Daniel J. Weiss

Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy

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Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at American Progress, where he leads the Center's clean energy and climate advocacy campaign. Before coming to American Progress, he spent 25 years working with environmental advocacy organizations and political campaigns. Weiss is an expert in energy and environmental policy; legislative strategy and tactics; and advocacy communications. Most recently, he was a senior vice president with M+R Strategic Services, where he oversaw collaborative campaign efforts by 15 major national environmental organizations working to oppose anti-environmental legislation. This included field organizers, grassroots mobilization, earned and paid media, and opinion research.

Prior to M+R Strategic Services, Weiss served for 16 years at the Sierra Club, first as a Washington representative, then as director of the Environmental Quality Program, and for the final eight years as political director. He was chief strategist and lobbyist for legislative campaigns around the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Food Security Act, and budget bills. Weiss also designed and managed the Sierra Club's political action committee, endorsements, and $9 million Environmental Voter Education Campaign in 2000.

A graduate of the University of Michigan with both a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Policy degrees, Weiss has been involved with presidential, Senate, and House campaigns across the country since he was old enough to vote. In the 1990s, Roll Call named him one of the “Fabulous 50 Political People” and Regardie’s magazine listed him in the "Power 100: 100 Most Influential People in Private Washington." Weiss is married to Sherry Ettleson and has two girls and a boy in elementary school.