John Quigley

John Quigley was secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection in Governor Tom Wolf’s administration.

He resigned in May 2016 after 16 months in office, following controversy over an angry email he sent to environmental groups urging them to exert more influence in Harrisburg. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design.

Quigley has spent much of his career in government. Before joining the Wolf administration, he was secretary of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) under Governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat. During that time, Quigley oversaw the leasing of hundreds of thousands of acres of state forest land for Marcellus Shale gas development. He later expressed frustration with how the leasing was handled–publicly criticizing Rendell and the legislature for treating state forests like a “cash cow.”

Quigley left DCNR with the change in administrations, when Republican Governor Tom Corbett was elected, and went to work as a private consultant, specializing in alternative energy, sustainability and shale gas development.

Before joining DCNR in 2005, Quigley spent two years as a government relations manager for the environmental advocacy group, PennFuture. He previously served two terms as the mayor of Hazelton in the late 80’s and early 90’s. He attended Bloomsburg University and later received a Master of Public Administration from Lehigh University.

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