EPA History - William D. Ruckelshaus: Oral History Interview
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William D. Ruckelshaus: Oral History
Interview
Foreword
This publication inaugurates a series of oral
history interviews with the Environmental
Protection Agency's administrators and
deputy administrators. The EPA History
Program has undertaken this project in
order to preserve, distill, and disseminate
the main experiences and insights of the
men and women who have led the agency.
EPA decision-makers and staff, related
government entities, the environmental
community, scholars, and the general
public, will all profit from these recollections.
Separately, each of the interviews will
describe the perspectives of particular
leaders. Collectively, these reminiscences
will illustrate the dynamic nature of EPA's
historic mission; the personalities and
institutions which have shaped its outlook;
the context of the times in which it has
operated; and some of the agency's
principal achievements and shortcomings.
The techniques used to prepare the EPA oral history series conform to the
practices commonly observed by professional historians. The questions, submitted
in advance, are broad and open-ended, and the answers are preserved on audio
tape. Once transcripts of the recordings are completed, the History Program staff
edits the manuscripts to improve clarity, factual accuracy, and logical progression.
The finished manuscripts are then returned to the interviewees, who may alter the
text to eliminate errors made during transcription of the tapes, or during the editorial
phase of preparation.
Biography
William D. Ruckelshaus grew up in a
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distinguished Indiana family. Starting in
the mid-nineteenth century, a succession
of Ruckelshaus lawyers have practiced in
Indianapolis. They have also had long
associations with politics. William
Ruckelshaus's grandfather worked
actively for the Republican Party and in
1900 became state chairman. The son of
this political stalwart, John K.
Ruckelshaus, followed his father's
example, serving as Chairman of the
Platform Committee at five Republican
Conventions.
William Doyle Ruckelshaus entered the
family on July 24, 1932. The middle child
of John K. and Marion Doyle
Ruckelshaus, he had an older brother,
John, and a younger sister named
Bonney. Although he and his mother
were very close, his father exercised the
predominant influence over his life. A highly accomplished man with diverse
personal qualities, the elder Ruckelshaus was at once athletic and intellectual,
charming and devout. A clever storyteller on the political stump and in courtroom
appearances, he actually preferred to teach law and read philosophy. The
Ruckelshaus children matured in a supportive household, but John Ruckelshaus
set high standards and demanded excellence.
EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus 1971
William Ruckelshaus lived up to expectations. He attended parochial schools until
the age of 16, then finished High School in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, at the
Benedictine Portsmouth Abbey. After graduation, he served for two years in the
U.S. Army, became a drill sergeant, and left the service in 1955. During the next
five years, Ruckelshaus quickly completed his college degrees: an A.B. (cum
laude) from Princeton, followed in 1960 by an L.L.B. from Harvard Law School.
After passing the Indiana bar, he joined the family firm of Ruckelshaus, Bobbitt, and
O'Connor.
At the same time, the 28 year old lawyer was appointed Deputy State Attorney
General, assigned to the Indiana Board of Health. Here he gained direct
environmental experience. As counsel to the Indiana Stream Pollution Control
Board, Ruckelshaus obtained court orders prohibiting industries and municipalities
from gross pollution of the state's water supply. He also helped draft the 1961
Indiana Air Pollution Control Act, the state's first attempt to curb the problem.
After two years in this assignment and two more as Chief Counsel for the Attorney
General's Office, Ruckelshaus embarked on a political career. He ran in 1964 as a
moderate Republican for an Indiana Congressional seat, but lost in the primaries to
a candidate from the Conservative wing of the party. Following a year as Minority
Attorney for the State Senate, he joined the Republican tidal wave in the Indiana
House of Representatives and won a seat; more than that, he became Majority
Leader in his first term. Clearly a rising political star, Ruckelshaus was nominated
by his party in 1968 to oppose Democrat Birch Bayh in a U.S. Senate race. Bayh
won the election.
William Ruckelshaus then entered a period of federal service in which he held a
series of important administrative positions. He was called to Washington at the
start of President Richard Nixon's first term and assumed the duties of Assistant
U.S. Attorney General for the Civil Division, overseeing all civil litigation involving
the federal government. Meantime, in spring 1970, rumors circulated in Washington
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that the president's Executive Council on Reorganization-which was reviewing all
aspects of executive branch structure for the new Administration-would
recommend the unification of federal environmental activity in a single
governmental institution. One week after the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, the
council urged Mr. Nixon to form an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The
president approved the suggestion and initiated the planning process in the White
House. While the first by-product, known as Reorganization Plan Number 3,
underwent congressional scrutiny during summer 1970, many names vied as
candidates for EPA Administrator. William Ruckelshaus was mentioned often and
his boss, Attorney General John Mitchell, broached the matter with him. About one
month after Ruckelshaus confirmed his willingness to serve, Mitchell nominated
him to the president, who accepted him for the position.
William Ruckelshaus held the office of administrator from the agency's first day of
operation on December 4, 1970, until April 30, 1973. In two and one-half years, he
laid the foundation for EPA by hiring its leaders, defining its mission, deciding
priorities, and selecting an organizational structure. But as the Watergate scandal
broke in successive waves over the Nixon administration, it finally affected the EPA
as well. During the cabinet reshuffling following the resignations of White House
Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman and Domestic Affairs Advisor John Ehrlichman,
Ruckelshaus's success at EPA and well-known integrity made him a likely
candidate for one of the openings. He agreed to leave the EPA and serve as Acting
FBI Director. Soon, however, newly-appointed Attorney General Elliott Richardson
invited him to be his Deputy at the Justice Department. He accepted, but this
assignment also proved short-lived. When the president demanded that Richardson
fire Special Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox, the Attorney General chose
instead to resign. William Ruckelshaus was then ordered to remove Cox, but joined
Richardson in quitting the Administration. Acting Attorney General Robert Bork
finally dismissed Cox, who together with Richardson and Ruckelshaus became
known as the victims of the October 1973 "Saturday Night Massacre."
During the next decade, William Ruckelshaus chose a quieter life outside
government service. Late in 1973 he joined the Washington law firm of
Ruckelshaus, Beveridge, Fairbanks, and Diamond. Two years later, he and his wife
and five children moved to Seattle, Washington, where he accepted a position as
Senior Vice President of the Weyerhaeuser Company. The family lived happily
there, not expecting to return to the trials of Washington, D.C.
But during President Ronald Reagan's first term, Ruckelshaus observed increasing
turmoil at EPA. When the deterioration became clear to the public, the same
qualities of forthrightness which led him away from EPA during the Watergate
scandal, drew him back ten years later. In spring 1983, White House Chief of Staff
James Baker asked him to return to the agency. Intent on restoring the institution
he had founded 13 years before, Ruckelshaus overcame his own and his family's
resistance, on the condition the White House allow him maximum autonomy in the
choice of new appointees.
Between May 15, 1983, and February 7, 1985, Administrator William Ruckelshaus
attempted to win back public confidence in the EPA. It proved to be a difficult
period, in which a skeptical press and a wary Congress scrutinized all aspects of
the agency's activities and interpreted many of its actions in the worst possible light.
Yet when Ruckelshaus left EPA, he did so with a sense of satisfaction. He had
filled the top-level positions with persons of competence, turned the attention of the
staff back to the mission, and raised the esteem of the agency in the public mind.
He returned to private life at the start of President Reagan's second term, joining
the Seattle law firm of Perkins and Coie. Three years later, he assumed the roles of
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Browning Ferris Industries of Houston,
Texas.
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Reflecting on the exceptional diversity of the public and private offices he has filled,
William Ruckelshaus ranked one above all others.
I've had an awful lot of jobs in my lifetime, and in moving from one to
another, have had the opportunity to think about what makes them
worthwhile. I've concluded there are four important criteria: interest,
excitement, challenge, and fulfillment. I've never worked anywhere
where I could find all four to quite the same extent as at EPA. I can
find interest, challenge, and excitement as Chairman of the Board of
Browning Ferris Industries. I do have an interesting job. But it is tough
to find the same degree of fulfillment I found in the government. At
EPA, you work for a cause that is beyond self-interest and larger than
the goals people normally pursue. You're not there for the money,
you're there for something beyond yourself.
Interview
Early life and influences
Q: Mr. Ruckelshaus, could you tell me about your upbringing, family life and
education?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: I was born some 59 years ago and raised in Indianapolis,
Indiana. I had an older brother John, about two and a half years older, and a
younger sister, Bonney, who is eight years younger.
My father was a lawyer, as his father before him, practicing law in Indianapolis. He
had a short stint as a corporate attorney for Ulen Construction Company in
Lebanon, Indiana, a town just north of Indianapolis. They did a lot of international
construction but went out of business during the Depression. So he rejoined his
father in the family law practice in Indianapolis. My brother is still in that law firm; in
fact, for about 150 years there have been John Ruckelshaus lawyers in
Indianapolis.
My father was quite active in political life. He was five times the chairman of the
Platform Committee at Republican Party Conventions. He never ran for an office
himself, but he was quite active politically all his life. My grandfather had also been
active politically. He was state chairman of the Republican Party in Indiana in 1900.
