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The Guardian:
EPA's Formative
Years, 1970-1973
by
Dennis C. Williams
EPA history program publications:
The Guardian: Origins of the EPA (EPA 202-K-92-004)
The Guardian: EPA's Formative Years, 1970-1973 (EPA 202-K-93-Q02)
William D. Ruckelshaus Oral History Interview (EPA 202-K-93-003)
Russell E, Train Oral History Interview (EPA 202-K-93-001)
Copies of these publications may be obtained by contacting:
EPA Public Information Center
U.S. EPA
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, D. C. 20460.
202-260-7751
vvEPA
United States EPA 202-K-93-002
EnvironmentalProtection September 1993
Agency
Recycled/Recyclable
Printed with Soy/Canola Ink on paper that
contains at least 50% recycled fiber
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INTRODUCTION
Few federal agencies evoke as much emotion in the average Amer-
ican as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Either
directly or indirectly, the agency's operations confront the average
person in intimate ways. Everyone wants breathable air, drinkable
water, and land free from harmful pollutants on which to live.
EPA's actions in pursuit of those goals have altered the nation's
social, political, and economic course. Moreover, in attempting
over the past quarter century to make a cleaner environment a
reality, EPA has found itself regulating the personal conduct of
individual citizens.
Often, the turbulent relationship between the agency and its
diverse constituencies has interfered with these tasks. At various
times during its history, the agency has roused business and
industry, farmers, environmentalists, Congress, the White House,
and the general public to ire. EPA has attempted to regulate the
environment by building acceptable compromises among its
constituents. Since compromises by their very nature are seldom
satisfactory to everyone, EPA's constituents have given the agency
mixed evaluations. Still, the agency has continued to follow many
of the pollution control strategies set forth by its first administra-
tor, William D. Ruckelshaus. Understanding the course set by
Ruckelshaus and his staff illuminates not only EPA's past, but
clarifies the agency's place in American society today.
Ruckelshaus's original mission appeared simple enough: clean
up America. It proved to be deceptively simple. Echoing the
naturalists among their ancestors, the environmentalists of the day
pointed out that life on earth was intricately interconnected. Still,
most Americans did not foresee that actions designed to clean the
natural environment and protect public health would alter the
economy, foreign policy, race relations, personal freedom, and
many other areas of public life. Almost inadvertently, EPA redi-
rected a portion of the nation's energy to reckon with the pollution
problem.
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Participant in Earth Day, 1970. The event demonstrated widespread
public concern for environmental health and permanance.
© Washington Post. Reprinted by permission of the D.C. Public Library
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BUILDING AN
AGENCY*
When sworn in as administrator of the new Environmental Protec-
tion Agency on December 4, 1970, William D. Ruckelshaus shoul-
dered the massive responsibility of organizing and leading the
federal government's most recent effort to protect the American
people from the effects of pollution. He approached his task with
the optimism and high expectations of someone setting out on a
new endeavor. By the end of his initial term in 1973, he could
identify with Sisyphus—the ancient Corinthian king forever con-
demned tp pushing a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down
just short of the top. Ruckelshaus and his successors experienced
the sisyphus effect every time the American people demanded a
healthy and beautiful environment, but expressed uncertainty
about the extent to which the federal government should act to
achieve those ends.
Nevertheless, Ruckelshaus urged his staff to move ahead "with
the valuable work which is already underway. We cannot afford,"
he wrote in his first days in office, "even a slight pause in the on-
going efforts to preserve 5-and improve our environment."' His
workforce of more than 5,000 represented the bulk of the federal
government's previous efforts to discover and-regulate threats to
the environmental health of the nation. The initial complement
consisted of government employees who had staffed a host of
environment-related programs housed in the departments of
Interior, Agriculture, and Health, Education, and Welfare. The
Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Atomic Energy Commis-
sion and Federal Radiation Council also contributed to the initial
EPA staff. At different times, many had been on opposite sides of
ideological and environmental policy fences. For example, the
Department of Agriculture's pesticide program often worked to
thwart the efforts of the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare's pesticide program. Ruckelshaus hoped to turn the diver-
sity of such a staff to his advantage.
Son of a prominent family of Indiana lawyers, Ruckelshaus
stepped into the new agency with some environmental enforce-
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ment experience. After graduating from Harvard Law School in
I960, he returned to Indiana, joined his father's firm, and was
appointed deputy state attorney general. His tasks included acting
as counsel to the Indiana Board of Health, and in this capacity, he
used the courts to stop municipalities and industries from grossly
polluting Indiana waterways. He worked with the department's
Stream Pollution Board to this end. But, the board possessed
limited resources and enforcement powers. Prior to Ruckelshaus's
arrival, it used its resources in a very limited manner. He helped
reshape the board's strategy. He traversed the state with Jerry
Hansler, an assignee from the U.S. Public Health Service, collected
samples and photographs from grossly polluted rivers, and then
called the responsible polluters before the board. In spite of the
governor's fear that pollution enforcement would drive industry
from the state, these tactics succeeded largely because the industri-
al violations of state statutes were so flagrant. Concurrently, he
helped draft the 1961 Indiana Air Pollution Control Act, a piece of
legislation that along with his water enforcement experiences
influenced his early pollution abatement strategy at EPA.
With this enforcement background—which convinced him that
a centralized enforcement effort was all that was needed to imple-
ment pollution control laws fully—Administrator Ruckelshaus set
out to establish his new agency's credibility in the mind of the
public and the polluters. To do this, he struggled to develop
concrete, attainable goals for the agency and to set up a workable
organization focused on realizing those goals.
