1092. A Day in the Life: What's It Really Like to Be an Energy and Environmental Expert?

“To me, the biggest breakthroughs in this country are our broad and sweeping environmental standards that are enforceable. Many countries around the world have just passed in total our environmental standards, and they’ll say that. The question is not what your standards are. The question is how are you prepared to enforce those standards. And that’s where you see Bobby Kennedy and others roll in behind you to insist on enforcement. I tend to involve myself in what some people would call counseling attorney and counselor-at-law. It’s the counseling side of helping not only big business, but also governments, like the government of Fiji and others, where I go in and try to find that higher ground, where we can have the highest level of environmental protection while also ensuring that we’re not destroying the economy at the same time. People often ask, why do you care about that? The reason is that the places I’ve been around the world that have the most robust economies also have the highest level of environmental protection.”

Major General Tom Mullikin, who chairs the South Carolina Floodwater Commission, was once referred to by the South Carolina Governor as “the most interesting man in the world.” An energy-environmental attorney and a university professor, Tom is a former U.S. Army officer and retired commanding general of the South Carolina State Guard who has spent the last four decades leading expeditions to many of the most remote regions in the world, traversing every continent on earth, climbing mountain ranges of the world’s seven tallest peaks—including reaching the summits of more than 20 mountains across the globe—and logging scuba dives in all the world’s oceans.