So we've had a long history of family involvement in politics.
We had a very close family. My father and mother are both dead now. He died at
the age of about 60 in a drowning accident while fishing in Michigan. My mother
lived into her early 80s. I spent my childhood years in Indianapolis, went to
parochial schools there, and then transferred to a school in Rhode Island midway
through high school. It was a Benedictine school called Portsmouth Abbey, run by
monks in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
I went from there to Princeton, then to Harvard, and then back to Indianapolis,
where I joined the Indiana Attorney General's Office in 1960. 1 worked both in the
Indiana Attorney General's Office and practiced law with my father and brother until
Dad died in 1962. 1 ran for Congress in 1964 in Indiana and was defeated when
Senator Barry Goldwater's forces swamped the Indiana primaries. I was not for
Goldwater and my opponent was. I had the support of the Republican organization,
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but that was of no value in that period of the party's evolution in Indiana.
Then I ran for the state legislature in 1966, was elected, and became majority
leader. Between the elections of 1964 and 1966, we went from 22 Republicans out
of 100, to 66 out of 100. So there were a lot of new people in the legislature.
I had already been active in the state legislature through my work in the Attorney
General's Office, having directed a group which reviewed all bills that came out of
the legislature to determine their constitutionality. As a result, I had become quite
familiar with several legislators and the way the process worked, and I think
because of that was elected majority leader. I was only in there for a two year term
and then ran for the United States Senate in 1968. 1 was defeated by Birch Bayh.
That's when I went to Washington.
Q: Who were the most important persons in your life? Who were the mentors who
changed the direction of your life?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: My father was the dominant person in my life. My mother
and I were very close and had a wonderful relationship. But in terms of really
inspiring me to a sense of high moral purpose in life, far and away the biggest
influence was my father. He was a very religious man; I'm not a particularly
religious man, but my father was. He not only was religious in the sense of being a
regular church goer; he went to church every morning for the last 25 years of his
life and took communion. But he lived it. His religion was very important to him,
important in everything he did. He wasn't somebody who attended church and then
conducted his daily affairs as if he had never gone. It was a terribly important part
of his life. The high integrity which encompassed everything he did was very
inspirational. I would say that among the people who had an influence in my life, no
one was even close to him.
I've met several people with whom I have been close and have helped me along
the way; you don't do anything without some help. I have always felt that people
can help you get a position, and if you're lucky they might move you beyond where
logic would suggest you were qualified. But then it's up to you. If you don't produce,
then the help you may get does not make any difference. Certainly, I never would
have been EPA Administrator had it not been for John Mitchell. But, John Mitchell
wasn't going to make me either succeed or fail as EPA Administrator. He was the
one who suggested my name to the president and got me there to begin with. Then
it was up to me.
Ed Steers, the Indiana Attorney General, was a very helpful person in the early
development of my legal career. He gave me increasing responsibilities and then
made me the Chief Counsel of the Attorney General's Office, when I had been out
of law school for less than three years. There were some 63 lawyers in the office at
the time, so it gave me some early management experience, to the extent anybody
manages lawyers. Again, it was lucky I happened to be in the right place at the right
time and he helped me. But then it was up to me to figure out how to do it.
Q: Your father seems to have had such a powerful influence on you. Could I return
to him for a moment and ask you to describe him in greater depth?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: You have to bear in mind that I'm not exactly objective or
unbiased about him. Through the eyes of others, including myself, he had a
wonderful sense of humor. He loved to tell stories. He had an absolute wealth of
stories to fit any situation. He was a sought after after-dinner speaker because of
his humor. It wasn't a biting kind of wit, but more in the style of Indiana politicians of
those days who would tell stories to illustrate a point. He argued a lot of jury trials
and would use this technique in trying law suits. He was a very intellectual man. He
loved philosophy and one of the most important parts of his life was his dedication
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to reading the great thinkers of history. He was part of the Great Books movement
in the middle west, when Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler were active at the
University of Chicago. He started one of the first Great Books reading circles in
Indianapolis before the Second World War and it lasted until he died. The group he
led would read a book and get together every two weeks to discuss it. When I got
out of law school and joined, it had already been around for 20 years, so it must
have started around 1940.
He also taught a class in jurisprudence at Indiana University Law School, which
was in some ways more important to him than the practice of law. My father had
only three or four lawyers working for him and had no interest in building a powerful
practice. In fact, he was almost offended by these big law firms. He did like to
handle a variety of legal problems, but, obviously, with that size firm it was not
possible to undertake some of the larger matters that big offices do today.
My father was taller than I am-about 6'5"-and loved sports. He was a basketball
player when he was in high school, and in those days was the tallest man in
Indiana, about 6'4 1/2".
He was a charming man, a very kind person; the kind of person who people in
trouble wanted to talk to. They loved to unburden themselves to him. My father
could listen with great openness, tried to understand others, and helped them think
things through without making judgments. This is what people Re when they have
problems. He was probably tougher on his children than anybody else. With my
brother and sister and me he was judgmental and more inclined to express his
views on life, which is understandable.
Road to EPA
Q: How did you arrive at EPA?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: Well, the experience I had with the environment-to the
extent I had any experience-was gained as a result of the Indiana Attorney
General appointing me counsel to the State Board of Health after I had been in his
office about six months. Environmental and public health issues in those days in
Indiana were all managed out of the State Board of Health. There was a Stream
Pollution Control Board and an Air Pollution Control Board, both under the aegis of
the State Board of Health. I was assigned to the Board of Health and worked with a
man who had been in the Indiana Attorney General's Office for some time. We
actually sat in the State Board of Health building (rather than the State House) for
several months; probably a little over a year. I helped interpret the statutes and
manage the pollution agencies which were housed there, and also helped write the
first Indiana air pollution law, passed by the legislature in the early 1960s.
This was the kind of experience I had in the environment. We also tried several
gross pollution cases in the Stream Pollution Control Board. My impression in those
days was that pollution was essentially a problem caused by competition among
the states for the location of industry within their borders. When we began to
enforce pollution laws, they were pretty broad in modem terms and only addressed
flagrant pollution. I mean, there were a lot of cities without any sewage treatment
and there were industries discharging absolutely untreated material into the
waterways, killing fish. But whenever we pushed a major company very hard, there
was always the threat they would move to the south where the governors said, in
effect, "Come on down here, we don't care, we need your business, we need jobs."
My impression was, if you simply centralized all of this oversight and enforcement
activity, you could bring such states and governors in line because there wouldn't
be any place for them to run and hide.
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For me, this simple view obscured the depth of the issue enormously. In Indiana, I
never understood its complexity (as I later did at EPA) because we didn't need to.
We were dealing with absolutely gross polluters. There was no question they were
polluting the waterways. The whole issue was, could we enforce compliance? The
Governor's office, which was another party to the process, would occasionally call if
we pushed hard, and ask what we were doing. They reminded us the offending
industries would leave the state if pressed too much. So there was very little public
support-except in the locally affected areas-for strict enforcement of pollution
laws.
When I was at the State Board of Health I worked with a state assignee from the
U.S. Public Health Service named Jerry Hansler. He and I used to investigate these
cases. He was a sanitary engineer by training, and we would go around the state in
a panel truck and collect samples out of streams choked with dead fish, the result
of gross discharges. We would call those responsible before the State Pollution
Control Board and try to bring them into compliance. We had a lot of success
because the pollution was so obvious. But the Stream Pollution Control Board,
which backed us up, had never really done anything like that before, even though it
was in the statutes. Hansler and I both had a very good time doing that for about a
year and a half. He then went back to the Public Health Service.
When I went into the legislature, I lost track of Hansler. I heard from him every now
and then, but not nearly as frequently as when we traveled together. Then, when I
was in the Justice Department as an Assistant Attorney General in the Nixon
Administration, he called me one day in spring 1970 and said, "Have you heard of
this new agency called EPA?" I said, "I don't know what you're talking about." He
said, "The [Roy] Ash Commission has recommended that the president create this
new agency. I would like to recommend you as the new administrator." I said, "I
don't know anything about it, let me look into it." I looked into it, he called me back,
and I said, "That's about as big a long shot as I've ever heard." Hansler said, "I've
got a friend at Newsweek. I'll have him run your name as a possible candidate in
the Periscope column in Newsweek. Let's see what happens."
After my name appeared there, it started showing up in other places. He started it.
Hansler did the whole thing! I finally talked to my boss, Attorney General John
Mitchell about it. I said, "Look, I have had nothing to do with these leaks, let me tell
you how it's happening." Then I explained the story to him. I said, "This guy Hansler
is doing it. I'm not stimulating this myself." He said, "Are you interested in the job?" I
said, "The leaks have stimulated me to think about it. I've read all the material
about it and the answer is yes, I am. But I'm not eager to leave the Justice
Department. That's not something I'm burning to do." Mitchell said, "We've got a
couple of people we're talking to now, but let's wait and see." About a month later
he called and said the other two guys turned it down! I never knew who they were.
Mitchell said "We need somebody over there and I'm going to recommend you to
the president." I said, "Well, all right." That's how it happened.
