David J. Hayes is a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School and a Senior Fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Since returning to Stanford in January 2023, Hayes has been working through Stanford’s Law School and the new Doerr Sustainability School on climate matters, with a special focus on climate resilience and nature-based climate solutions, including climate-smart agriculture and forestry practices. Hayes served as Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy from January 20, 2021 until October 2022. As a senior member of President Biden’s White House Climate Policy Office, Hayes developed and implemented national climate policy in three principal areas: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change—with a special focus on reducing methane emissions and deploying nature-based climate solutions; accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy—with a special focus on successful permitting of clean energy projects (e.g., offshore wind; transmission); and organizing the Biden Administration’s whole-of-government strategy to improve resilience to climate-related disasters. Prior to joining the White House, Hayes was a climate policy advisor for the Biden-Harris Transition and, from 2017 to 2021, was the founder and Executive Director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law, where he worked with state attorneys general who were challenging the Trump Administration’s attempts to roll back climate, environmental and clean energy laws and policies.