After the 1969 Santa Barbara oil blowout and subsequent oil spill, Rep.
Pete McCloskey urged McGinnes, then practicing law in
San Francisco, to go to Santa Barbara to assist in that community’s response. McGinnes served as chair of the national Environmental Rights Day conference in
Santa Barbara following the oil spill. In 1970, McGinnes was the founding president of the Community Environmental Council, one of the nation’s first ecology center/
think tanks. In 1977 he was the founding chief counsel of the Environmental Defense Center, one of the nation’s first regional public-interest environmental law firms. ==Books==