Q: Do you recall your first meeting with President Nixon?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: I met him during the political campaign of 1968, when I was
running for the Senate, and he was running for president. I did meet him earlier, but
as part of a big crowd of people shaking hands with him. I actually campaigned with
him a little bit in 1968. We weren't close by any means, I had just known him. I was
really selected for the Justice Department position by John Mitchell, whom I met
during the campaign. I never would have been appointed to the EPA job except
that Mitchell recommended me. It wouldn't have occurred to the president to
appoint me to the agency.
Environment before EPA
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Q: When you first became administrator, how powerful was the environmental
movement? How did the government regulate environmental pollution before EPA?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: The first question about the environmental movement and
its power has a lot to do with the second question. The big difference between the
early 1960s (when we struggled to get anything done in Indiana) and the 1970s,
was the shift of public opinion. There was no public support for the environment in
Indiana in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Anything done was the result of
individuals like myself or Jerry Hansler deciding, "This is terrible, we've got to stop
some of this. After all, the law says it's wrong." It was not so much that I was an
environmentalist; I was never committed to an environmental cause. It had more to
do with being a Deputy State Attorney General assigned the task of enforcing a
statute violated on a rampant basis. But the public did not support this view. If there
wasn't some kind of odor problem or obvious health problem in a town, local people
would not support action against local industry, because that threatened jobs. If a
plant's management decided to relocate, it would be catastrophic to the local
economy. So there was not much public support for our early efforts.
Public support only began to explode in the late 1960s. It led to the creation of
EPA, which never would have been established had it not been for public demand.
That I am absolutely certain of. Public opinion remains absolutely essential for
anything to be done on behalf of the environment. Absent that, nothing will happen
because the forces of the economy and the impact on people's livelihood are so
much more automatic and endemic. Absent some countervailing public pressure for
the environment, nothing much will happen. I don't conclude that it's either a strong
economy or a clean environment; this is what our statutes reflect and people in the
country sometimes tend to think of as the central issue to the environment. But I do
think you've gofto have public support for environmental protection or it won't
happen. That's what shifted between the early 1960s and the time EPA was
formed.
Q: When you became administrator, how did the government go about regulating
the environment?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: Up to that point-up to the formation of EPA-it was largely a
question of the states enforcing the environmental laws. The federal role was fairly
peripheral. There was a National Water Quality Act in which it was possible to hold
hearings on a pollution problem like the Great Lakes and hold the gross polluters
up for public scrutiny. This tactic sometimes put enough pressure on polluters to do
something, or moved the states to begin to enforce the standards. There was a
man named Murray Stein in the Water Quality Office of the Department of Interior
who was famous for holding hearings and beating up on local polluters. He would
blow into town, have a big hearing, and hold the accused up for ridicule in the
hopes that would stimulate people to act. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't.
But there was really no overall federal enforcement to speak of. Again, as a result
of weak public demand and local fear of job losses, you didn't have centralized
enforcement responsibility. It was left to the states, and they competed with one
another so fiercely for the location of industry that they weren't very good regulators
of those industries. Particularly in the whole social regulatory area-health, safety,
and the environment-they just weren't very good.
As a result, we pulled these laws into the orbit of the federal government,
establishing over-all standard-setting and enforcement; command and control, as it
has come to be called. But the federal government also had the responsibility to
delegate backlo the states the administration of the various media programs like
water and air. The belief was that the states had enough interest and infrastructure
to enforce these laws. If they also had this "gorilla in the closet"-that is, the federal
government, which could assume control if the state authorities proved too weak or
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inept to curb local polluters-the states would be far more effective. That's the
theory. Prior to EPA, there was no federal oversight. There was no "gorilla in the
closet." Absent that, it was very hard to get widespread compliance.
Personal expectations of EPA
Q: When you first became EPA Administrator in December 1970, what were your
personal expectations? What did you hope to achieve in the broad sense?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: In the first place, given the public concern about the
environment that led to the creation of EPA, it seemed to me important to
demonstrate to the public that the government was capable of being responsive to
their expressed concerns; namely, that we would do something about the
environment. Therefore, it was important for us to advocate strong environmental
compliance, back it up, and cfo it; to actually show we were willing to take on the
large institutions in the society which hadn't been paying much attention to the
environment. That included both public and private sectors. The private sector
polluters, like the big steel companies who hadn't paid much attention to the
problem, needed to be pushed very hard for compliance. The cities also needed to
be pushed to move forward. All of that was necessary in order to show the public
that there was some progress being made.
We then needed to set goals for the agency which were achievable and which had
some parameters that made sense. In 1970, I thought about other agencies which
had recently been formed. Two came to mind: NASA, and the Office of Economic
Opportunity (OEO). NASA had a very narrow, precise goal set for it by President
Kennedy-to get to the moon by the end of the decade. On the other hand, it
seemed to me OEO had set an overly broad goal, in effect saying, "Let's do
something about poverty." Both premises can destroy an institution. In one case,
you define an objective and achieve it. But then what do you do? I don't think NASA
has yet figured out its role since the lunar landings. At OEO, the goal was so
amorphous-let's do something about poverty-that not nearly enough could be
measured and demonstrated as progress. Without that, how can you build on
successes and move on to the next plateau? Somehow, EPA needed to find the
middle ground between those two. We needed to set goals for ourselves that were
concrete enough to be realized, but not so narrow that you couldn't maintain
momentum and make progress.
I was convinced then-and have become increasingly so since-that the
environment is a problem you must tend to everlastingly. It doesn't go away. It's not
like putting out a fire or even building a highway. You can't do it, then brush your
hands and say, "On to the next task." You have to keep at it all the time, otherwise
it starts to slide back. But how do you keep attention-both institutional attention
and public attention-focused on that kind of a problem? New issues crop up all the
time, therefore, measuring progress is difficult. Also, because of the constant
pressure of struggling not to fall behind, the agency and its people may lose heart.
It's an ongoing dilemma which EPA is still fighting.
So it seemed to me we needed to set goals. We needed to organize. We had 15
agencies or pieces of agencies all under our umbrella. We had separate and
overlapping geographic regions for air, water, and solid waste, which we had to
bring together in one regional structure. We had to organize the agency
headquarters in Washington. We inherited a pesticides agency from the Agriculture
Department which was created to stop what the Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare (HEW) was doing to regulate pesticides. All of a sudden, both were
under one roof!
I needed to gain enough understanding of the nature of the agency, and what
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should be done, before organizing it, so that the organizational structure itself didn't
get in the way of progress. By the same token, we needed to provide some
structure in a timely fashion so that people didn't get discouraged and start drifting
away from our central purpose. So in about four or five months-inundated with
organization charts floating around my office-l just chose an organizational
structure. It's been reorganized several times since, so obviously it wasn't a perfect
structure. But it was important to provide some clear organizational framework.
President Nixon
Q: Did President Nixon ever give you directions about how he wanted your office or
the agency to be run?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: No. No. He was very uninvolved. Most of the presidential
pronouncements that Nixon made about the environment, many of which were
quite good, originated in his Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ); that is, from
Russell Train and his people, including Al Aim, who was later my Deputy at EPA,
and Bill Reilly, who is now the EPA Administrator. Train had a number of people
like that who were very good, very bright, and had been active in the environmental
movement as it unfolded in this country. Under Train's direction, they were the final
authors of much of what the president said about the environment in those days.
But in terms of Mr. Nixon's own involvement in structuring the agency, the White
House suggested I work with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). They
were of some help. John Ehrlichman was quite helpful to me in the White House.
He was the main person I worked with there, and in the early days of EPA, often
kept the agency's business out of range of the president. Ehrlichman realized Nixon
would react negatively to anything that smacked of regulation, that would interfere
with the economy, or, in a narrow sense, would arouse some of the captains of
industry, whom the president admired tremendously. Nixon did not feel this way
because they were contributors to the party or because they exercised some evil
influence over him. He really admired those who had accomplished a great deal in
the corporate world. So when they complained to him from time-to-time about
regulatory infringement on their activities, he would become quite agitated.
But I didn't really get any help from him. Every time I'd meet with him, he would just
lecture me about the "crazies" in the agency and advise me not to be pushed
around by them. He never once asked me, "Is there anything wrong with the
environment? Is the air really bad? Is it hurting people?" President Reagan was
much more curious about that than President Nixon. Nixon thought the
environmental movement was part of the same political strain as the anti-war
movement; both reflected weaknesses in the American character. He tied the
threads together. During the 1960s, when the Vietnam War protests were so
powerful and so dominated his thinking, he observed that some of the same people
involved in the environmental movement were also associated with the anti-war
movement. So he tended to lump all of them together.
He created EPA for much the same reason Reagan invited me to return to the
agency in 1983: because of public outrage about what was happening to the
environment. Not because Nixon scared that concern, but because he didn't have
any choice. People have often said, isn't that a terrible motive! But that's the way
democracy is supposed to work. The president feels he's got to respond to
something the American people feel is very important or he's going to get into
political trouble. I think President Bush did this last week with the passage of the
Civil Rights Act. I think it's the exact same phenomenon. He also did it with the
nomination of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and with the Louisiana
Senate campaign of David Duke. He had to do something or would get tarred with
the brush of that crazy guy Duke. I think that's okay. I think that's the way
democracies work.