The complexity of these tasks shattered his hopes for instant
pollution abatement. To organize an agency consisting of an array
of offices from different and often competing departments proved
daunting. The major ideologies that had historically vied for
authority in American society—centralism and federal-
ism—confronted EPA's organizational staff. Competing sectors of
American society championed these ideologies. The military fa-
vored a highly centralized organizational structure. Military plan-
ners had long believed that that centralized decision-making
enabled efficient and effective deployment of resources to meet
mission objectives. The military's poor showing in Southeast Asia
led other analysts to question this assumption. A variety of groups
favored a decentralized, or federal, approach.
Federalism is the notion that the power of government should
be distributed between the national government and state and
municipal governments. Historically, arguments arose over how
much power should be distributed, and they still do. During the
late 1960s, people tired of the escalation of American involvement
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in Vietnam and big government programs emerging from Lyndon
Johnson's "Great Society" program and began advocating reducing
the size and scope of the central government. Business groups
supported this movement because they wanted the preponderance
of regulatory power shifted to the states where they found it easier
to outmaneuver or bully state officials into not enforcing regula-
tions. Some environmentalists, who championed ecological region-
alism, also supported administrative decentralization.
For the first few months, Ruckelshaus and his staff heard
advice from many arenas. To many, the ecological ideology under-
lying environmental activism suggested an intermedium* approach
to pollution control. That is, instead of one branch of EPA focusing
on water pollution, another on air, a third on solid waste, and so
forth, regulators would look at the entire pollution problem and
attempt to create a holistic solution. For example, regulators would
seek solutions that would clean the air without further degrading
water or land with extracted pollutants.
To this philosophical position, Alain Enthoven, a Defense
Department organization analyst, contributed a realistic, mission-
oriented approach that had been generally successful in the mili-
tary bureaucracy. Enthoven suggested a radical departure from
traditional, medium-oriented pollution control. By structuring EPA
around functional objectives such as criteria setting, research and
development, and enforcement, the agency could best achieve its
mission and at the same time operate with centralized efficiency.
Office of Management and Budget staffers and consultants who
had served the Ash Council—the work group largely responsible
for EPA's creation—recognized the value of Enthoven's approach,
but suggested that present realities called for a more moderate,
incremental approach to organizing the agency. Consultant Doug-
las Cosfle, who had worked with the Ash Council and was later
President Jimmy Carter's EPA administrator, played a prominent
role in defining EPA's organizational strategy. While serving on
the Ash Council, Costle had recognized the merits of the Enthoven
approach, but also recognized that existing statutes imposed
complex restrictions to integration and centralization. Sensing that
Ruckelshaus desired fast action to promote a strong public image
of EPA, he submitted plans that integrated the centralizing tenden-
cies of the Enthoven proposals with the medium-specific approach
virtually mandated by federal and state pollution control statutes
"EPA defines media as air, water, and land collectively. "Media" is the plural form
of medium—a substance regarded as the means of transmission of a force or effect.
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and regulations. Drawing from the social diversity of the 1960s,
Costle sought to mount the war on pollution by enlisting the
traditional, compartmentalized approach of past pollution control
efforts; the ecological ideology espoused by often countercultural
environmentalists; and the logistical and organizational expertise
of the defense establishment.
Drawing heavily on Costle's advice, Ruckelshaus settled on a
tripartite reorganization strategy designed to make the agency
more efficient by consolidating and streamlining its functions.
During the first phase, he retained intact many old-line, medium-
specific programs in order to preserve continuity of effort while
his management and organization staff sorted through the chaos
entailed by thrusting together the diverse and sometimes conflict-
ing functions that comprised EPA (see Figure 1).
The first plan created three functional divisions headed by assis-
tant administrators—planning and management, standards, en-
forcement and general counsel, and research and monitoring. The
plan retained five program offices constructed along media and
Department of Interior
—Pesticide Research
—Federal Water
Quality Administration
Department of Health
Education and Welfare
—National Air Pollution
Administration
—Bureau of Water Hygiene
—Bureau of Solid Waste
Management
—Bureau of Radiological
Health
—Pesticide Tolerences
and Research
Department of Agriculture
—Pesticide Registration
Executive Office of
the President
—Federal Radiation Control
—Environmental Radiation
Standards of the Atomic
Energy Commission
—Environmental Systems
Studies of the Council on
Environmental Quality
Figure 1. Functions transferred to EPA by Reorganization Plan
No. 3 of 1970
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topical lines. Commissioners of water quality, air pollution, solid
waste, pesticides, and radiation headed these. Figure 2 illustrates
EPA's initial organization.
Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator
Deputy
Administrator
Public Affairs
Legislative Liaison
International Affairs
Equal Opportunity
Assistant
Administrator
for
Planning and
Management
Assistant
Administrator
for Standards
and Enforcement
And General
Council
Assistant
Administrator
for
Research and
Monitoring
Commissioner
for
Water Quality
Commissioner
for
Air Pollution
Control ,
Commissioner
for
Pesticides
Commissioner
for
Radiation
Commissioner
for
Solid Waste
Figure 2. EPA organization, 15 December 1970
EPA's field organization bore the stamp of the Nixon administ-
ration's decentralization policy—"New Federalism." Each of its ten
regional offices mirrored the organization of EPA headquarters. In
theory, they would be more responsive to constituent needs as a
result of their placement around the country. Moreover, their loca-
tions would infuse their analysis with a better understanding of
regional problems and enable them to account for local priorities
in enforcing pollution abatement statutes. Ruckelshaus expected
the regional offices to act as the agency's cutting edge, using them
to collect the pollution information by which headquarters set
national criteria. In cases where major industries or municipalities
refused to comply with the law, local officials would identify
them, gather evidence, and refer cases to the Justice Department
for prosecution. Ideally, the staff at EPA headquarters in Washing-
ton would ride on the shoulders of strong regional offices.
