1970s:
Environmental Decade

Earth, Wind, and Fire

The Environmental President?

Richard Nixon, 1969

Positioning for re-election bid in 1972

Environmental Protection Agency

Nixon panel recommendations, 1970

Consolidate conservation programs

Complications: politics and political friends

Agriculture Dept. keeps Forest Service

Commerce Dept. keeps programs of NOAA

NOAA created 1970 for air and ocean research

Interior Dept. loses EPA

Sec. Walter Hickel a critic of Kent State

First director: William D. Ruckelshaus

Ability, charisma, committed staff, support of Congress & environmentalists ensure success

EPA’s challenges

Research & advisory roles & watchdog over 247 air quality control regions

Review state implementation plans

Oversee monitoring

Penalize polluting plants & industries

Achievements:

Inventory polluting industries

Air quality standards for many pollutants

Protect health as well as crops, plants, wildlife, soil, & water

New Legislation

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 1970

Environmental impact statements

1969: Justice Dept. investigates auto company conspiracy against pollution control devices

Clean Air Act of 1970

Cut auto emissions 90% by 1975

Requires national air quality standards

Endangered Species Act of 1973

Protection of “critical habitat”

Tightening regulation

Water Pollution Control Act amendments, 1972

No discharges by 1985; latest technology required; billions appropriated for new construction

The toxic environment

Workplace health: Occupational Health & Safety Act of 1970 (OSHA)

Toxic chemical regulation

Pesticides: FIFRA, 1972; herbicides added, 1978

Chemicals: Toxic Substances Control Act, 1976

1972 EPA mandate: list toxic chemicals, standard

Scientific data complex, missing, contradictory

National Resources Defense Council suits

Enforceable list of 65 chemicals, out of 1000s

Industry demand variances case-by-case

Ties up EPA; hope for friendlier administration

Age of Limits

1972: Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth

Apocalypticism, doom, Malthusianism

Limits Are Here:
The First Oil Crisis

Nixon ends of election-year price controls, 1973

Shortages, inflation

1973 Arab-Israeli War: OPEC oil embargo

High gas prices and recession

Emergency legislation

Cut energy consumption, expand energy supply

Power plants switch from oil to coal

Huge strip-mining operations in West

Easing of emission limits for plants & industry

Era of limits

President Gerald Ford, 1974-1977

Energy crisis, economic stagnation

Inflation, recession

Deindustrialization: the “Rust Belt”

Jimmy Carter

Georgia governor, outsider; defeats Ford, 1976

Failed energy proposal

55 mph highway speed limit

Department of Energy, 1977

Funds for research in solar and wind energy

Renewed oil crisis, 1979

Toxic chemical horror stories

Love Canal at Niagara Falls, NY , 1978

Miscarriages, birth defects, liver ills

Carter: national emergency; buys 240 homes

Media stories on toxics, cancer, illness

“Valley of the Drums” in Kentucky

17,000 leaky steel drums in open field

Times Beach, Missouri

Oil mixed with dioxin used on roads

1983: town evacuated

Clean-up

EPA Superfund (CERCLA) created 1980

Mission: clean up toxic waste dumps

Banned certain chemicals

EPA regulates waste transport, dumping

End of Nuclear Power

Push to develop nuclear power

Three Mile Island incident, Penn., 1979

Near disaster; release of some radiation

Construction costs skyrocket

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (created 1975) safety standards

Activists fight completion of plants

Chernobyl disaster, 1986

100 times more radiation than Hiroshima

Reactor orders after 1974 never completed

Distribution of cesium-137
10 years after Chernobyl