Richard Ottinger

Richard Lawrence Ottinger was born in New York City on January 27, 1929, and grew up in Scarsdale, New York, where he attended public schools. His father, Lawrence Ottinger, founded and led the U.S. Plywood Corporation and started the Ottinger Foundation. His mother, Louise Ottinger (née Loewenstein), was a philanthropist who supported the arts, mental health programs and family planning, and died in 1997 aged 98. His uncle Albert Ottinger was a Republican who served as Attorney General of New York from 1925 to 1928 and narrowly lost the 1928 governor's race to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ottinger switched to the Democratic Party as a young lawyer in the 1950s. He had a sister, Patricia (later Patricia Chernoff), who died before him.

Ottinger graduated from the Loomis School in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1946. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in government from Cornell University in 1950 and a law degree (LLB) from Harvard Law School in 1953. He also studied international law at Georgetown University. He later received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from the College of New Rochelle and Mercy College.

Ottinger served in the United States Air Force from 1955 to 1957 and was discharged as a captain (Pace Law describes him as a Korean War era veteran twice cited for distinguished service). He then practiced international and corporate law in New York City, as an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Friendly & Hamilton and later as a partner at Kridel, Malone & Spear. In 1961 he joined the newly created Peace Corps under founding director Sargent Shriver as its second staff member, and served until 1964 as director of programs for the west coast of South America. Pace Law and his family describe him as a co-founder of the Peace Corps.

In 1964 Ottinger was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 25th district (Putnam County and part of Westchester), the first Democrat to win the seat. His defeated opponent, Rep. Robert Barry, challenged the result, alleging that Ottinger's family had used a network of committees to get around campaign contribution limits. In his first year Ottinger passed the Hudson River Compact Act to coordinate clean-up of the river. He opposed the Vietnam War, introduced the Vietnam Disengagement Act in 1969 and co-authored a 1970 amendment to end the war.

In 1970 he ran for the U.S. Senate and lost a three-way race to Conservative James L. Buckley, with Republican incumbent Charles Goodell splitting the liberal vote. After a failed 1972 comeback, he won New York's 24th district in 1974 and served until 1985 (the 20th district from 1983). He helped found the bipartisan Environmental and Energy Study Conference in 1975, sat on the Energy and Commerce and Science and Technology committees, chaired the Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power from 1981 to 1985, and was a principal author of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA). He championed the self-executing 'hammer' deadlines in the 1984 Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments to RCRA. He did not seek re-election in 1984.

After Congress, Ottinger joined Pace University School of Law (now the Elisabeth Haub School of Law) in White Plains, teaching environmental law from 1984 to 1994. He co-directed the Center for Environmental Legal Studies and in 1987 founded the Pace Energy Project, now the Pace Energy and Climate Center. He was acting dean and then dean from 1994 to 1999, establishing the Board of Visitors, expanding the LLM program, securing a new classroom building and bringing the New York State Judicial Institute to campus, and was later dean emeritus. He chaired EESI's board until 2010 and then served as chair emeritus, chaired the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation, and led the energy and climate specialist group of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law for about 20 years. In his nineties he worked with IUCN on recognizing fossil fuel dependence as a threat to nature and addressed a COP30 briefing for Belem, Brazil.

Ottinger married Betty Ann Schneider of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1953. They lived in Pleasantville, New York, and Washington, D.C., and had four children: Ronald, Randall, Lawrence and Jenny Louise. They divorced in 1978 after 25 years; Betty Ann, a social worker and later executive director of the Winslow Foundation, died in January 2023. He was briefly married to Sharon Frink, divorcing in 1984. In 1987 he married June Godfrey of Jacksonville, Alabama, a Mamaroneck village trustee and civic leader who worked with him on his environmental projects. He was Jewish, a keen tennis player and U.S. Open fan, and was known in the family for marking milestones with witty poems.

