U.S. EPA
History
Interview-1
% *J
nr
Willi
D. Ruckelshaus
January 1993
-------
-------
Additional copies of the William D. Ruckelshaus Oral History
Interview {[Document Number: 93-2Q2-K-0003) may be
obtained by contacting:
EPA Public Information Center
U. S. EPA
401M Street, S.W.
Washington, D. C. 20460
202-260-7751 _^_______
Office of Administration
Management and Organization Division
-------
-------
EPA History Program
Oral History Interview-1
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator
William D. Ruekelshaus
January 1993
United States EPA 202-K-92-0003
Environmental Protection
Agency
-------
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
William D. Ruckelshaus biography
Oral Interview
Early life and influences
Road to EPA
Administrator of EPA (1970-73)
Environment before EPA
Personal expectations of EPA
President Nixon
Russell Train and Robert Fri
Early surprises
Important issues
Congress and EPA
Industrial polluters
State governments
Environmental movement
International affairs
Goals v. funding
Achievements and legacy
Second term (1983-85)
Return to EPA
Agency mood
Press, White House, Congress
Achievements
Contrast of two terms
Education v. advocacy
Cabinet status of EPA
Reflections on being administrator
Nixon and Reagan policies
!
Photographs
EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus, 1971
EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus, 1983
1V-V11
2-5
5-7
7-26
7-8
9-10
10-11
11-13
13
13-15
15-18
18-19
19-20
20-21
21
22-23
23-26
29-34
29-30
31
31-33
33-34
34
34-35
35
36
36-37
1
28
11
-------
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 l
-------
WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS
BIOGRAPHY
.:.... I .. ' ' .. t .
William D. Ruckelshaus grew up in a 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 hi 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.
. . , 'i i , ' ...
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.
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 hi the U.S. Army, became a drill
sergeant, and left the service hi 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
i i i"
problem.
IV
-------
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 hi 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 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 frqm 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'si 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 acceptesd 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.
i i ii
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.
VI
-------
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 anothesr, have had the
opportunity to think about what makes them
worthwhile. I've concluded there are four important
criteria: interest, excitement, challenge, aad
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.
Vll
-------
EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus, 1971
-------
SESSION 1: The First Term (December 1970-April 1973)
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 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, fodiana, a town just no'rth of
Indianapolis. They did a lot of international construction but went out
of business during the Depression. So lie rejoined his father in the
family law practice hi 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 ladiana
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 80's. 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, them to Harvard, and then back
to Indianapolis, where I joined the Indiana Attorney General's Office
in 1960. I worked both in the Indiana Attorney General's Office and
practiced law with my father and brother until Dad died in 1962. I ran
for Congress hi 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, 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 hi 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. I 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 eveiy 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.
I ii | ' ' .1 ' '!' I i
i i • , :; " j.
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 hi 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 tin 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 bis 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 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 like 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.
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 hi 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 modern 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.
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 la^vs.
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 stale 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 travelled 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 Newsv/eek. 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 wziit 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.
' '
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 1960's (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 1960's. 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, tie 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 effoits.
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
got to have public support for environmental protection or it won't
-------
happen. That's what shifted between the
-------
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 do 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 s<;ctors. 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 piecess 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 regulates pesticides. All of a sudden,
both were under one roof!
I needed to gam enough understanding of the nature of the
agency, and what 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—I 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.
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 Ms 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. TLFnder
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
10
-------
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 hi 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 hi 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 shared 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.
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 Tram 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
11
-------
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. j
By that time I had already recruited the five assistants
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
12
-------
mpre 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.
Q: During your first year, did the job surprise you or did you find
things went essentially the way you thought they would?
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.
.!• • ' " ' ' , ' J ', 1,1 „,"'' , ,'. , , • "ii, ': „ ,. j ,
i . I j n j ' " •
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 synergisti c 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.
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
13
-------
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 kway 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 it's 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 tltiat 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.
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 admirustrator 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.
14
-------
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 Committees, 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 1983,1 got right back in the middle of it! The same
people were therel The same people in the agency, the same people in
OMB, fighting each other over what should happen to these standards!
Q: In your first term, what was your relationship, and the agency's
relationship, to Congress?
MR. RUCKELSMAUS: 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 envirooimental 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 hi 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.