Ruckelshaus launched the second phase of his reorganization
strategy late in April 1971. During the first five months of agency
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operations, the planning and management staff at headquarters
had juggled the tasks of delegating initial responsibilities and
preparing for the second restructuring. Phase two consolidated the
five medium offices into two new entities headed by assistant
administrators. The Office of Media Programs incorporated the
water and air programs. The Office of Categorical Programs sub-
sumed the separate pesticides, radiation and solid waste manage-
ment offices. Again, each of the regional offices conformed to the
change. Figure 3 illustrates the new relationships resulting from
this restructuring.
The agency never implemented the third phase, which would
have eliminated the medium-oriented program offices altogether.
In the heat of the pollution enforcement battle, neither Ruckelshaus
Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator
Deputy
Administrator
Office of
Congressional Affairs
Office of
Equal Opportunity
Assistant Administrator
for
Planning and
Management
Office of
Administration
Office of
Planning and
Evaluation
Office of
Audit
Office of
Resource
Management
Assistant Administrator
for
Enforcement and
General Council
Office of
Enforcement
Office of
General Council
Region 1
Boston
Region 2
New York
Region 3
Philadelphia
Region 4
Atlanta
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nor his successors had the time, resources, or even the inclination
to restructure the agency along completely functional lines. Over
time, as new environmental legislation or changing national priori-
ties subtly modified the agency's mission, EPA's organizational
tree continued to grow, but never beyond the confines of the
second phase. Ruckelshaus realized that the organizational changes
required to put Alain Enthoven's functional theories into effect
would divert too much energy from performing the agency's
broad, public mandate quickly and effectively. Hindsight suggests
that not doing so doomed the agency to periodically rehashing the
unsolvable functional versus medium specific organizational
question in its efforts to accomplish its broad mission effectively
and efficiently.
Figure 3. EPA organization, 30 April 1971
Office of
International Affairs
Office of
Public Affairs
ssistant Administrator
for
Media Programs
Office of
Air Programs
Office of
Water Programs
assistant Administrator
for
:ategorical Programs
Mssisiaru /
for
Research and
Monitoring
Office of
Pesticides Programs
Office of
Radiation Programs
Office of
Solid Waste
Management
Programs
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The Armco plant on
the Houston Ship Channel
was the site of one of
EPA's first major confrontations
with corporate pollution.
10
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DRAWING THE LINE
Ruckelshaus sensed that agency credibility was far more important
than the abstractions of organization, and action established credi-
bility. He believed that swift enforcement action against big cities
and big companies would demonstrate EPA's willingness "to take
on the large institutions in society which hadn't been paying
11
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attention to the environment." 2 By doing so, he would start build-
ing strong public support for the agency.
Seven days after taking the helm at EPA, Ruckelshaus delivered
a speech before the annual Congress of Cities—a meeting attended
by U.S. big city mayors. To a dismayed crowd of city officials,
Ruckelshaus announced that EPA was at that moment serving the
cities of Atlanta, Detroit, and Cleveland with formal "180 day
notices" that directed them to stop violating federally sponsored
state water quality standards. Notoriously polluted, these cities
had fallen chronically behind on previous commitments to federal
and state officials to stop spilling pollutants into neighboring
waterways. Tempered by his experiences with the Indiana Board
of Health, Ruckelshaus preferred to use the Department of Justice's
big stick as a last resort, hoping that maneuvers such as six-month
warnings for municipal violators would encourage them to act in
good faith.
Ruckelshaus and his staff did not devise their enforcement
strategy in a vacuum. Complex social forces defined the possible
approaches the agency could take toward environmental law
enforcement. In order to fight the war in Vietnam and the war on
poverty at home during the 1960s, the Kennedy and Johnson
administrations had adopted a centralized approach to govern-
ment. By 1968, many Americans were tired of it. Building on that
sentiment, the Nixon administration emphasized decentralized
management. In turn, the Nixoa-appointed EPA administrator
hoped EPA could "work in concert—in a relationship of mutual
concern and responsibility" with regard to state and local pollution
control initiatives.3 The agency would take enforcement initiative
only when municipal and state governments found themselves
stuck in "the logjam of inertia." 4 It would act as a "gorilla in the
closet" for the cities and states to use to frighten polluters into
submission. State regulators had long wished for a federal agency
to play this role.
Despite this cooperative rhetoric, EPA's relationship to state
and local governments started off turbulently and stayed that way.
As in the cases of Atlanta, Detroit, and Cleveland, governments
often found the "gorilla" threatening them for their own shortcom-
ings. Furthermore, the agency's very existence stood as a federal
reproach to perceived state inactivity or ineffectiveness in respond-
ing to public demands for cleaner air and water. Cleveland Mayor
Carl Stokes's reaction to the 180 day notice typifies local suspicions
of EPA motives. Stokes accused Ruckelshaus of making a political-
ly motivated assault on Democrat-controlled cities. As Ruckelshaus
predicted, EPA's moderate enforcement strategy shocked and
12
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angered the municipalities and states with the worst records of
environmental pollution.
Ruckelshaus rode the crest of favorable public opinion, though.
