1970s:
Environmental Decade
Nature and Americans
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 difficulties
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
Follows acts protecting native fish &
wildlife, 1966; invertebrates and threatened species, 1969; marine mammals,
1972
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
Alice Hamilton (1869-1970)
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
Nixon’s fall
Circling
the wagons
The Pentagon Papers
The “plumbers”
Illegal use of wiretapping, FBI, CIA, Justice
“Dirty
tricks” in 1972 campaign
Watergate
June
17, 1972: Break-in & coverup
January
30, 1973: Judge John Sirica’s trial
February
7: Senate votes to investigate
Many leading staff resign and go to jail
July
16: The tapes
October
10: Vice President Spiro Agnew indicted and resigns, 1973
October
20: The “Saturday night massacre”
August
8, 1974: impeachment & resignation
President
Gerald Ford’s pardon
Era of limits
President
Gerald Ford
Lowered
expections, national drift
Energy
crisis, economic stagnation
Oil shocks: 1973, 1979
Inflation, recession, shortages
Deindustrialization: the “Rust Belt”
International
frustration
South Vietnam falls, 1975
The Ordeal of Jimmy Carter
Georgia
governor, outsider; defeats Ford, 1976
Failed
energy proposal
55 mph highway speed limit
Department of Energy: funds for research in
solar and wind energy
Mixed
record in foreign policy
Pushed human rights (except friendly dictators)
Camp David peace treaty: Israel & Egypt
Worsening Cold War
Approves neutron bombs & cruise missiles
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Dec. 1979
Iran hostage crisis, Nov. 1979-Jan. 1981
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 safety standards
Activists fight completion of plants
Chernobyl
disaster, 1986
100 times more radiation than Hiroshima
No
completed reactor orders since 1974