Professional Affiliation

Principal, Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP)

Expert Bio

Christopher A. James advises regulators, advocates, and businesses on how to reduce greenhouse gas, criteria, and toxic pollutants to meet existing and new air standards, improve water quality, and protect consumers. His projects span the areas of air quality, energy efficiency, distributed resources, demand response, and linking energy and the environment in air quality and energy planning processes. Recent projects include working with national- and provincial-level air agencies in China to develop plans to implement the State Council requirements to improve ambient air quality 25 percent by 2017, working with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state air regulators to develop strategies to reduce greenhouse gas and criteria pollutant emissions from the power sector, and working with the City of Krakow and the Malapolska Region in Poland to develop an air quality plan that will meet European pollution standards.

Mr. James has 30 years of experience working in air quality, covering nearly every facet of this topic, from developing ambient monitoring networks, emissions inventories, and control measures, to implementing and enforcing such measures. He champions multi-pollutant air quality planning and qualifying energy efficiency as both a reliability resource and an air quality control measure.

Prior to joining RAP, Mr. James was director of air planning and manager of climate change and energy programs for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), where he served as staff lead for the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Mr. James was also the DEP representative to the Connecticut Energy Conservation Management Board, which provided advice and oversight for utility energy efficiency programs.

Mr. James also worked in the Seattle regional office of the EPA, where he received two “gold medals” for his work to enforce air quality regulations. At one point, he had one-third of all such cases in the United States. Mr. James also worked in the private sector for Synapse Energy Economics and for consultants to the utility and biomass energy industries.

He holds a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and a master’s in environmental studies from Brown University, where his thesis focused on mercury emissions from biomedical waste incinerators.