He used such support to override criticism and to dislodge intran-
sigent pollute^ From f| he drew the courage to level the agency's
firepower against industrial polluters.
Many American industrialists hoped that President Nixon's call
to deregulation would result in an era of loose oversight. To their
surprise, industrial polluters found EPA dusting off the 1899 River
and Harbors Act and threatening them with the broad federal
powers provided therein even as Congress considered new and
tougher legislation. As a result, in its first year, EPA referred 152
pollution cases—most of them water related—to the Department of
Justice for prosecution. Despite his inclination to use the courts
only as a last resort, Ruckelshaus discovered that the magnitude of
the pollution problem quickly exhausted less threatening options.
During the 1960s, as public pressure to cleanse the environment
increased, many large companies found themselves negotiating
with state pollution control agencies. In order to comply with state
and federal standards, these firms agreed to treat their effluents.
Company attorneys and state officials negotiated incremental
compliance schedules designed to allow plants enough time to
take agreed upon actions without imposing undue financial bur-
dens. Many companies recognized that states had neither the
power nor the inclination to enforce these agreements and there-
fore took little or no action to meet the timetables. Ruckelshaus
knew that EPA's effectiveness depended on forcing the most
intransigent businesses to take responsibility for the wastes they
produced.
In one of the first struggles to discipline big industrial polluters,
Ruckelshaus engaged Armco Steel. In mid September 1971, nine
months after EPA referred its case against Armco to the Justice
Department, a federal district court judge found Armco guilty of
dumping over half a ton of toxic chemicals—mostly cyanides and
phenols—and between three and six tons of ammonia into the
Houston Ship Channel daily. Over several decades this activity
resulted in numerous fish kills and the close of shell fish beds in
Galveston Bay. Because of the toxicity of these releases, the court
ordered Armco to halt all releases into the channel. The company
faced closing its Houston furnaces to comply.
This set into motion a hand of high stakes political poker
between the Nixon White House, Armco Steel, EPA and the Justice
Department, and Representative Henry Reuss, chairman of the
Subcommittee on Conservation and Natural Resources. The stakes
13
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included EPA's autonomy in enforcing environmental regulations.
William Verity, Armco's president, played the first card by sending
a letter to President Nixon complaining that EPA's enforcement of
the Federal Water Quality Act in the name of public health had
violated a tenet of the president's pro-business policy—that "indus-
try would not be a whipping boy in solving our environmental
problems."s Nixon aide Peter Flanagan called in EPA enforcement
chief John Quarles and strongly suggested that EPA propose a
sixty-day stay of the court order to provide Armco and EPA time
to negotiate an amicable solution. Armco upped the ante with the
White House by asserting that 300 workers would lose their jobs
immediately as a result of the order. To the White House, which
was then struggling to disentangle the nation from its commitment
in Indochina and avoid (unsuccessfully) the economic whirlpool
that drove unemployment figures up from 4.8% in 1970 to 8.9% in
1975, this was a deeply troubling threat.
Quarles called Armco's bluff. With another White House aide
listening in, Quarles telephoned regional EPA staffers who told
them that Armco had planned to lay off the 300 people prior to
EPA's action. The White House still pressed for a compromise
settlement. Peter Flanagan evidently gave Verity the impression
that EPA would agree to a stay; but EPA officials continued to
oppose concessions.
Just as the affair appeared deadlocked, EPA drew a wildcard
that secured its position. The Washington Star revealed that Armco
had contributed significantly to the Nixon campaign effort. The
Star implied that by negotiating-with Armco and considering a
stay of the court order, the administration had allowed inappropri-
ate political considerations to conflict with its duty to protect
public health and safety. The Star's expose embarrassed the Nixon
administration and forced the administration and Armco to negoti-
ate a squeaky-clean settlement. This resulted in Armco agreeing to
follow EPA guidelines for installing proven waste treatment tech-
nology at its Houston facility.
Nevertheless, Congress still held the last card. Many on Capitol
Hill saw in the Armco affair an opportunity to further embarrass
the Nixon administration. Congressman Henry Reuss called Peter
Flanagan, EPA representatives, and Justice Department officials
before his House Government Operations Subcommittee on Con-
servation and Natural Resources to explain the administration's
actions. Reuss suggested that EPA should enforce congressional
requirements regardless of the administration's position on the
matter.
14
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John Quarles, EPA's spokesperson, found himself caught in the
long-standing struggle between presidential and congressional
power. As an enforcer of the law, EPA was bound by congressio-
nal mandates. But asSr^instrument of the executive branch, the
agency also had responsibility to the chief executive. After all, the
president held broad constitutional authority to implement en-
forcement. The Armco incident begged a crucial question: who
controlled EPA?
Although William Ruckelshaus had received assurances from
the White House that he did, the reality was never so absolute.
Like his successors, he would find it necessary to determine
whether Congress or the president was decisive on any particular
issue. Clearly during the Nixon administration's first year, the
White House held the reins of power. But as the presidency was
shaken first by the Vietnam War and then by the Watergate Scan-
dal, Congress became ascendant in environmental, as in other,
matters.
15
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This Kansas City photograph
illustrates primary air
pollution—smoke stack and
auto emissions—and secondary
pollution—smog and aesthetically
irritating highlines poles.
