Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Felicia Marcus is the William C. Landreth Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West Program, an attorney, consultant, and member of the Water Policy Group. She most recently served as Chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board, implementing laws regarding drinking water, water quality, and state’s water rights, hearing regional board water quality appeals, settling disputes, and providing financial assistance to communities to upgrade water infrastructure.

Before her appointment to the Water Board, Marcus served in positions in government, the nonprofit and private sector. In government, she served as the Regional Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Pacific Southwest Region during the Clinton Administration, where she was known for her work bringing unlikely allies together for environmental progress and for making the agency more responsive to the communities it serves, particularly Indian Tribes, communities of color, local government, and agricultural and business interests. Preceding her work at the EPA, Marcus served as the President of the Board of Public Works for the City of Los Angeles, presiding over the department through a time of great change and challenge, including numerous emergency response situations (including flood, earthquake and riots).

In the non-profit world, she was the Western Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and prior to that the Executive Vice-president and Chief Operating Officer of the Trust for Public Land. Marcus also has an extensive background as a private sector and public interest lawyer, as well as a community organizer, most notably as a founder and general counsel to Heal the Bay. She has served as the director of litigation for Public Counsel, a public interest law firm; an associate at the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson; a visiting fellow at the Center for Law in the Public Interest; a law clerk to the Honorable Harry Pregerson (9th Circuit Court of Appeals); and legislative assistant to Congressman Anthony C. Beilenson in Washington, DC.

In 2020 she was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies from Harvard College, and Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law and studied at Hong Kong University on a Rotary Fellowship.

LinkedIn Profile

Octaviana V. Trujillo (Yaqui), Ph.D., is founding chair and professor of the department of Applied Indigenous Studies at Northern Arizona University (NAU), where she also teaches courses on tribal nation building.

Throughout her professional career, Professor Trujillo has been involved with education, health, social services, and cultural enhancement programs in conjunction with communities, tribal government entities, and higher education institutions.

She is the principal investigator (for community outreach) at the National Cancer Institute-funded Partnership for Native American Cancer Prevention, which focuses on alleviating the burden of cancer among Native Americans of the southwestern United States through research, training and outreach programs that allow the Partnership to collaborate closely with the Hopi, Navajo, and Tohono O’odham communities it serves.

Professor Trujillo is also the NAU research, education and training co-director of the Center for American Indian Resilience (CAIR), a partnership with University of Arizona’s College of Public Health to reduce American Indian health disparities.

In 2011, Professor Trujillo served as a visiting fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. Previously, she was director of the Center for Indian Education at Arizona State University, and was formerly a member of the Tribal Council of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona.

Professor Trujillo received B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Arizona State University.

She has served on a number of local, national and international boards. These include the Global Diversity Foundation, which promotes agricultural, biological and cultural diversity around the world through research, training and social action. Professor Trujillo is also a member of the US Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), which advises the Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who serves as the US representative on the governing Council of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).

LinkedIn Profile

Considered one of the nation’s most experienced and respected environmental leaders, Robert Varney is a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) New England Regional Administrator, who currently is President of Normandeau Associates, a science-based environmental firm with eighteen offices in 12 states. He was the longest-serving regional administrator and top environmental official in New England and is credited with instituting many innovative approaches and policy initiatives that have served as national models. Prior to EPA, Mr. Varney was one of the nation’s longest-serving state environmental commissioners, appointed by three Governors of both political parties.

Bob is nationally recognized for his efforts on global climate change; energy efficiency and renewables; homeland security and preparedness; clean air, clean water and safe drinking water; superfund and brownfields cleanup and redevelopment; environmental justice and healthy communities; restoration of rivers, lakes and coastal areas; strong and consistent enforcement and compliance assistance; strengthening partnerships; and improved agency management and performance.

Mr. Varney has chaired the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), State/EPA Superfund Policy Forum, Federal Ozone Transport Commission (OTC), Governmental Advisory Committee to the US Representative to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment, New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission and New England Governors Conference Environment Committee. He also was a member of EPA’s Environmental Justice Advisory Council and currently serves on the NH Board of Trustees for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the CEC Joint Public Advisory Committee (US, Mexico, Canada). Bob is the recipient of numerous environmental awards such as the EPA Lifetime Achievement Award, NE Water Works Association’s John H. Chafee Award, Environmental Business Council of NE’s Paul Keough Award and the ECOS Founder’s Award.

LinkedIn Profile