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Russell Train and Robert Fri
Q: You mentioned Russell Train and William Reilly. When you became
administrator, who were your environmental counselors?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: The CEQ was formed about a year before EPA. Russell
Train had been a candidate for administrator of EPA at the time I was nominated,
and then succeeded me. We became quite close friends. There was a potential,
obviously, for becoming rivals after EPA was formed. I thought, and I think he
concurred, that it would be a waste of time for us to engage in that sort of activity.
This wasn't exactly an administration brimming over with environmentalists, so to
the extent that we needed some strength in the counsels of the White House or the
cabinet, we decided to stick together.
After EPA was formed, Train concentrated primarily on international affairs, which
he liked and was quite good at, and gradually turned the domestic agenda over to
EPA. It was inevitable that would happen. CEQ was then a much stronger and a
better agency than it's become since, but still had only 35 to 40 people, compared
to EPA's 15,000. There was no way they could compete. So Train was an important
ally. Naturally, we also recruited people to help: the assistant administrators and my
Deputy Administrator, Bob Fri, who was later acting administrator. These people-
as well as their staffs and the others who worked for me at the agency-were the
ones I really relied on.
Q: You mentioned Mr. Fri. What was the nature of his advice? Was it technical,
was it broad policy?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: Oh, he was a big help. I recruited the five assistant
administrators before recruiting the deputy. Originally, Ehrlichman had
recommended that Jim Schlesinger be the deputy. I talked to Schlesinger about it
and he was quite interested. He was at OMB at the time. But then the president
and Henry Kissinger asked him to do a study on the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA). Schlesinger said it would take three or four months, and at the end of that
time he could move over to EPA. I said I didn't have that kind of time. So he
became CIA director and then took on other jobs in the administration.
By that time I had already recruited the five assistant administrators and Bob Fri.
He was recommended by Fred Malek in the White House Personnel Office. Malek
joined the administration about the same time I did. He was very helpful to me in
screening people I wanted to hire, and in recommending candidates for me to
choose from. He had known Fri at McKenzie, the management consulting firm, and
recommended Fri to me very strongly. Fri's background was in organizational
design and general management consulting. He was very helpful in putting the
agency together and establishing a management structure. Most of my time was
devoted to managing the external affairs of the agency. In EPA, the administrator
has about five constituents to deal with: Congress, the White House, the
environmentalists, the general public, and industry. The agricultural community was
also a constituent in the early days. I had to spend a lot of time with all of them, as
well as the press. You have to cultivate all of these groups or you get in trouble,
and that alone is more than a full-time job. Keeping the agency moving and keeping
the troops happy was also part of the job; but paying attention to the day-to-day
management was really Fri's work, and he was very good at it.
Early surprises
Q: During your first year, did the job surprise you or did you find things went
essentially the way you thought they would?
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MR. RUCKELSHAUS: Oh no, not at all the way I thought they would. I thought that
pollution could be solved by mild coercion. Once the federal government set some
standards and began to enforce them, people would fall in line and the problem
would essentially disappear. I thought we knew what the bad pollutants were, knew
at what levels they caused adverse health and environmental effects, and knew the
technology needed to combat them. Finally, I thought all of this could be done at a
reasonable cost within a reasonable time.
I was there about three months when I began to question every single one of the
assumptions I had entered the agency with. I was no longer certain we knew what
the bad pollutants were. We knew some of them, but we certainly didn't know all of
them, nor their effects at very high levels. We had very little knowledge other than
elaborate models and extrapolations on the effects of pollutants at lower levels. We
knew almost nothing about the synergistic effect of these pollutants, what they
might do in combination to public health or the environment. Even assuming we did
know the effects, the cost of controlling them, in some cases, was prohibitive. Also,
actions to redress these problems could be very time-consuming. The public had
almost no understanding of all this.
So my view of the environment had been skewed and biased by my experience at
the state level, where it appeared that all we needed to do to get rid of gross
pollution was have the central government enforce standards. I thought we could
do something about gross pollution, until I encountered the practice of zero health
effects. Mandated by Congress, it threw us into a lot choppier waters.
Important issues
Q: What were the half dozen most important issues you faced in your first term?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: The most important imperative, I think, was establishing the
credibility of the agency and demonstrating the willingness of the central
government, and the political process, to respond to the legitimate demands of the
people. I thought these tasks were essential. Second, it was crucial to organize the
agency properly and set out some achievable goals. Third, I selected some issues
to take on personally, in order to demonstrate the willingness of EPA to step up to
its responsibilities. There were also some pressing issues like DDT, which required
immediate attention; and enforcement action against three cities.
Likewise, there were some large industrial polluters that the public felt we should
challenge, and we did. The job was made easier by the companies themselves.
Some American industrialists believed environmentalism was a fad, a lot of
nonsense that would go away if they just hunkered down, fought, and publicly
confronted us. They couldn't have been more wrong. They really misjudged the
power of the environmental movement and its ability to galvanize public support. So
when they decided to confront me or the agency, it was simple to take them on. We
couldn't have invented any better antagonist for the purpose of showing that this
was serious business, that the agency was serious about its mission.
As things unfolded, the most complicated problem was, and remains, how to
successfully manage the relationship between the agency and the White House; in
particular, the OMB. By the nature of things, that office resisted large expenditures
when it perceived minimal benefits were at stake. It was not impressed with the
Congressional mandate to get on with environmental protection regardless of cost,
as some of the statutes demanded. This situation acted as a serious impediment to
the effectiveness of the EPA Administrator, who was immediately responsible to
Congress to carry out its wishes. The OMB staff was removed from that
responsibility and somewhat insulated as a result of cover in the White House. The
relationship between EPA and OMB was a very difficult one, and remains so.
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It's the hardest job for Bill Reilly, although the Competitive Council headed by Vice
President Quayle has displaced OMB as the chief EPA nemesis within the
administration. But White House reorganizations don't really matter. When Douglas
Costle was administrator, the culprit was the Wage and Price Council. There is
always going to be somebody in the White House handling the regulatory agencies
who will resist-and resist with some justification-the EPA's initiatives. Yet, many
such programs are pushed very hard by the Congress, which has an incomplete
understanding of the countervailing White House pressures.
This predicament puts the administrator right in the middle of conflicting currents,
and it is a very complicated thing to deal with. It began to occur almost as soon as I
got to the agency. The first sign of the problem manifested itself during the
issuance of the Clean Air Standards, as provided by the Clean Air Act. Under this
statute, we had 90 days to issue ambient air quality standards for the whole nation.
When I started at EPA, I was told that everybody had already agreed to these
standards. They had been cleared through Congress, and HEW, which then ran the
Air Pollution Control Agency, had developed a set of criteria documents which
stood six feet high! I was handed them three or four days before the deadline and
told they were all signed, everybody agreed to them, there was no controversy; just
announce them and the agency would start to enforce the new Clean Air Act.
We made some modifications, but not many, and announced the standards. The
impact on industry was quite dramatic. Its leaders got very agitated and charged
the White House. Nixon's staff then formed a Quality of Life Review Committee,
which was the precursor of all of the White House oversight and led to so much
rancor between OMB and EPA. No matter which political party is in office, this
tension will persist. I couldn't resolve it then, and when I went back to the agency in
1983, I got right back in the middle of it! The same people were there\ The same
people in the agency, the same people in OMB, fighting each other over what
should happen to these standards!
Congress and EPA
Q: In your first term, what was your relationship, and the agency's relationship, to
Congress?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: I would say by and large it was pretty good. Senator
Edmund Muskie, a Democrat, was the chairman of the Senate Public Works
Committee. He had been the author of the Clean Air Act and spent a lot of time on
environmental issues in relative obscurity, until the public became agitated about
them. Then it was quite helpful to him in a political sense. During my confirmation
hearings, there was a good deal of speculation about Muskie's presidential
ambitions. On the eve of the 1970 Congressional elections, Muskie and the
President Nixon had a face off in which Muskie was widely perceived to have come
out the better. By then he was clearly the leading Democratic candidate for
president. He or his staff may have looked for openings to question Nixon's
environmental record, but my relationship with him was really quite good. I think
Muskie realized we were trying to do the right thing, trying to figure out how to
make the EPA work.
Senator Howard Baker was the ranking member of the Public Works Committee.
He was a friend of Muskie's, although politically they were on opposite sides of the
fence. There wasn't much partisanship on that committee, and there still isn't. We
found one or two Republicans antagonistic to our program, but the majority
supported us in a broad, pro-environmental sense, without much confrontation.