16
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TAKING TO THE AIR
By the late 1960s the American public began to demand action on
environmental questions. To attract voters, national political fig-
ures started to incorporate then-current environmental messages
into their campaigns. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, chairman.
of the water pollution subcommittee of the Senate Public Works
17
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Committee, was one of the first to recognize the value of this
strategy. He sponsored the Clean Air Act of 1967; but under
pressure from consumer advocates such as Ralph Nader to im-
prove its effectiveness, he redoubled his efforts. Muskie had keen
presidential ambitions, which depended in part on the public
identifying him with a popular cause. A real environmental cru-
sader by 1970, Muskie led the 1970 fight for very tough clean air
legislation. The resulting Clean Air Act of 1970 made EPA directly
responsible for establishing limits on air pollutants and enforcing
them.
Cleaning the air offered EPA one of its toughest challenges. The
agency eased into clean air issues slowly in order to give research-
ers time to do their work before legislative deadlines forced
Ruckelshaus to promulgate air quality standards. He understood
that rushed conclusions would eventually discredit the agency's
programs.
Ruckelshaus also understood that air pollution control was a
more complex issue than the enforcement of water quality stan-
dards. The differences persuaded him to choose the path of lesser
resistance: to emphasize gross water pollution first. Water pollu-
tion was an "apple pie" issue. Water standards had existed for
many years; air standards were relatively new. Most state govern-
ments had possessed water pollution authorities since early in the
twentieth century (although they seldom executed enforcement
effectively); air pollution control authorities were relatively new.
The public mind already easily pictured villainous big companies
victimizing powerless, unorganized citizens. It was a short
step—made by some nearly a century earlier with regard to scenic
landscapes—to add the nation's aquatic ecosystems to this picture.
As a result, citizen groups leaped at the opportunity to assist the
agency in identifying big industrial polluters. But, air pollution
control did not lend itself as easily to traditional tactics of vilifica-
tion. While people could blame companies for many air pollution
problems, many others were caused by the American people's
reliance on fossil fuels to power the icons American life—home
appliances, lawnmowers, and automobiles. As a result, local
groups found it difficult to organize for effective action.
Ruckelshaus understood the complexity of the clean air issue.
He had helped write Indiana's clean air legislation. He understood
that each region had different problems and no one solution would
effectively solve all of them. When EPA published its ambient air
quality standards in 1972 and began approving state and regional
plans to meet those standards, the administrator and the agency
faced intense scrutiny from environmental groups, congressmen,
18
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the White House, and the industrial community. They represented
EPA's constituency and the agency felt some responsibility to all of
them. But, in clean air, as with most regulatory efforts, compromis-
es made to satisfy the {legitimate demands of so many interested
parties resulted in an unsatisfactory outcome.
In 1970, people living in smoggy cities wanted clean air—air
that did not aggravate respiratory problems, burn the eyes, smell
acidic, or restrict visibility. They wanted industries to stop pump-
ing plumes of black smoke out of tall chimneys. They wanted
automobile manufacturers to build cars that neither created nor
contributed to the smog problem. They wanted clean air immedi-
ately and painlessly.
In contrast, business and industry wanted time-time to under-
stand the rules, to research and develop ways to abide by the
rules, and to defer installing pollution control equipment until the
economy firmed up. Industrialists also wanted to see whether
Congress would stick to its resolve to clean up the air or soften its
position. Businessmen postponed investing in pollution control
equipment for fear that they would get it half installed and then
Congress would be persuaded to change the rules again. With
time, they argued, public and economic policies would stabilize
and allow them to implement pollution controls.
The White House wanted to provide that stability. The presi-
dent wanted to stabilize the economy—hold down inflation, stimu-
late employment, control deficit spending—and he needed the
cooperation of business leaders to achieve his economic goals. In
the environmental equation, Nixon found himself on the side of
private enterprise. He regarded the environmental movement as a
fad and thought that environmentalists were mostly anti-war
radicals. He had created EPA for political reasons. It was an effort
to satisfy public demands and simultaneously thwart Senator'
Muskie, who appeared to be his biggest competitor in the 1972
presidential race. Given the importance of economic health to his
reelection bid, he believed that EPA's actions should in no way
prevent economic stabilization.6
On Capitol Hill, Congress yearned to tip the scales of govern-
ment power more to its side. The many committees" responsible
for overseeing EPA's legislative implementation wanted to be sure
the agency acted in a manner consistent with congressional intent
and public will. Moreover, the political advantage of forcing an
**By 1993, EPA'answered to 13 major Congressional committees and 26 major subcom-
mittees
19
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agency created by a Republican president to accede to Congress
was not lost on House and Senate Democrats. Individually, Muskie
and others wanted to use EPA as a vehicle by which they could
express their convictions on environmental issues. Congressmen
sometimes took the opportunity to gain notoriety and bolster their
environmental pedigrees by making hearings with Ruckelshaus
and other EPA officials unpleasant and sensational.
An array of new interest groups emerged from the broad social
ferment of the 1960s. Environmentalists active in the Sierra Club,
the Environmental Defense Fund, and Greenpeace adopted strate-
gies similar to those used by other liberal reform groups of the era.
Social activists identified victims of perceived institutional oppres-
sion, educated them, and then encouraged them to take action. If
need be, they went to court on the victim's behalf.
In the case of the environment, environmentalists characterized
both public health and nature itself as victims. Their lawyers
pressed the matter on the courts. Thus, as EPA administrator,
Ruckelshaus found himself battered by public advocacy lawsuits
forcing him to take more stalwart action in promulgating regula-
tions and enforcing the law. Many of these addressed air quality.