Ottinger believed environmental harm should be counted as a real economic cost. His research at Pace on the externalities of electricity argued that regulators should price pollution into energy decisions, and he favored pollution taxes, renewable energy and efficiency mandates. He saw climate change as a moral and business risk issue long before it became mainstream, and in 1988 EESI under his leadership declared addressing climate change a moral imperative. He was a liberal Democrat who opposed the Vietnam War, pushed post-Watergate reforms to make Congress more transparent, and worked on civil rights and consumer protection. He believed that students were the heart of a university.

Ottinger is remembered as one of the first environmentalists in Congress. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute he founded remains an independent, nonpartisan source of policy education, and PURPA reshaped U.S. electricity markets by opening them to independent renewable generators. At Pace he helped build an environmental law program that U.S. News and World Report ranks first in the nation, and he created the Pace Energy and Climate Center and co-founded the Consortium for Ecological Law. Richard L. Ottinger Hall at Pace stands in his name.

Honors listed by Pace Law include the American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy and Resources Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy, an ABA Lifetime Achievement Award, National Wildlife Federation Legislator of the Year, honorary membership of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, recognition from the Federated Conservationists of Westchester County, more than 20 awards from environmental and public policy groups, honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from the College of New Rochelle and Mercy College, and the 2013 dedication of Richard L. Ottinger Hall.

Ottinger wrote or co-wrote more than 100 articles and books including Citizens' Action: Vital Force for Change (1971), Environmental Costs of Electricity (1990), Social Costs of Energy (1992), The Law of Energy for Sustainable Development (Cambridge University Press, 2005), the UNEP Handbook for Drafting Laws on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Resources (2007) and A Tale of Two Cities (Kluwer, 2023), comparing air pollution governance in Los Angeles and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. He wrote opinion pieces for The Hill, Bloomberg Law and the New York Law Journal. Video of him includes a 2013 News 12 interview at the Ottinger Hall dedication, a COP30 address for the Pace Energy and Climate Center, and Pace's 2026 memorial program.

After the 1964 election, defeated incumbent Robert Barry challenged Ottinger's victory, alleging that he spent about $193,000 of his own money by getting around an $8,000 contribution limit. According to Barry, Ottinger's mother Louise and sister Patricia set up 22 committees that each gave $6,000 to the campaign. Ottinger kept the seat. He also often recounted an Oval Office encounter in which President Lyndon B. Johnson grabbed him by the collar over his criticism of the Vietnam War.

Ottinger was hospitalized on January 30, 2026, and had surgery for an intracerebral hemorrhage (his family described it as a brain stroke). He spent his final days in palliative care at his home on the harbor in Mamaroneck, New York, with his wife June and four children at his side, and died on February 16, 2026, aged 97. His son Larry confirmed the death to The New York Times. Members of New York's congressional delegation honored him on the House floor on March 5, 2026, Senator Ed Markey paid tribute in the Congressional Record on April 15, 2026, Pace Law held a memorial program, and a family memorial took place on July 19, 2026. Burial details have not been made public. The family suggested donations to organizations he was associated with or others advancing a just and sustainable future.

• Father: Lawrence Ottinger, founder of U.S. Plywood Corporation and the Ottinger Foundation
• Mother: Louise Ottinger (née Loewenstein), philanthropist, died 1997
• Uncle: Albert Ottinger, Attorney General of New York 1925 to 1928
• Sister: Patricia Chernoff, died before him
• Wife: June Godfrey Ottinger (married 1987)
• Former wife: Betty Ann Ottinger (née Schneider), married 1953, divorced 1978, died January 2023
• Former wife: Sharon Frink, divorced 1984
• Sons: Ronald (San Diego), Randall (Seattle) and Lawrence, known as Larry (Chevy Chase)
• Daughter: Jenny Louise (Manhattan)
• Grandchildren: ten, and three great-grandchildren
• Nephew: Corey Heath, died before him; niece: Karen Heath