Elizabeth Thompson

Elizabeth Thompson is the Director of Governmental Affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) as well as the president of EDF's lobbying arm, the Environmental Defense Action Fund. Previously, from 1999 to 2010, Ms. Thompson served as Legislative Director for EDF. In that position, Ms. Thompson supervised all EDF legislative and administrative work and was the lead strategist and negotiator for EDF in the US Climate Action Partnership. She also ran a multimillion-dollar legislative campaign on the issue of climate change, from 2007 to 2010. Ms. Thompson has served also as Senior Mediator and Program Director at the Meridian Institute. Ms. Thompson has policy and legislative background in climate change, energy, the Clean Air Act, transportation appropriations, and fisheries. Her legislative work has been characterized by an ability to find ways forward on difficult, contentious challenges. In the mid-1990s, she was able to forge legislative deals on transportation and air policy that became part of TEA-21; that success was followed by more in the clean air arena. At EDF, Ms. Thompson pioneered a collaborative approach to challenging policy programs in fisheries management, clean air, and climate. At attorney by training, Ms. Thompson is currently admitted to the New York bar and holds a Master's degree in Tax Law.