Complaints and questions from traditional interest groups also
buffeted the agency. Industries associated with targeted emissions
questioned the agency's air quality standards by attacking EPA's
scientific credibility. Automobile manufacturers demanded exten-
sions of implementation deadlines stipulated in the 1970 Clean Air
Act. They asserted that the necessary technology did not exist and
could not be developed in time to comply with the main provision
of the act—to cut auto exhaust emissions by ninety percent over
five years.
These external pressures seemed to supercharge the customary
competition between and within the government's branches. The
White House used the Office of Management and Budget to press
agency actions into the administration's policy mold. Ruckelshaus
and congressmen traded charges of partisanship as they confront-
ed one another in committee hearings with scores of journalists
and television cameras present. The courts acted on lawsuits filed
by environmental groups to compel EPA to issue regulations
making it illegal for companies to degrade the air in areas where it
was cleaner than standards required (Sierra Club v. Ruckelshaus).
Supporters of the clean air movement wondered if the 1970 Clean
Air Act would ever get off the ground.
To the casual observer in 1975 Los Angeles or a number of
other metropolitan areas, the government had failed to achieve the
acf s goal—clean urban skies. However, a more careful observer
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would have noted that the usual charge of government inefficiency
and "gridlock" was only partially to blame for still-smoggy skies.
In fact, many of the people identified as victims of air pollution
bridled at EEA's atterrjpts during the early 1970s to liberate them
from polluted air. Despite nearly 60 percent of those polled claim-
ing to support environmental clean-up without regard to cost,
editorials in regional newspapers and indignant state and local
officials suggested otherwise when EPA suggested that compliance
with the 1970 Clean Air Acf s tough standards would require
draconian measures in some areas. In L.A., for instance, regional
air quality improvement plans almost banned cars.
Environmentalists versed in ecology had recognized that when
it came to pollution, humans were often victims and villains
simultaneously. In the case of urban smog, many of those who
complained about the health and aesthetic effects of air pollution
commuted to work in the very automobiles largely responsible for
the problem. Some environmentalists called for radical social
reforms that would direct Americans toward decentralized, low-
technology lifestyles. A radical solution to the smog problem along
this line would have demanded a nearly total reorientation of the
urban work place. Instead of workers commuting to centralized
office buildings, companies would establish small satellite offices
in suburbs to which workers could commute on foot or bicycle or
perhaps some employees could perform their analytical tasks in a
home office. Such solutions threatened the very fabric of the
centralized American industrial culture that had replaced the home
and community based work culture common in America only 150
years earlier.
Public reaction to the much more moderate proposals worked
out by EPA suggested that many people were not as willing to pay
the price for clean air as opinion polls suggested. After much
consultation with state and local officials, Deputy Administrator
Robert Fri promulgated clean air regulations for L.A. that he
suggested would probably not achieve mandated congressional air
reduction goals, but would begin the process by which that goal
would ultimately be met. The regulations mandated yearly auto-
mobile inspection and maintenance, the creation of restricted bus
and carpool lanes on major streets and highways, gasoline allot-
ments to distributors based on 1972 consumption, and new park-
ing development restrictions. Some critics complained that manda-
tory inspection and maintenance would inequitably strike the poor
and working class harder than the more wealthy and others point-
ed to the tremendous costs entailed by increasing bus fleets. But,
the criticism receiving the most play in the press concerned park-
ing regulation.
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The transportation plan forced parking lot builders to apply for
development permits in a manner reminiscent of the water pollu-
tion permit system administered by EPA and the Arrny Corp of
Engineers. More controversially, it proposed a surcharge that by
1976 would amount to $450 per space per year on more than
90,000 downtown Los Angeles parking spaces. Reaction to the
surcharge intensified throughout late 1973 and 1974. Businessmen
and labor leaders joined to protest federal rules that they claimed
'"would do more than make it intolerable for people who drive
cars to work/" Local officials responded to public outcry by trying
to develop their own transportation plan that would demonstrate
the Los Angeles basin's intent to comply with Clean Air Act
mandates, but buy time to balance automobile traffic restrictions
with the expansion of public transportation. Representatives re-
sponded to the negative public reaction to parking proposals by
supporting California Democrat John E. Moss's emergency energy
bill amendment to suspend EPA transportation regulations. The
popular affirmation of the "freedom to drive," which Economist
Paul Samuelson claimed EPA would abridge or eliminate with its
transportation controls, ultimately forced the agency to back away
from implementing parking controls.
Faced with having to make hard sacrifices to achieve pollution
reduction, many people lashed out at measures they believed to be
too intrusive. They seemed to object especially to the ones that
threatened the existence of the material icon of the late twentieth
century—the automobile. For many, it came down to a decision
between personal liberty and clean air, and the desire for personal
liberty overrode concerns for clean air. Throughout American
history, Americans have bristled at government attempts to restrict
personal action. The political philosophy developed by Thomas
Jefferson and others at the nation's creation institutionalized the
individual liberty ideal into American political thought. The fron-
tier myth defined self-sufficiency as the predominant virtue. Fron-
tier people perceived the government regulation that attended
government aid as hampering their ability to prosper. During the
nineteenth century, Americans thinkers, such as Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain, glorified indi-
vidualism. In the twentieth century, conservative politicians, such
as Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ross Perot, idealized
self-help individualism. Between the 1950s and 1980s, some conser-
vatives pointed to the communist threat to individual freedom in
an effort to direct government spending toward national defense
and away from domestic regulation. With a constant thread of
individualism woven through the American social fabric, it is little
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Smog obscures buildings in West Los Angeles, May 1972.
wonder that the strict regional planning approach failed—espe-
cially when city councils and newspaper editorialists communicat-
ed the effects it would have on individuals in the form of taxes,
user-fees, and access to public places.
