Leon G. Billings is President of Leon G.
Billings LLC, a consulting firm that designs public policy strategies on
issues pending before the Congress and advises clients on political
matters and a broad range of environmental, energy, health and safety
legislation.
Mr. Billings served twelve years in the
Maryland State Legislature, from 1991 through 2002. Mr. Billings was
Chair of the Environment Committee of the National Conference of State
Legislatures for the 2001-2002 NCSL conference year. In 1995 he
co-founded the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a group of
state legislators committed to progressive federal and state
environmental policies.
Mr. Billings is also President of the Edmund
S. Muskie Foundation, a tax-exempt foundation endowed with a $3 million
appropriation from the Congress to perpetuate the legacy of Senator
Muskie. He also founded and serves as President of the Clean Air Trust,
a grass roots advocacy organization which Senator Muskie co-chaired with
Senator Robert Stafford of Vermont.
Prior to January, 1981, Leon Billings was
Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie. Before that Mr.
Billings served as Chief of Staff to Senator Muskie from March, 1978, to
May of 1980.
From 1966 to 1978, as staff director of the
Environmental Pollution Subcommittee, Mr. Billings had primary staff
responsibility for writing the major environmental laws now on the
books, including the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Mr. Billings also
was a key participant in development of the National Environmental
Policy Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the
transportation legislation which made federal highway funds available
for mass transit.
A 1959 graduate of the University of Montana
at Missoula, he did graduate work in history there. Subsequently, Mr.
Billings worked as a reporter and organizer for farm groups in Montana
and California and for three years as a lobbyist for American Public
Power Association in Washington, D.C. He served on the Democratic
Platform Committee staff in 1968, and in 1974 Mr. Billings was
co-chairman of a Democratic National Committee task force on Energy and
the Environment.
Mr. Billings is married to Cherry Allen
Billings. Mr. Billings has three children and four grandchildren.
