You know, I'd love to say like I had a clear vision and, and this is it all lined up perfectly. I don't know that I had had such a sort of linear path forward, but I think if like. That, you know, 16 year old me like or Dartmouth me taking environmental studies classes or doing so poorly in the economics class, would know that this is the career that I would have. I would feel a lot of gratitude. And I think, you know, part of what makes me grateful is just the chance to work with people who are so determined, who are such great colleagues, who wanna learn from each other. I also, you know, as a mom, a wife, someone who likes to, you know, go for runs or spend time with friends still, I feel like I have to be able, I have to sort of embrace, not like mediocrity, but sort of be okay with the fact that there's always more work to do and it's okay to go hang out with friends or go for a run, right? I think this kind of work, it's obviously not the most lucrative work that you could be doing, and certainly, you know, there's an expression that like all of wins are temporary and our losses are permanent.
LJR: Mm-hmm.
TS: And I have been through a lot of losses especially during the Trump era when it comes to environmental rollbacks. I've also gotten to be part of some really exciting wins. Like the campaign that first brought me to DC in 2000 was when the Clinton administration was gonna protect the last third of national forests from logging, mining, and road building, the roadless area conservation rule. So that was a thrilling entree to DC. Sometimes stopping bad things is really important and can be really satisfying. Like the Keystone XL tar sands line was a very long fight that I was lucky to be part of. That seems that we've called the zombie pipeline. It seems to keep rearing its ugly head, but I think we have finally killed it once and for all as we really get serious about the transition to a hundred percent clean energy.
LJR: Yeah, that's great. Well, I think that younger Tiernan would be full of gratitude, but also proud of where you've been. And I really just appreciate your sharing this story with us. And I think even though winds might feel temporary, they're in the right direction. So we'll wish you many more of those on all of our behalf.
TS: We need it.
LJR: We need it. For sure. Well, thanks so much, Tiernan, for being here.
TS: Thank you so much, Leslie. Great to talk with you.
LJR: That was Tiernan Sittenfeld, Senior Vice President for Government Affairs at the League of Conservation Voters where she has worked for the past 17 years, tirelessly advocating for sound environmental laws and policies to help protect our planet and the communities that are most impacted by climate and environmental change. She lives in Washington DC with her husband and two sons, where she has been named by the National Journal as one of the top 50 people changing the game in Washington.
Do you know what else is game changing? All the things you do as a devoted listener to the Roads Taken podcast. Thank you for suggesting to friends and family that they take a listen to the show. That word of mouth support, as well as your following, rating, and reviewing us wherever you get your podcasts also helps get our game changing guests in front of new people. We very much appreciate having you on our team and look forward to introducing you to more great guests with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, on Roads Taken.