15
-------
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, 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, DingelPs 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. The
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 thoujght 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 bis 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 bscome 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
16
-------
different political party. It also resulted froim 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.
. ! ;' • ', i, ' , t ;iil
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 reductions?
Moreover, did the techniques us<;d to achieve some early
successes against automobile exhaust really iave 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 nwset 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
17
-------
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.
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 hi 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.
18
-------
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.
- • •. 4 . . ,, ;-, -
So my relationship with industry in the early days of the
agency was fairly confrontational, almost by the nature of things. I
wbuld 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.
1 ! ' ''I' ' „ •'• ,„' ' '' ' '," i "!:! '!!'!!" i'1'
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-ami
therefore, very little political support-tliey 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 hi 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.
. i ... -j ' t . '. t ! •.
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
19
-------
operation and administration of new programs. This oversight created
a very, very difficult period between the liPA and the states. The states
thought we dictated too much, were too intrusive. Again., a Ibt 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."
Q: What was your relationship, and the relationship of the agency, to
the growing environmental movement in the 1970s?
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 Mghlighting 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 fundamental 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.
20
-------
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 demiands helped create EPA hi
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 conunittees. 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.
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, hi fact, much higher than in tliis 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
countries were much more likely to tap our knowledge than American
states. Relations with the states were really not as good.
21
-------
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 isun I could
accomplish this." Sometimes this is hard to do. But once you1 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 cany out the
responsibilities you insist on, here is why I set the priorities the way I
have. While I recognize my obligations, I don't have the resources to
fulfill them."
22
-------
,s isi,
:< ,,'f
r
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 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.
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. .
23
-------
Malek, however, encountered charges of anti-semitisni 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 hi 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 haads—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 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.
24
-------
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 tltink 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.
: ' ', . "'! vl <•' •;, ' ";!|: 'I ••:'• :• '., ".• V .' „ 1 ,;;, •„
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 erivironmental 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 hi 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.
25
-------
Q: Is there anything you would like to add about your first term as
EPA administrator?
MR. RUCKELSHATJS: 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 antagonisims 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 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 Jim.
26
-------
-------
EPA Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus, 1983
28
-------
SESSION 2: The Second Term (May 1983-January 1985)
Q: What was the chain of events which led to your return to EPA in
1983? ' " V"
MR. RUCKELSMAUS: I was at the Weyerhaeuser Corporation at the
time and had watched the Reagan Administration—in particular, Anne
Burfprd--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.
• •!• iv »' ., •• i : )!>", -i .. , •: , .„ •;,•,;•
• , ..•: .. ,. , ' :j >,>•:.,'.•. . • M • »'•"• ' ' :'•''• " -'
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 hi 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 sinnounced 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!
29
-------
Nonetheless, it seemed to me thait 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 hi the White House quite well. I had
gotten a lot of 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.
30
-------
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. RyCKELSHAUS: 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.
Q: As you re-acquainted yourself with the job, did you encounter
unexpected problems or were you able to go ahead as planned?
|
i • .
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.
31
-------
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 hi trying to make these statutes
work. But it was clear to me that we neseded 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
32
-------
/,);; jli . i-
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.
: j , ,,:;„; ;:;','
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.
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.
Q: During the period 1983 to 1985, wliat were the agency's most
important achievements and how wouldyow characterize the twoyears?
MR. RUCKELSHATJS: 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 decision-
making 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 m establishing priorities in the agency, and in managing the
major risks society faced and EPA attempted to regulate.
We put very good peopie 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,
33
-------
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.
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 Burfprd'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.1 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 of that
money should be spent for a particular cause, those affected are honest-
to-God, live 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.
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.
34
-------
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 fall of advocates for the environment.
I think 80 percent of the people are advocates for the environment.
,.'••• . : : 'i. ' i :' • • ' ' >,; ",, • • i ;,i , i..* ;
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!
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.
35
-------
Q: Do you have some final observations to make, reflecting on your
whole career in the environmental field?
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 thaf: 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.
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
36
-------
in environmental affairs. But as a human being he was much more
carious 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.
Corn: Mr. Ruckelshaus, thank you for your time and insights.
Interview conducted by Dr. Michael Gorn
37
------- |