The House had a little different equation. People like Congressman John Dingell,
who in the early days of the environmental movement was something of an activist,
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later came to be perceived as less supportive. The House had a number of
committees concerned with the environment. In fact, there were 15 I reported to in
one form or another. When all of the institutional parts were combined to form EPA,
we inherited all of these Congressional overseers. I tried to get Speaker of the
House John McCormack and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield to consolidate
the environmental committees in both houses. They agreed it should be done and
suggested I talk to the committee chairmen and see if they would make the
consolidations. I did talk to them, and each one agreed to it-so long as the final
arrangements were under their own control! Consequently, there are now some 50
different committees the EPA Administrator answers to. In general, Dingell's
committee was the major one in the House, but Muskie's in the Senate was by far
the single most powerful environmental committee in Congress.
Jamie Whitten was a crucial committee member in the House. He had responsibility
over our appropriations and had written a book on pesticides prior to the formation
of EPA. It was very negative towards pesticides regulation. Whitten represented-
and still represents-a rural Mississippi delta district which felt that
environmentalists had often, and unreasonably, opposed the use of chemicals for
the control of pests on cotton and some other crops. Me activists had also objected
to public works projects, such as the building of deltas for flood control. Whitten
thought these objections were crazy. So, the first time I met him he gave me an
autographed copy of his book which, again, was very antagonistic to any regulation
of pesticides. He believed it was all a lot of nonsense.
But I spent a lot of time with him. Before I'd make a decision that had any effect on
something he thought was important, I'd go talk to him about it. Often, the decision
was contrary to what he thought should be done. However, if you stayed in touch
with him, communicated with him, and tried to accommodate his interests, it would
normally be all right. He and some others might attack you publicly, but if they
thought you were doing what you thought right, my experience showed they would
not become totally alienated.
Q: When and why did Congress begin to diminish EPA's regulatory autonomy?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: That came as a result of the increasing mistrust of the
executive branch by the legislative branch. It was caused partly because each of
the two branches were controlled by a different political party. It also resulted from
the Vietnam War. Even though the Democrats ruled both branches in the early
years of the conflict, Senator William Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, openly accused President Lyndon Johnson of lying to Congress about
the conduct of the war. That attitude began to infect other committees. It became a
hallmark of the relationship between the regulatory agencies and Muskie's Public
Works Committee in the Senate; and to a lesser extent the House, where there
were no presidential candidates.
In my view, the environmental statutory base became a casualty of this bad feeling.
As a result, the early success with the Clean Air Act was copied indiscriminately. In
this law, Congress had set automotive emissions standards that were not
achievable on the basis of known technology. Assume you had to get 90 percent of
carbon monoxide (one of the three major pollutants, along with hydrocarbons and
nitrogen oxides) out of car exhaust five years from 1970, when the Act passed. This
meant the 90 percent reduction represented a technology-forcing mechanism; 90
percent reduction by 1975. Yet, for all intents and purposes, it worked. We did get
enormous progress well beyond what anybody expected as a result of setting the
standard. But in the highly partisan climate in Congress, the decision was made to
stretch the lesson of the Clean Air Act; to set standards and apply deadlines across
the board, for all kinds of pollutants. I don't think it was properly understood whether
that made sense as a matter of public policy. The real issue was, would it work?
Was it even a good mechanism for Congress to achieve further air pollution
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reductions?
Moreover, did the techniques used to achieve some early successes against
automobile exhaust really have universal application? In Detroit, we had a very
centralized industry. The sources of pollution were sent out through a unified
distribution system; not at all like stationary sources located all over the country, or
like even more complicated non-point sources of air and water pollution
represented by sewage treatment plants, by farm fertilizers, and so on. Again, the
automobile industry represented a very concentrated source of pollution. The auto
makers, which are technology-driven enterprises that control much of the R & D
apparatus themselves, and increasingly encounter strong foreign competition.
Foreign competition may have been as important as anything. The Japanese
testified at EPA hearings that they could achieve the standards and meet the
deadlines. This had a powerful effect on American manufacturers to achieve the
standards within the same period of time.
Given all these dynamics, the setting of standards and deadlines probably made
some sense, at least in being able to make progress against automobile pollutants.
But when you start applying this practice across the board, it often didn't make any
sense. The early success with cars convinced Congress that this formula could be
adopted universally. I think it greatly over-simplified the nature of the problem and,
therefore, our approach to it. I also think it had a detrimental effect on public
understanding of, and adaptation to the issues, ultimately preventing voters from
making demands on their elected representatives which would have allowed EPA
to put a more sensible and progressive process in place.
Industrial polluters
Q: What was your overall relationship to industrial polluters?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: My relationship with industry in the early days of EPA was
about what it should have been. We gave the benefit of the doubt to those who
tried to figure out what we wanted and who tried to comply. The ones who wanted
to confront the agency were treated in kind. In a way, it was serendipitous for the
public image of EPA that some were willing to oppose us. Secretary of Commerce
Maurice Stans responded to our actions by forming an organization called the
National Industrial Pollution Control Council (NIPCC). Stans believed you answered
pollution standards with voluntary compliance on the part of industry. NIPCC did
get some pledges of compliance from industries and some agreement on the clean-
up steps they were willing to take.
The problem with that-and I discussed it with Stans quite a bit-was that the free
enterprise system doesn't work unless there are fairly clear rules defining
competitive parameters. In the case of pollution, if you are relying on the good will
of an industry-say the pulp and paper industry-to achieve a given environmental
result, it only works if everybody plays. If you have significant expenditures that
need to be made in order to achieve compliance, and only one competitor won't
make the outlays, it won't work. So the government has to mandate a certain level
of compliance necessary to achieve a given environmental result. Let
manufacturers compete as to how they do it; don't tell them how to achieve the
result. But tell them what you want them to do, and the free enterprise system will
work. I don't think we ever made a lot of progress in the early years with voluntary
compliance. I think it's working better today simply because EPA is more
sophisticated. Industries are a lot more sophisticated. They understand they are
going to have to achieve high standards eventually. The public isn't going to back
away. It's not a fad. Almost no one at the top of major American companies fails to
understand that they must pay attention to the environment; that confrontation with
the government is an absolute waste of time; and that voluntary compliance merely
averts the inevitable.
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For example, I'm on the board of the Monsanto Corporation, which has pledged to
reduce its toxic pollutants by 90 percent by the end of next year. That was a strictly
voluntary decision on their part and has tended to pull the whole industry toward
this objective. It resulted from a combination of prodding by EPA and public
demand. That never could have happened 20 years ago. Never.
So my relationship with industry in the early days of the agency was fairly
confrontational, almost by the nature of things. I would meet with industry groups
from time-to-time and we had quite a few confrontations. I was threatened by
people in the steel industry; not physically, but threatened that my job would be
abolished. In fact, as a way of raising money for Nixon's presidential campaign,
Maurice Stans would occasionally promise to campaign contributors that I wouldn't
be around for the second term! Generally, it was a time in which industry was
having some trouble adjusting to the new public demands represented by this new
agency. To me, it didn't seem surprising.
State governments
Q: Broadly speaking, how were relations between EPA and the state governments?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: Broadly speaking, they were terrible, because the agency
itself represented a repudiation of what the state regulators had been doing for the
previous 20 years. They felt, often with a good deal of justification, that in the face
of very little public support-and therefore, very little political support-they had
made remarkable progress and were getting no credit for it. The very existence of
EPA itself symbolized to state environmental agencies the lack of appreciation the
public had for their, "laboring in the darkness for lo these many decades." One of
the first things I did at EPA was travel around the country and talk to state
regulatory officials. I convened meetings with them in the various EPA regions. I
heard the same story over and over and over again: "You're pushing us around too
much; you're trying to dictate what ought to happen; we can handle this stuff
ourselves; just give us more money, more federal grants; stay out of our hair."
Some of the more philosophic ones acknowledged that EPA was really a gorilla in
the closet. So long as we didn't come out of the closet and we let the states alone,
the gorilla could help induce compliance. But I had some quite angry meetings with
these state regulatory officials.
There were also some growing pains in the agency. As it got new powers from the
Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act to regulate state activities, EPA had to be
sure the states had adequate bureaucratic mechanisms in place before delegating
to them the operation and administration of new programs. This oversight created a
very, very difficult period between the EPA and the states. The states thought we
dictated too much, were too intrusive. Again, a lot of it stemmed from resentment
for not having gotten adequate credit for what they had done.
When I returned to the agency ten years later, that was all gone. In most cases, we
worked with new people. The air and water programs were much more mature, and
had been delegated now for eight or nine years. The toxic waste programs,
however, were taking on many of the qualities of the early Air and Water programs
because they were much newer and the delegations had not taken place. The
states responded just as before: "You're pushing us around, imposing too many
standards and too many rules; just give us some money and get out of our hair."
Environmental movement
Q: What was your relationship, and the relationship of the agency, to the growing
environmental movement in the 1970s?
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MR. RUCKELSHAUS: In the early days it was quite positive. I have a theory about
movements in America, whether it is the women's movement, the civil rights
movement, or the environmental movement. When they first start, they tend to point
up imperfections in the society which are almost universally accepted as problems.
They serve a useful function in highlighting past wrongs that every fair-minded
person agrees should be righted.
