Lanny Alan Sinkin: Biographical Information
Mr. Sinkin was born in San Antonio, Texas, United States. His parents, Fay (dec. 2009) and William Sinkin (dec. 2014), were both highly respected leaders and activists in the San Antonio community.
Mr. Sinkin attended Alamo Heights High School. He got his Bachelor’s degree at Harvard College in 1967. He received a Fulbright Scholarship to go to Venezuela in 1967-68. He received his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1985.
While in college, Mr. Sinkin volunteered with the Catholic Inter-american Student Project. He participated in the design and construction of a simple water transportation and delivery system for Torrecillas, a small village in rural Mexico over a three-month period.
In 1967, Mr. Sinkin coordinated Vietnam Summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He trained and supervised three hundred volunteers, who went door to door in the Cambridge community to educate people about the Vietnam War. At the end of a three month effort, the Congressman from the Cambridge area, Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, Jr., changed his position and opposed continued funding for the war.
In the early 1970s, Mr. Sinkin served as Executive Director of the Urban Coalition of Metropolitan San Antonio. His father, William Sinkin, served as Chairman. The Coalition brought together business, environmental, activist, and other organizations to address urban challenges and develop policy responses. Among the issues addressed were excessive use of force by police; nuclear power; and protection of the Edwards Aquifer, the sole source of water for San Antonio.
In the mid-seventies, Mr. Sinkin co-founded the Aquifer Protection Association with his mother, Fay Sinkin. The goal of the organization was to protect the quality and quantity of the Edwards Aquifer. Mr. Sinkin coordinated a city-wide petition drive that gathered enough signatures to place a referendum on the ballot challenging a City Council decision to approve zoning for a large shopping mall to be built in the recharge zone of the Aquifer. Mr. Sinkin also coordinated the campaign to pass the referendum. The referendum passed with 76% approval.
In the late 1970s, Mr. Sinkin served as Coordinator of Citizens Concerned About Nuclear Power (CCANP). The organization conducted educational campaigns regarding the dangers of nuclear power plants and intervened in the licensing hearings convened by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the South Texas Nuclear Project. That project was a joint venture of four utilities, including City Public Service of San Antonio. Mr. Sinkin served as a lay representative for CCANP before the NRC licensing board, while attending the University of Texas School of Law.
During the course of his work on the nuclear issue, Mr. Sinkin developed evidence of poor construction practices, as well as the beating and intimidation of safety inspectors. He took this evidence to the regional NRC office, which conducted an investigation that concluded the allegations were without substance.
Mr. Sinkin then took the evidence to the CBS News “Sixty Minutes” program.
“Sixty Minutes” produced a segment on the problems at the nuclear power plant, featuring an interview with an inspector, who had initially brought evidence to Mr. Sinkin.
After the airing of the “Sixty Minutes” program, the national office of the NRC sent a team of inspectors from around the country into the South Texas Nuclear Project.
When the team concluded their investigation, the NRC ordered construction suspended and levied the highest fine in NRC history at that time against the project. The investigation confirmed the allegations brought to the NRC by Mr. Sinkin.
Subsequently, Mr. Sinkin brought evidence of substandard engineering practices to the attention of the NRC licensing board.
At that point, the project managers fired the company responsible for design, engineering, construction, and inspection. The fired company eventually paid more than $700 million in damages to the managing partners.
Overall, Mr. Sinkin spent ten years litigating licensing hearings for nuclear power plants, often assisting in exposing substandard practices and faulty design, engineering, and/or construction.
In the early 1980s, Mr. Sinkin joined the Christic Institute, an interfaith law and public policy center in Washington, D.C. At the Institute, Mr. Sinkin worked on two major cases.
The first case was a racketeering case against the private covert operation that was part of the Iran-contra operation. Six months before Attorney General Ed Meese announced the existence of the secret program, the Institute filed a lawsuit exposing the program and naming many of the major players in the private component, include John Singlaub, Richard Secord, and Albert Hakim.
The second case sought to prevent the launch of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Galileo Mission to Jupiter based on the environmental risks created by the presence of fifty pounds of plutonium on the space shuttle as part of the mission.
After leaving the Institute, Mr. Sinkin moved to Portland, Oregon. There he provided political commentary on a weekly basis to Marlene Smith’s program on KBOO Radio.
In 1992, Mr. Sinkin moved to Hawai’i. There he provided legal advice to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, working with various groups seeking to restore the independent Kingdom of Hawai’i.
Mr. Sinkin also provided legal advice to the Temple of Lono, a traditional Hawaiian faith driven underground by religious persecution in the early 1800s and emerging from hiding in the early 1970s. Mr. Sinkin is currently assisting efforts by the Temple of Lono and the Kingdom of Hawai’i to reclaim the Pu’uhonua O Hale o Keawe at Honaunau, a sacred site that is now within a national park under the United States National Park Service.
In Hawai’i, he filed another suit challenging NASA’s use of plutonium in the deep space Casini Mission to Saturn.
In the late 1990s, Mr. Sinkin filed multiple suits against the United State Navy challenging the testing of Low Frequency Active Sonar on the Humpback Whales in Hawai’i. In one such case, Mr. Sinkin filed suit with the Cetacean Community (Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises) as the only plaintiffs. The suit attempted to establish legal standing for endangered species, in this case the Hawaiian Whales, to file suit in their own name without the need for a Human surrogate.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied standing to the endangered species, stating that it was up to Congress, not the courts, to expand standing to include animals. The Court also ruled that there was nothing in Article III of the United States Constitution that would prevent Congress from granting such standing.
Mr. Sinkin also filed a suit challenging the United States Coast Guard’s use of a security zone to permit the operation of the Hawaii Superferry. The suit alleged that the Superferry was operating in violation of environmental laws and that the Coast Guard security zone violated the rights of those attempting to prevent the illegal operation of the Superferry by conducting a surf board blockade of the harbor in Kaua’i.
During his time on the Island of Hawai’i, Mr. Sinkin, along with Machteld (Mary Rose) Krijgsman and Suzanne Robinson, co-founded the Rainbow Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kurtistown, Hawai’I, where he worked for seven years. The Sanctuary provides shelter, medical care, and adoption services for homeless animals, mostly dogs and cats.
In 2009, Mr. Sinkin returned to San Antonio to be with his father. Mr. Sinkin served as the Executive Director of Solar San Antonio, an organization his father founded in 1999.
As Executive Director, Mr. Sinkin encouraged the use of solar energy through public policies, regulatory and financing mechanisms, public education, and marketing strategies. During Mr. Sinkin’s tenure, the organization was responsible for the deployment 1.5 megawatts of distributed solar on household and commercial rooftops with a value of more than $7 million. The innovative Bring Solar Home Campaign developed by Mr. Sinkin is nationally recognized for its contribution to the expanded deployment of solar.
In 2015, Mr. Sinkin returned to the Hawaiian Islands to devote himself full time to the restoration of the Kingdom of Hawai’i and securing the traditional Hawaiian faith’s right to practice.
For the past eleven years, Mr. Sinkin has served as Ali’i Mana’o Nui (Chief Advisor) to Ali’i Nui Mo’i (High Chief/King) Edmund Keli’i Silva, Jr. of the Kingdom of Hawai’i. Mr. Sinkin is working with the King developing and implementing the restoration process for the Hawaiian nation.
Mr. Sinkin is also a haumana (student) in the Temple of Lono, an ancient Hawaiian faith, under the guidance of Kahuna Palani Tamehameha Tamealoha Anuumealani Nobriga.
Mr. Sinkin is a writer, lecturer, and commentator on a wide range of issues.