?f $w$mi- r.'*y-!%^^W£?'!^v$&

-------
      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

-------
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
20

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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.
                                                           21

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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
22

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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
                                                             23

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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.
24

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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.
                                                           27

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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.
                                                      29

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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.
30

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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.
                                                                           31

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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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