It's only in the subsequent phases of the movement that they begin to get into more
controversial questions, after the initial agenda of the movement has been quite
uniformly accepted as a correct one which ought to be redressed. Congress then
enacts the fundamentals of the movement, whether related to civil rights, women's
rights, or environmental protection. You know, there are two ways of killing
movements: either give them nothing, or give them everything. Some get
everything they asked for, what do they do next? When the original agenda is
enacted, then what? The movement doesn't break up, but holds together by finding
a new agenda. The women's movement started with issues involving equal pay for
equal work, something almost no one could deny. While it hasn't yet been fully
achieved, everybody agrees it is the right thing. But once the original agenda is
achieved, then what? Questions are raised about abortion rights, for example,
which is more controversial, and not uniformly or universally accepted like equal
pay for equal work. Civil rights experienced the same thing, as did
environmentalism.
Likewise, in the early days of EPA, we accepted much of the initial agenda of the
environmental movement. In fact, the new agency worked with environmentalists,
whose demands helped create EPA in the first place. They were allies, at least in
part; not locked in the confrontation that exists today between the agency and the
environmental community. There still is a so-called "iron triangle" relationship
between the environmental movement, the EPA staff, and the Congressional
committee staffs. Some of it has to do with job security, some of it has to do with a
certain amount of zealotry inside EPA (although I don't think it is anywhere near as
rampant as some think).
Basically, the three parties have used each other. There has existed among them a
symbiosis, in which the environmental movement used the agency as an antagonist
to raise money and get more members; and the agency used the environmental
groups to sue for objectives they were trying to accomplish, but could not otherwise
gain. The same is true of the Congressional committees. But I would say that the
agency's relationship, and my own relationship with environmental groups, was
much more positive at the start of EPA than ten years later.
International affairs
Q: How would you characterize EPA's early involvement in international
environmental affairs?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: I primarily agreed with Russell Train that he should take
over most of the international work. I did go to several conferences, was a delegate
to the Stockholm Conference in 1970, and signed some international agreements
to help both developed and developing countries with their environmental
programs. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, we led the rest of the world in dealing
with the environment.
The agency had and still has a very fine international reputation, in fact, much
higher than in this country. Its scientific expertise, its technical capabilities, its
willingness to share data, and the efficiency and effectiveness of its regulatory
mechanisms made and make EPA highly esteemed abroad. People from other
nations often turned to EPA for advice on environmental action. In fact, foreign
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countries were much more likely to tap our knowledge than American states.
Relations with the states were really not as good.
Goals v. funding
Q: A current assistant administrator recently observed that in 1991 the level of EPA
funding was flat, but public expectations of the agency were rising. Is this situation
unique, or is it something you faced in the early days?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: It's a constant with EPA. The Congress constantly loads
more and more responsibilities on the agency, but doesn't provide enough money
to carry them out. In fact, I used to invite some of the authorization committee
chairmen to visit the appropriation committee hearings if they wanted to know why I
couldn't do all the things they loaded on me.
In the first place, there probably isn't enough money in the whole federal budget to
do everything they assign to EPA. At the authorization level, they don't seem to pay
much attention to the budgetary implications of what they tell you to do. They leave
that up to the administrative branch and the other committees to wrestle with. Even
members of Congress who were conservative in their willingness to spend money,
still loaded on these responsibilities.
It is very frustrating because there is no way you can do everything Congress
expects of you. I do think that when you testify before the committees, you must lay
the groundwork for your inability to achieve their unrealizable goals. I simply told
them "This is going to cost more money than I have. I don't have the resources to
do this. You can give me this assignment, but I'll tell you right now I'm not going to
achieve it." Then they'll make pledges about getting you the money and the
resources, and it won't happen. When I returned to these committees in
subsequent sessions, I said, "I told you. Here is my previous testimony; there
wasn't any way under the sun I could accomplish this." Sometimes this is hard to
do. But once you've been through a couple of rounds and realize what's happening,
you realize you had better lay the groundwork. So, your AA is not unique. You will
find in just about any part of the agency that there will be more responsibilities than
resources to carry them out.
Q: Do you have any other advice on this subject?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: You have to set priorities and defend them on the grounds
of having the greatest social payoff. Then keep saying, "Here is the money and
manpower I have to carry out the responsibilities you insist on, here is why I get the
priorities the way I have. While I recognize my obligations, I don't have the
resources to fulfill them."
Then you have an added complication: even though the administration isn't going to
ask for the resources either, you have to defend the administration's position and its
unwillingness to carry out the mandate of the Congress. I used to combat this by
falling back on the game being played, which everybody understands. Congress
lays on EPA more than they are capable of doing. The administration doesn't ask
for enough money to accomplish EPA's whole program because, frankly, there's
too much for any single agency to accomplish in the allowed timeframe. Members
of Congress fail to testify on behalf of more money for EPA, making it impossible
for the agency to execute what Congress itself mandated. Then the administrator
appears before the committees and is attacked for not doing what he had no hope
of doing in the first instance.
But when you repeat these steps back to the committees and remind them of your
warnings of insufficient funding in previous testimony, they don't say anything; they
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calm down. They know you understand what's going on, and they have to be quiet
or face further embarrassment from you.
When I returned to EPA after ten years absence, I faced the same thing. I told
Congress, "I'll show you the testimony I gave ten years ago in which I said this was
going to happen; and now it has." In the EPA job, you will miss deadlines and have
assignments you can't carry out. It's all just a part of it. You do the best you can.
But you are in a stronger position to do the best you can if you tell Congress ahead
of time what you are going to do, what are the limitations on your capabilities, and
then keep pointing back to what you predicted.
Achievements and legacy
Q: What are the lasting achievements of your first three years at EPA?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: I think we did establish the credibility of the agency along
the lines I have suggested. I think we did establish in the public's mind the
willingness of this government agency to do what the public wanted; namely, begin
to control pollution. By the time I assumed office, the initial drive of the Nixon
administration to place every political appointee in some kind of job-to get every
precinct committeemen one of these wonderful federal appointments-had faded.
This reversal happened because of a man named Fred Malek, who was put in
charge of the personnel office in the White House. He was very good and very
dedicated to getting first rate people. He has since become quite famous. At the
end of Nixon's first term, he was the one who delivered the message about the
mass firings in the administration. He also became quite close to George Bush.
Malek, however, encountered charges of anti-semitism when he carried out
President Nixon's order to investigate so-called "Jewish influence" in the Labor
Department. He claimed he was just doing what the president told him to do, but it
damaged his reputation and he was eventually squeezed out of the administration.
I've known him since the early 1970s and I don't think he is anti-semitic; as far as I
know he is not a bigot.
At any rate, he was very good at his job, particularly in the beginning, because he
didn't carry much political baggage. Nixon, who was doing things that subsequently
brought down his administration, stayed out of Malek's way. Malek and I were
equally dedicated to our jobs. We had the authority to hire 2,000 people for EPA
and decided to get the best 2,000 we could find. I was pretty free to do this, he was
free to help, and we did get absolutely first-rate people in the early days of the
agency. I think it established a very high level of talent and competence in EPA
which has endured to this day, through some tough times.
I think that was a very important thing. When I went back to the agency in 1983, I
visited all the regions, trying to calm down the staffs as a result of Anne Burford's
tenure. I invited all hands-500 to 600 people per region-to attend my talks. I asked
each of these large crowds how many had worked for EPA from the beginning.
Sometimes as many as two-thirds of the audience stand up. So these people
persevered through some very tough periods in the agency's development. I think
they stood it in very good stead.
That was an accomplishment. Getting in place an organizational structure that
worked-not perfectly, but worked-was an achievement. I was beginning to make
progress on some of the larger environmental issues like air pollution and water
pollution, and setting in place some permit programs for water and air. I think these
were necessary to get people working in the same direction. In my view, if you look
at progress we have made as a society, EPA has made some unique contributions.
Over the 20 years we've been working on pollution problems, the changes have
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really been quite remarkable. The progress has been obscured by the "chemical of
the week" syndrome, a by-product of ever-changing problems. But I think the EPA
has been a major contributor to this progress. Part of the success, at least, was the
result of having gotten the right start.
Q: What is the Ruckelshaus legacy for EPA? What can the current leaders of the
agency learn from your period? What are the most important lessons?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: That may be for others to say. But in my view, it's very
important to be open about what you're doing. I now think the job of EPA
Administrator is much less an advocacy position and much more of an educational
one. I think that is what Bill Reilly is trying to do. Today, society is full of
environmental advocates; virtually everybody in the country is an advocate for the
environment. That whole argument is over. The question is, what is the intelligent
thing for society to do about the environment? That takes a level of knowledge
about the nature of these problems which is much higher than in 1970. So, you
must be open about the nature of these problems, work very hard communicating
with the various constituencies I mentioned, and take pains to communicate
through the press. Staying both honest and credible with them is important.
Being open inside the agency is also crucial. You have to maintain the support of
the people in the agency if you're going to be successful. Therefore, you need to
inform them about what you are thinking and doing, or risk losing their support, their
help, their enthusiasm, their loyalty, and their willingness to give you the benefit of
the doubt. I think that was the big mistake Anne Burford made. She showed she
didn't trust the people in the agency, and if you do that, it won't be a week before
you're right; because they will return that lack of trust in kind.
