Take Action: Membership Benefits

Your support is invaluable in helping us defend the environment and assist public employees who safeguard our natural resources. PEER’s membership remains in effect for one year from the time of your donation.

Join Today and Receive:

  • The opportunity to become directly involved in PEER's work to protect those who protect our environment.
  • Critical news & updates concerning the state of our environment through PEEReview, PEER’s award winning quarterly newsletter.
  • Electronic updates, action alerts and discounts on PEER merchandise (Books & Underwear)
  • A tax deduction for your contribution - PEER is a non-profit 501(c)(3) environmental organization.

Your membership will also further our efforts to provide the following services at no cost to public employees:

  • Legal consultation/representation
  • Assistance disclosing agency wrongdoing in ways that protect an employee’s career
  • Publication and dissemination of surveys and reports, guided or ghost-written by employees
  • Environmental campaign support and media training & assistance
  • Distribution of an employee survival guide: The Art of Anonymous Activism

Legal consultation/representation

PEER's legal program ensures that ethical public employees can count on legal services from attorneys specializing in whistleblower protections, First Amendment rights, and civil service laws...at no cost.

To date PEER has successfully aided hundreds of dedicated resource employees who were forced to choose between agency dictates and their consciences.

Assistance disclosing agency wrongdoing in ways that protect an employee’s career

Public employees can use PEER to address issues inside an agency, while remaining safely anonymous and thereby avoiding agency retaliation. For example:

  • PEER can file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the precise documents that the employee directs, but on PEER letterhead and signed by PEER staff;
  • PEER can file complaints with the Inspector General, state or local prosecutors, or elected representatives.
  • PEER can submit comments under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that the employee cannot safely file him or herself. Such action may give PEER legal standing to sue on the basis of the issues highlighted by the employee.
  • Protests or appeals of permit or other agency decisions can be handled by PEER. Using PEER may help ensure that critical information purged from agency files is officially on the record.

Publication and dissemination of surveys and reports, guided or ghost-written by employees

PEER edits, prints, distributes and acts as "press agent" for reports and white papers free of charge. The author’s identity remains unknown, ensuring that the real messenger -- the employee -- stays out of harm's way.

Another very effective means to alert the public, the media and policy makers to problems plaguing an agency is to have PEER conduct a confidential survey of agency employees. Because responses are anonymous, employees can answer truthfully about the state of affairs concerning environmental protection efforts and management practices within the agency.

Environmental campaign support and media training & assistance

PEER's provides guidance and strategic support for environmental campaigns focusing on a particular issue, agency or even a state. We offer expert assistance to increase public awareness of agency fraud, waste, abuse, corruption or environmental mismanagement. PEER staff members help employees publicize issues to maximum effect, through press releases, press conferences and other media events.

Distribution of an employee survival guide: The Art of Anonymous Activism

Co-produced by PEER, the Government Accountability Project and the Project on Government Oversight, this book is a helpful guide for public employees who want to come forward about on-the-job wrongdoing or harassment, while avoiding agency retaliation.