Erik Olson

Director, Food and Consumer Product Safety Programs
Pew Health Group

Erik D. Olson is the director of Food and Consumer Product Safety Programs at The Pew Charitable Trusts.  He was deputy staff director and general counsel of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works until November 2008 and has 25 years of experience in environmental policy and consumer advocacy.  Erik is responsible for consumer product safety, including efforts to improve food safety, overhaul toxic chemical regulatory programs to better protect children and other vulnerable people and establish safeguards for emerging risks in consumer products.

During his Senate tenure, Erik worked on environmental issues and on health threats from toxic chemicals, playing a key role in major environmental legislation and hearings on global warming, toxic chemicals, children’s environmental health, clean air, drinking water, clean water and environmental justice, among other issues.  He also helped to negotiate the lead and phthalates provisions enacted in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 and the green buildings and green schools provisions of the Energy Independent Security Act of 2007.

Prior to his Senate work, Erik worked for 15 years at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where he held various positions including advocacy center director, public health program director and senior attorney.  At NRDC, he worked extensively on toxic chemicals, pesticides, drinking water, hazardous waste and many other environmental and health issues.  He previously served as counsel for the National Wildlife Federation’s environmental quality program for five years and as an attorney for EPA’s Office of General Counsel, working on hazardous waste and water issues.

Erik graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif legal honor society and served as an editor of the environmental law journal, and from Columbia College of Columbia University, where he created an independent major in environmental biology and policy.