I think the administrator must view himself not only as responsible to the president
who appointed him; but to the Congress, which confirmed him, and in a broader
sense, to the public which he ultimately serves. He must let the public know what
he is doing and convince them he is doing the best he can to act in their interest.
This is very, very important because in the environmental field, you are dealing with
things that are so intimate to people, so important to them in terms of public health,
their own health, and the health of the planet we all share. If they do not think you
are doing the best you can to act in their interest, and you lose their trust and
support, I think you will have real trouble in succeeding. Not just the administrator
himself, but the agency itself gets into trouble. It is much tougher for EPA to do the
right thing if that bond of trust is ever broken. I think that is what happened during
the early Reagan years.
Q: Is there anything you would like to add about your first term as EPA
administrator?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: Yes. The early days were a lot of fun. We really operated
effectively and had a good group of people, with whom we worked closely. There
were antagonisms and strife like you always have in institutions; but by and large
everybody thought they were attached to a cause larger than themselves. We
worked very hard, long hours, but had a lot of fun doing it. We made mistakes, but
were capable of laughing at them and moving on to the next challenge. I found
when I went back to EPA ten years later, the challenge certainly was still there-as
well as the interest and excitement-but it was hard to recreate that sense of joy in
creating something brand new. When I made the circuit of the regions in 1983 and
asked people to tell me their problems, I got questions about pension benefits,
employee rights, and all the things bureaucracies focus on. That was not true from
1970 to 1973, when we had the feeling that, "By God, we're going to do something
about this terrible problem afflicting society! Isn't it wonderful we're all banded
together to do it!" There was a real sense of camaraderie and joy about what we
were doing. But I don't think you can recapture it after an institution has been
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around for a couple of decades. It's very hard to do. The rush of youthful
enthusiasm you sense in a brand new institution is really something to experience.
It was fun.
Return to EPA
Q: What was the chain of events which led to your return to EPA in 1983?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: I was at the Weyerhaeuser Corporation at the time and had
watched the Reagan Administration-in particular, Anne Burford-get into increasing
trouble at the agency. After she was nominated and was awaiting confirmation, I
called her a number of times, but had a lot of trouble getting her to respond. I was
prompted by a desire to help. I didn't know who she was, only read about her in the
newspaper. But I knew she was stepping into a complicated job, one she probably
wasn't fully prepared for, anymore than I, or the other administrators had been.
Finally, after calling her for six weeks or so, I spoke to her. I told her all of the
former administrators would certainly be glad to help her. I suggested to her that it
would be a complicated assignment which had not gotten any easier over the
years. I said she probably could gain a lot from talking to people who had held the
job in the past, including her immediate predecessor, Douglas Costle, a Democrat.
She thanked me very much for the advice, but was really quite distant, I thought, in
her tone. I didn't hear again from her for eight or nine months, and the other former
administrators never heard at all. She didn't want their help. By the time she called
me in November or December 1981, she had already made many mistakes. It was
almost too late to help, but I did spend some time with her over the next couple of
months and talked to her occasionally.
In any event, in the spring of 1983 things had really deteriorated badly. I was called
by James Baker (then President Reagan's Chief of Staff) and asked if I would
consider returning to EPA. Obviously, I had to unhook myself from Weyerhaeuser,
which was not simple at the time; the whole family was living in Seattle. We have
five children, and while four were then in college, one daughter was still in high
school. It was most difficult for her. My wife was also less than enchanted with the
idea of returning to Washington. She referred to going back to EPA as a "self-
inflicted Heimlich maneuver." My mother even chastised me for making a mistake
like that. But after thinking about it for a week, I decided to accept. I flew back to
Washington, at which point the president announced my nomination. For the next
six weeks, I went through the lengthy confirmation process on a so-called
accelerated basis. By contrast, in the 1970s I had been confirmed for jobs in three
days!
Nonetheless, it seemed to me that EPA was in a good deal of trouble through no
fault of the agency's people; only through the fault of misguided leadership. I
thought I knew how to right the situation: by calming down the staff, getting them
focused again on their work, and beginning the process of restoring the public's
trust in the agency. In this case, you had to start with the press, which was very
agitated over what had happened. While it would take some time to restore EPA's
good name, I thought it was something that could be done and was certainly worth
trying.
I had no preconceptions about the nature of the new administration or how it
operated. But I had known Jim Baker in the Nixon Administration and I thought a
good deal of him. I had known Richard Darman in the Justice Department, when he
was an aide of Attorney General Elliott Richardson and I was the Deputy Attorney
General. So I knew some people in the White House quite well. I had gotten a lot of
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advice about what I should ask President Reagan before I accepted the job; I
rejected most of it. When I did meet the president, the one thing I asked for was the
authority to appoint people without going through the elaborate White House
clearance process. I feared it would take a year to fill the top positions if we had to
subject them to political litmus tests, in addition to the usual FBI and Congressional
clearances. This was most important because all but one or two of the 13
presidential appointees in the agency had been fired under Burford.
The president was quick to agree and gave his White House personnel office
instructions to clear my nominees quickly. On the other hand, I assured Mr. Reagan
that I wasn't going to appoint people with points of view antagonistic to his own and
would find good, solid candidates who understood government, how it worked, and
the mission of EPA. I told him I knew where to find such people, and he said, "Fine,
go to it." Thanks to the president's support, within three months all 13 presidential
appointees had been confirmed by the Senate-without a single dissenting vote.
For these positions, I sought persons with professional management experience,
not caring too much about their political persuasion; just that they be good, solid
professionals. With that team in place, I thought it was possible to restore
credibility. It was certainly something worth doing. I had a great deal of affection for
EPA and felt badly about what had happened to the agency and to its staff. We did
lose some very good employees, but I was surprised how many good people
stayed on.
Agency mood
Q: When you came back to Washington, what was the mood at EPA, and did it
surprise you?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: I think it's fair to say the mood swung from despair to
jubilation. The people felt their long nightmare was over, and it was a nightmare.
What the Burford political appointees had done was terrible. I mean, it really was
awful. If anything, the press underplayed its seriousness. The other scandals I've
been associated with (not as a participant, I'm glad to say) tended to be overplayed
by the journalists. In this case, if anything, I think it was underplayed. There were
just awful goings-on.
Q: Could you give an example?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: In one of the offices they had compiled a "hit list" of career
appointees, drawn up in colored ink on charts. They were targeted for dismissal
because of alleged disloyalty to the administration. And the whole staff was aware
of such things! Of colored charts locked up every night so no one would find them!
There were a lot of antics; it was almost juvenile. Very clear signals went out to the
people of the agency which said, we don't trust you. We don't trust you to do what
we want done. It generated enormous employee morale problems.
Such doings resulted in a justifiable lack of trust towards my political employees as
well. It is not widely understood that while institutions like EPA exist to serve the
public, they are also there to serve the political appointees. The agency staff is very
adaptable, within limits. If you rely on them, tell them what you want, and send clear
signals, they do everything they can to help you. But they sure won't do that if you
tell them you don't trust them or you don't think they are capable. EPA is full of very
capable people. They are not interested in walking away from their responsibilities
and certainly are willing to take the leadership you offer and turn it into programs
that work. To the extent they have any flexibility under the statutes-which they
increasingly lack-they are very responsive to the political appointees.
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Press, White House, Congress
Q: As you re-acquainted yourself with the job, did you encounter unexpected
problems or were you able to go ahead as planned?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: There were certainly unexpected problems. The press was
extremely mistrustful of me and of many people in the agency, simply because they
had operated that way for months. So I started a weekly press briefing at lunch in
the administrator's office. I invited the press, but they had to bring their own
lunches. They did show up every week, although I have subsequently found out
some of them didn't like the meetings. But they were afraid not to come for fear
they would miss a story. These sessions were helpful in publicizing my views on an
informal basis, and explaining what was going on at EPA and what I thought we
needed to do to make improvements.
The relationship with the White House was important. I tried very hard to start off on
the right foot with OMB Director David Stockman and to improve the relationship
between the agency, the OMB, and the White House. I think it was okay for a
couple of months, but then began to deteriorate again.
I worked hard with the Congress. By that time we had 13 years experience with the
Clean Air Act, 11 years with the Clean Water Act, and a lot of experience in trying
to make these statutes work. But it was clear to me that we needed to adjust both
laws to meet new realities, new challenges, and try different approaches. While
there was a good deal of understanding in the Congressional committees I reported
to, those who were not dedicated to change were very fearful of opening up these
issues because the Reagan Administration had become so discredited on the
environment. While they agreed with me privately, they were not about to take on
any of these things publicly.
So the administration's avowed purpose of lessening the impact of regulation on
society really had the opposite effect, at least with respect to the environment. To
the extent it acted at all, Congress increased the degree of regulation, imposing
new restrictions on flexibility and on the administration of the statutes. I thought the
situation in Congress was complicated and not fruitful. I felt my relationship with
most of the members was all right, but the climate was very confrontational and
political.