Still, the less personally painful aspects of the Clean Air Act of
1970 survived through the negative reaction to these intrusive
proposals. Despite their opposition to regulation, automobile
manufacturers still had to build cleaner cars and big businesses
had to scrub pollutants from their air emissions. By 1973, EPA and
auto manufacturers had agreed to adopt the catalytic converter as
a means to reduce automobile emissions by 85% in 1975 year
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model cars. While this figure fell a little short of Clean Air Act
goals, the solution satisfied most car makers, EPA officials, and
citizens whose concerns about clean air had been diverted, ironi-
cally, by a more fundamental concern: having enough gasoline to
keep cars on the road. By 1974, EPA officials estimated that indus-
trial sources belched 14% less dust, smoke, and soot and 25% less
sulfur dioxide from their chimneys than in 1970. Neither the
number of automobiles nor the number of tall industrial stacks
declined during the early 1970s, but the quantity of pollutants they
emitted did. In this partial success, EPA found reason to celebrate.
The clean air issue reinforced Ruckelshaus's view that EPA's
effectiveness depended on popular support. When the electorate
broadly supported EPA's mission, politicians could not stymie the
agency's long term efforts. For the same reason, industry had to
walk the fine line between trying to protect profits and appearing
greedy and obstructionist in the eyes of voters and consumers.
"You've got to have public support for environmental protection or
it won't happen," asserted Ruckelshaus.7 He had rediscovered the
lesson learned by environmental managers nearly a century earlier
in the Forest Service. If it was to rely on popular support for its
power, EPA had to be willing to compromise on divisive issues
and accept mixed results in meeting initial goals.
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PESTICIDES AND
PUB£IC HEALTH
Unlike the air controversy, which erupted after the agency's estab-
lishment, EPA's creation coincided with the culmination of the
public debate over DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane). A
chlorinated hydrocarbon, DDT proved to be a highly effective, but
extremely persistent organic pesticide. Since the 1940s, farmers,
foresters, and public health officials sprayed it across the country
to control pests such as Mexican boll weevils, gypsy moths, and
pesky suburban mosquitos. Widespread public opposition to DDT
began with the publication of Rachel Carson's influential Silent
Spring. Reporting the effects of DDT on wildlife, Carson demon-
strated that DDT not only infiltrated all areas of the ecological
system, but was exponentially concentrated as it moved to higher
levels in the food web. Through Carson, many citizens learned that
humans faced DDT-induced risks. By 1968 several states had
banned DDT use. The Environmental Defense Fund, which began
as a group of concerned scientists, spearheaded a campaign to
force federal suspension of DDT registration—banning its use in
the United States. Inheriting Department of Agriculture (USDA)
pesticide registration functions, under the Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) of 1964, EPA was born in
the midst of the DDT storm.
In January 1971, a tribunal of the U.S. Court of Appeals in the
District of Columbia ordered Ruckelshaus to begin the process of
suspending DDT's registration, and to consider suspending its
registration immediately. At the end of a sixty-day review process,
the administrator reported that he had found no good reason to
suspend DDT registration immediately. It and several other pesti-
cides—including 2, 4, 5-T (Agent Orange), Dieldrin, Aldrin, and
Mirex—did not appear to constitute imminent health threats. This
action infuriated many environmentalists.
By 1971, the Environmental Defense Fund had mobilized
effective public opposition to DDT. The furor created by Ruckels-
haus's refusal to stop DDT use prompted many to look for sinister
political motivations. Some suggested that Mississippi Congress-
25
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man Jamie Whitten had used his position as chairman of the
agricultural appropriations subcommittee of the House Appropria-
tions Committee to make Ruckelshaus conform to the interests of
the agrichemical lobby. While actually, Ruckelshaus took his
cautious stance for less menacing reasons.
At its creation, EPA not only inherited the function of pesticide
registration from USD A, but also the staff that served that func-
tion. The USDA economic entomologists who designed the pesti-
cide registration process in the first place preached the advantages
of effective pesticides and minimized discussion of debatable
health risks. The same staff that had backed USDA Secretary
Clifford Hardin's earlier claim that DDT was not "an imminent
hazard to human health or to fish and wildlife" 8 provided
Ruckelshaus with the same counsel.
Between March 1971 and June 1972, American newspapers
reported both sides of the pesticide debate. Some articles recalled
the glory days when pesticides saved thousands of lives in World
War II; how they had increased agricultural productivity and
allowed relatively few farmers to feed the world's growing popu-
lation; and how the most besieged insecticides, such as DDT and
WARNING
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring led to banning DDT and other pesticides.
26
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Mirex, had little human toxicity. Other journalists praised alterna-
tive approaches to pest management such as biological controls
(predator inrroduction| sterile males, and pheromone traps), inte-
grated contro^'|cropj|i^tion and carefully delimited pesticide
use), and refinfment brother, less persistent chemicals. Some
reported the near panic of Northwestern fruit growers facing
beeless, and therefore fruitless, seasons. They attributed the lack of
pollinating insects to pesticide use.
Throughout the spring of 1972, Ruckelshaus reviewed the
evidence EPA had collected during the agency's hearings on DDT
cancellation and the reports prepared by two DDT study groups,
the Hilton and Mrak Commissions. Both studies^suggested that
DDT be phased out due to the chemical's persistent presence in
ecosystems and noted studies suggesting that DDT posed a carci-
nogenic risk to humans. In June, he followed the route already
taken by several states: he banned DDT application in the United
States. Though unpopular among certain segments of EPA's con-
stituency, his decision did serve to enhance the activist image he
sought to create for the agency, and without prohibitive political
cost.
