Jon Hinck

In November 1978, Hinck took a job in Seattle working for a monthly newspaper published by the environmental organization Greenpeace, then based in Vancouver, B.C. The next year, Hinck was hired as the Media and Campaign Director for Greenpeace Seattle. In late 1979, he represented that office at a meeting of the U.S.-based branches of Greenpeace and joined in the creation of the new national affiliate, Greenpeace USA.[10]

In the years that followed, Hinck was instrumental in building Greenpeace USA into one of the nation's largest and most influential environmental groups.[11] He led Greenpeace campaigns on a range of issues related to preserving clean air and water, protecting the marine environment, and encouraging development of clean energy.

From 1979 to 1981 Hinck played a leading role in efforts by Greenpeace Seattle and Greenpeace Vancouver to prevent oil pollution on the Northwest Coast.[12] The Greenpeace campaign achieved a ban on oil supertankers in Puget Sound and an end to plans to construct the Northern Tier Pipeline.[13][14][15]

Hinck led Greenpeace in some of its earliest work on controlling toxic pollution. In 1982, Hinck and Greenpeace exposed the dangerous practices of the Western Processing Company, a waste-handling firm. The company, located in Kent, Washington, had surreptitiously buried thousands of barrels of dangerous toxic compounds on company grounds. Greenpeace pressure eventually led to federal EPA enforcement proceedings.[16][17] The site was placed on the federal Superfund list and was eventually completely cleaned up with money from WPC and its clients, including Boeing.[18][19][20]

In 1983 Hinck assumed Greenpeace USA's key leadership position of Campaign Director. In that capacity, Hinck worked with Greenpeace Canada to confront a Russian whaling operation on the Siberian coast in the North Pacific. On July 18, 1983, Greenpeace's flagship Rainbow Warrior sailed into Soviet waters off Siberia just as the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission was underway in Cambridge, England. The Greenpeace ship landed at a remote whaling station, where seven Greenpeace activists went ashore and were arrested. The Rainbow Warrior started out to sea in order to deliver to the outside world documentation of the whaling operation and the arrest of Greenpeace workers. Pursued by a warship, a merchant vessel and a helicopter, the Rainbow Warrior escaped across the Bering Strait to US waters near Nome, Alaska. The Greenpeace activists were held captive for five days while Hinck negotiated their release with Soviet authorities. The transfer was made at sea on the International Date Line from a Soviet warship to the Rainbow Warrior before a worldwide media audience.[21][22][23]

Hinck collaborated on the worldwide effort to prevent dumping nuclear waste at sea.[24] The work of Hinck's team at Greenpeace USA, along with that of collaborators, resulted in the U.S. government's dropping plans to recommence nuclear waste disposal at sea.[25][26][27] Greenpeace subsequently achieved a total ban on nuclear dumping through the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, an international treaty now commonly referred to as the London Convention.[28] Hinck also initiated efforts to curtail the incineration of highly toxic waste at sea.[29][30] The efforts of Hinck and Greenpeace colleagues in North America and Europe resulted in a ban passed in the London Convention that effectively ended the practice.[31] During this period, Hinck testified before Congressional committees and consulted on marine pollution issues with the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere.[32][33][34]

In 1985, Hinck led Greenpeace campaigns for the control of pollution and protection of clean water throughout North America.[35][36][37][38]

Hinck contributed to environmentalist successes against notorious toxic polluters, including the ASARCO Tacoma smelter in Washington state.[39][40] For example, Chemical Waste Management (now WMX Technologies), later admitted that charges made against it for mishandling waste and other practices had "proved well-founded" and had resulted in important improvements.[41]

Hinck initiated efforts related to toxic waste and toxic product exports from the Western industrialized countries to lesser developed countries. This campaign culminated in the adoption of a treaty known as the Basel Convention, which regulates transboundary shipping of hazardous waste; 160 nations are now signatories to this treaty.[42]

In 1986 and 1987, Hinck and Greenpeace colleague Kelly Rigg initiated the first Greenpeace campaign to tackle environmental harm arising from the lending practices of the World Bank and other multilateral development banks.[43][44]

In 1996, after attending law school and practicing law in California, Palau and Maine, Hinck returned to Greenpeace. He was hired by Greenpeace International Executive Director Thilo Bode to serve as International Campaign Director. In that capacity, working out of the Amsterdam headquarters, Hinck served as delegate to the 1997 convention in Kyoto, Japan, which generated the Kyoto Protocol.[45]

From 2003 to 2006, Hinck worked as Staff Attorney for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Maine's leading environmental advocacy group. Hinck worked on developing clean renewable energy and alternatives to toxic pollution. In 2004, Hinck and NRCM achieved a substantial victory with the signing into law of Maine's landmark electronic waste law, which for the first time required manufacturers to take responsibility for environmentally sound recycling of computers and TVs.[46][47]

While at NRCM, Hinck helped to make Maine a leader in reducing mercury pollution.[48][49]

Jon Hinck ran for the Maine House of Representatives in 2006 in Maine's 118th House District, based in the city of Portland. He defeated incumbent State Representative John Eder, a Green Independent, 52%-48%.[50] In 2008, he won re-election to a second term against Joshua Miller, also a Green Independent, 74%-26%.[51] In 2010, he won re-election to a second term against Green Independent Carney Brewer and Republican Mark Carpentier 72%-14%-14%.[52][53] which covers part of Portland.

In 2006 Hinck authored L.D. 837, An Act to Prevent Infant Exposure to Harmful Hormone-disrupting Substances, which would have set new guidelines for chemicals in children's products, including a ban on Bisphenol A, popularly known as BPA.[54][55] The bill was defeated, but some of its provisions were subsequently adopted through rulemaking.[56]

During Hinck's two sessions as co-chair of Maine Legislature's Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology, the Committee worked on and unanimously passed out legislation on such subjects as: 1) rural broadband infrastructure, known in Maine as the "three ring binder"; 2) the smart grid; 3) ocean energy development; 4) energy corridors; and 5) Property Assessed Clean Energy ("PACE") legislation to provide innovative financing for efficiency, weatherization and residential use of renewable power.[57] These bills were passed by the full legislature and signed into law by Governor Baldacci.

In 2010, Hinck successfully sponsored LD 1535, An Act To Create a Smart Grid Policy in the State, which was signed into law in 2010.[58][59][60] The law promotes development of an electrical transmission system to manage and reduce energy use.

Hinck introduced a bill to encourage best practices and greater responsibility in the dispensing and prescribing of addictive painkillers like OxyContin; that bill has now been enacted as Resolve, To Reduce Opioid Overprescription, Overuse and Abuse.[61][62]

Hinck served as House Chair of the legislature's Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology and was later ranking member.[63] He served on the Joint Select Committee on Maine's Energy Future and the Commission to Study Maine's Energy Infrastructure. He served for several years as vice-chair of the Energy and Environment Committee of the Council of State Governments Eastern Regional Council, an organization of legislators from Eastern states and Canadian provinces. Hinck was also a member of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators and the National Coalition of Legislators for Energy Action Now, pushing the United States Congress for progressive energy and climate policies.

Hinck's wife, Juliet Browne, served on Governor John Baldacci's wind power task force and was a leading pro-wind power attorney in the state. Some anti-wind power activists alleged that Hinck, as co-chair of the Utilities and Energy Committee, had a conflict of interest regarding projects from which his wife's clients would benefit. He requested a ruling from the state Ethics Commission, which ruled that he would not violate the Legislature's ethics code.[64][65]