Q: Did it improve over your tenure?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: Not much. I think my own relationship with most of them
was pretty positive, but the public interaction was very hostile and confrontational.
Sometimes spectacular charges were launched and committee chairmen would ask
me to testify. They gave me the questions ahead of time, but in public acted tough
and confrontational. This would give them television coverage, after which the
hearings were adjourned. They even invited me to their districts for the same
purpose. As I mentioned, the administrator reported to some 50 committees, and I
tried to avoid these public shows to the maximum extent possible; it was not always
possible. That part of it was pretty unpleasant. I didn't think it was worth much
because it was all a big game-not an awful lot happened. Wild accusations were
made at the hearings, but after adjournment not much resulted.
At the same time, there were several major issues the agency was dealing with.
Amendments to the Clean Air Act required the issuance of new standards. We had
a major problem with the pesticide ethylene dibromide (EDB), a grain and citrus
fumigant which some studies found to be a major animal carcinogen. It first arose in
Florida and then spread to the rest of the country.
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Pesticides, in general, generated an enormous amount of public panic. For
example, the grocery manufacturers contacted me through the Agriculture
Department and insisted we take action against EDB. They wanted us to remove
certain products from the grocery shelves because they were worried about a
national panic. The chemical was showing up in cake mixes, flour, and various food
stuffs. Of course, EDB has already been used for 35 years, whatever damage it
was going to do had already been done. But it was scaring everybody to death, so
it was a major issue at EPA. We finally got EDB bled out of the food distribution
system. Until then, even the Russians got into it. They threatened to cancel an $8
billion grain sale because they feared the taint of EDB. This was the kind of issue I
dealt with all the time.
Achievements
Q: During the period 1983 to 1985, what were the agency's most important
achievements and how would you characterize the two years?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: This is probably not my judgment to make, but I think the
most important achievement by far was to restore the agency; that is, to put it back
on an even keel, restore the trust of the public (or at least stop the damage), and
begin to rebuild trust within EPA. I think we accomplished these things.
To the extent I began the process of risk-based decisionmaking within the agency, I
consider this a major achievement. I believe it started when we embraced the
National Academy of Sciences study on risk assessment and risk management.
We began to use its principles in establishing priorities in the agency, and in
managing the major risks society faced and EPA attempted to regulate.
We put very good people in the agency, including my successor, Lee Thomas, who
managed to keep most of the original EPA staff in place the next four years. I think
a lot of progress was made during the Reagan years, much more than the
administration is given credit for. Once the initial damage was done from 1981 to
1983, the president largely avoided environmental issues. I repeat, however, that
he showed more personal curiosity about pollution problems than President Nixon.
Gradually, the turmoil died down and the agency returned to wrestling with the
usual demons (in OMB and other places) which affected EPA's ability to function.
Contrast of two terms
Q: Were the two experiences-1970-1973 and 1983-1985-uniquely different?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: Very different. The problems were much different. The
agency had greatly matured over the ten year interval. That was both good and
bad. Some of the excitement had gone, although there was enough excitement
surrounding Anne Burford's departure to keep everyone enlivened; but nothing like
the early days. In the early days we were full of self-confidence, probably a lot more
self-confidence than the facts warranted. Some of that had gone. But healthy
skepticism, even self-doubt, is fine in a regulatory agency. I think you have to be
careful not to become know-it-alls.
I think the agency was better able to deal with problems confronting it when I
returned than when I started, simply because the staff had accumulated an awful
lot of experience dealing with the issues. The people in the agency also had a
better appreciation of the enormous impact their decisions had on the society; an
impact not only on the environment and on public health, but also on jobs and on
the economy. When you decide that a substance should be banned or that money
should be spent for a particular cause, those affected are honest-to-God, live
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people whose jobs and livelihood you may influence. This is something which must
be taken into account in making judgments. I think there was a much deeper
appreciation for such complexities in 1983 than in 1973.
Education v. advocacy
Q: In EPA there is a sense that under the Reilly-Habicht administration the agency
has turned a corner; has tried to assume more of an educational, and less of an
advocacy role. Do you think 1989 marks a watershed in EPA history, or are we
merely seeing adjustments in old patterns?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: I think Bill Reilly is a good leader who believes it is
necessary for the agency to begin to set some priorities, to measure available
resources against the biggest environmental problems. He has begun to stimulate
public discussion about what the priorities ought to be, becoming an educator in the
process. I think it's a very responsible and effective approach to the job and
represents present realities far more than the advocate role.
The environmentalists and the Congress, however, all want you to be an advocate.
The Congress stages fights with the administration so they can have wonderful
hearings. The environmentalists think that because the Secretary of Agriculture is
an advocate for the farmer, the EPA Administrator should be an advocate for the
environment. Occasionally, you do have to perform this function; obviously, you
have to stand up for what you think is right. But I think this country is just full of
advocates for the environment. I think 80 percent of the people are advocates for
the environment.
You really need someone who will perform the role of a trusted educator, and there
is no one more suited to it than the administrator of EPA. Reilly has taken it on and
that's good. But there are an awful lot of people who do not agree. Say the words
and Congress-and particularly the environmental organizations-get angry. About
two weeks ago, I pointed that out in Colorado, at a meeting of environmental
journalists. My speech made about half of them mad; environmental reporters are
often as close to the environmental movement as the members of the movement
itself. They don't like to hear such things. Some guy I had known for years told me
afterward that it sounded like a Chamber of Commerce speech!
Cabinet status of EPA
Q: Do you think cabinet level status for EPA will make a difference?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: Not much. No. I think it will help a little in that it will give the
administrator a place at the table with the other cabinet members. It may also
increase their understanding of what the administrator must do to discharge his
responsibilities (which occasionally entails pointing fingers at these same cabinet
colleagues). Other than that, there may be some symbolic value. But the public
doesn't know the difference between a cabinet department and an agency anyway.
They don't know the difference, so I don't think it's going to make much of a
difference. It might make the people in the agency feel better; that's worth
something.
Reflections on being administrator
Q: Do you have some final observations to make, reflecting on your whole career in
the environmental field?
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MR. RUCKELSHAUS: I've had an awful lot of jobs in my lifetime, and in moving
from one to another, have had the opportunity to think about what makes them
worthwhile. I've concluded there are four important criteria: interest, excitement,
challenge, and fulfillment. I've never worked anywhere where I could find all four to
quite the same extent as at EPA. I can find interest, challenge, and excitement as
Chairman of the Board of Browning Ferris Industries. I do have an interesting job.
But it is tough to find the same degree of fulfillment I found in the government. At
EPA, you work for a cause that is beyond self-interest and larger than the goals
people normally pursue. You're not there for the money, you're there for something
beyond yourself. In fact, I've found you are doing well if you can find a job with two
of the four criteria I mentioned. If you find all four, it's terrific.
Now, there are frustrations in EPA, too; enormous frustrations. Like anything else,
you tend to remember the good things and forget the bad. But the agency is a
terrific place doing a lot of important work. I have never thought of myself as an
environmentalist, in the sense of being part of the environmental movement; rather,
I was someone very interested in government who happened to have an
assignment that dealt with controlling risk in society. I found it fascinating to
administer EPA, in particular being present at the creation of an agency of that
kind. It was really a rare opportunity, really remarkable. , It had more to do with my
later appointment as Deputy Attorney General than anything else. It was a lot of
fun.
Nixon and Reagan policies
Q: In closing, how do you assess the environmental policies of Presidents Nixon
and Reagan?
MR. RUCKELSHAUS: The environment has only been a recent discovery of
President Nixon's. In his writings, he has begun to take credit for EPA and the
environmental initiatives. Yet, if you look at what he did and said publicly about the
environment, it is quite significant. That is not necessarily what he thought about it,
however. I would prefer to have a president who really believes in his own policies,
and therefore truly supports their implementation. But Nixon was pushed to action
by public opinion. As a result, I think a lot was accomplished in his administration.
In the public's mind, President Reagan will get no where near as much credit, and
in fact, a lot of blame for his perceived blunders in environmental affairs. But as a
human being he was much more curious about the problem and probably, in his
own way, more supportive than Nixon. He did little about the environment because,
like Nixon, he had spent almost none of his public life on environmental issues
(although as Governor of California he did have to deal with these questions on
occasion).
Prior to the 1968 campaign, however, it wasn't even an issue for Mr. Nixon. I would
bet he didn't spend ten minutes thinking about it. To the extent he did, he saw it as
an irritant. He had somehow gotten to be a great fan of Norman Borlaug, the father
of the green revolution. Borlaug was a scientist who advocated the use of DDT and
pesticides to drastically increase farm productivity. He felt the environmental
movement posed a serious threat to the green revolution (green, that is, in the
agricultural sense, not in the environmental sense). He convinced Nixon that when I
banned DDT, I had made a terrible decision. I didn't find this out until after I left
EPA; Nixon never spoke to me about it. In fact, he never asked me about anything
going on in EPA. Never. He asked me about issues involving Indiana politics or
relationships with the Congress, but not about the environment. He wasn't really
curious about it.
Q: Mr. Ruckelshaus, thank you for your time and insights.
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