The DDT decision was important to EPA for several reasons.
While it did not stop the debate over what constituted appropriate
pesticide use, DDT demonstrated the effect public pressure could
have on EPA policy decisions. It also made very visible the tight-
rope act a regulatory agency performs when it attempts to balance
the demands for protection of human and environmental health
against legitimate economic demands. Furthermore, EPA's decision
set a precedent for regulatory decision-making. As an advocate of
the environment, Ruckelshaus and the agency chose to risk erring
on the side of protecting human health at the expense of economic
considerations—a course that would bring the agency under heavy
criticism before the end of its first decade.
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Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus introducing his successor,
Russell E. Train, at a 1973 press conference.
28
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CHANGING CAPTAINS
William Ruckelshaus would not have to bear that burden; it would
fall to his successors. In 1973, as the Nixon administration broke
up in the Watergate storm, Ruckelshaus agreed to become acting
FBI chief and then the Deputy Attorney General before resigning
along with Elliot Richardson in the "Saturday Night Massacre."
Russell Train, the Chairman of the Council on Environmental
Quality (CEQ), succeeded him as head of EPA. Train would see
the first significant reversal in the environmental movement's
fortunes as inflation, unemployment, and the energy crisis forced
the nation to re-prioritize its goals.
Train became head of an agency with credibility and an activist
image. In the area of water pollution, its efforts forced industries
and municipalities to take responsibility for their wastes. EPA
became a "gorilla in the closet" for local and state enforcement
officials. Sometimes the gorilla became a formidable adversary of
states and municipalities when it targeted them for enforcement. In
its effort to clean up city skies, the agency successfully encouraged
clean air technology development. It also forced the American
public to face the personal cost of pollution prevention—a cost
considered too dear by many in the 1970s. Upon encountering
conflicting scientific opinions regarding toxic chemicals in the
environment, EPA policy makers chose to minimize the potential,
long-term injury to environmental and human health at the ex-
pense of concerns that had figured prominently in traditional
decision-making equations. EPA developed a strong, diverse
constituency that enabled it to continue to direct national policy in
a manner consistent with its mission—to protect the environment
by abating pollution and thereby enhance the quality of American
life.
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Notes
1. Administrator to EPA Staff, 4 Dec 1970, Memorandum, Administration and
Management files, EPA Historical Collection.
2. EPA History Program, "William D. Ruckelshaus," EPA Oral History Series (United
States Environmental Protection Agency, November 1992), p. 9.
3. William D. Ruckelshaus, Address to the Indiana State Legislature, 8 February 1971,
Ruckelshaus' speeches file, EPA Historical Collection.
4. William D. Ruckelshaus, "The City must be the Teacher of Man," Address to the
Annual Congress of Cities, Atlanta, Georgia, 10 Dec 1970.
5. William Verity to Richard Nixon, 28 Sept 1971, in John Quarles' Cleaning Up America:
An Insiders' View of the Environmental Protection Agency (New York: Houghton Mifflin,
1976), pp. 63-4.
6. EPA Oral Interview-1: William D. Ruckelshaus, Interview conducted by Micheal Corn
(Washington, D.C.: GPO), pp. lOff.
7. Ruckelshaus interview, p. 8.
8. Thomas Dunlap, DDT; Scientists Citizens, and Public Policy (Princeton University
Press, 1981), p. 208.
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REFERENCES
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1962.
Dunlap, Thomas R. DDT: Scientists, Citizens, and Public Policy. Princeton University
Press, 1981.
EPA Historical Collection.
Hamby, Alonzo. Liberalism and Its Challengers: FDR to Reagan. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985.
Hays, Samuel P. Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United
States, 1955-1985. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-
1920. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1959.
Lacey, Michael J., ed. Government and Environmental Politics: Essays on Historical
Developments Since World War Two. Washington D.C: The Woodrow Wilson Center
Press, 1991.
Landy, Marc K., et. al. The Environmental Protection Agency: Asking the Wrong
Questions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Lovins, Amory. Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace. San Francisco: Friends of
the Earth, International, 1977
Melosi, Martin. Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment, 1880-1980.
College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1981.
Nash, Roderick Frazier. The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.
Quarles, John. Cleaning Up America: An Insider's View of the Environmental Protection
Agency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976.
Shabekoff, Philip. A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement. New
York: Hill and Wang, 1993.
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EPA Historical Advisory Board
Dr. George M. Watson, Jr., Chair
Chief Historian, Air Staff Branch, Center for Air Force History
Dr. Richard A. Baker
Director, United States Senate Historical Office
Dr. Benjamin Franklin Cooling
Chief Historian, Department of Energy
Prof. William Cronon
Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of American History, University of Wisconsin at
Madison
Dr. Tom D. Crouch
Chairman, Department of Aeronautics, National Air and Space Museum, Smith-
sonian Institution
Prof. Dan Flores
Hammond Professor of Western History, University of Montana
Mr. Terrence J. Cough
Chief, Staff Support Branch, U.S. Army Center for Military History
Dr. Richard P. Hallion
Chief Historian, U.S. Air Force
32
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Special thanks go to Dr. Richard Baker, Dr. William Cronon, Dr. Dan Flores, Dr.
Michael Corn, Dr. George Watson, and Don Bronkema for their helpful comments
on drafts of this document.
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