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chapter 3 Richard Nixon The 1970s absolutely must be the years when America pays its debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of its air, its waters, and our living environment. It is now or never. There is an urgency in this message from Richard Nixon’s 1970 State of the Union address that is rarely heard today. Policy makers, as well as the lay public, were in total agreement in the 1970s regarding the need to improve the environment. This decade was unusual in that it was one of the most productive decades for environmental activism. One author indicated that Richard Nixon, in recognition of this, declared the 1970s to be the “decade of the environment.”1 So what accounts for this unusual turn of events? Circumstances are part of the story. Richard Nixon came into office the same year that newspaper headlines and other media sources made voters well aware of the critical nature of the environment. The public observed, if not experienced, the death and damage to bird life in the oil spill off Santa Barbara, California. The event caused Interior Secretary Walter Hickel to threaten Union Oil with closure. As he asserted to reporters: “They’re not going to operate again, and I’m calling them to tell them that. I’m not asking them; I’m telling them.”2 But this was not the approach the administration favored, and it was indicated to Hickel that he needed to soften his approach. That same year voters noted another environmental disaster that occurred . In Ohio a slick of industrial waste—primarily oil pollution—covered the Cuyahoga River and accidentally caught fire.3 The symbol of an excessively polluted river ablaze with fire immediately caught national attention and increased environmental awareness.4 Public awareness of environmental problems could also be seen in the increased number of new environmental interest groups organized during the 1970s, including the Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Environmental Action and Natural Resources Defense Council.5 Given the visibility of these environmental events, along with the concern people expressed regarding them, it is no wonder that politicians began looking beyond mere conservation to the environment in a broader perspective . Yet researchers of Richard Nixon still wondered at how he found himself in the position of becoming one of our most productive environmental presi- richard nixon 67 dents. Jonathan Aitken argued that it basically was timing: “Nixon became an environmental reformer because he was in power at the right moment.”6 David Sive of the National Resources Defense Council expanded on that view, suggesting that Nixon was “there when it began, he signed all the basic legislation , he appointed some absolutely wonderful people.”7 In his 1970 State of the Union address, Nixon indicated what a unifying factor the environment might be when he noted that “restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions.”8 For President Nixon there were also several ideological and issue-oriented pressures that moved him to recognize the need to protect the environment while also supporting states in their involvement with the environment, but at the same time strengthening federal control over the states and over environmental issues. Most presidents come into office having an idea as to what the relationship between state and federal government should be. Richard Nixon was no exception, calling the relationship he saw between the levels ofgovernment“NewFederalism,”whichsuggestedthathisoppositionto“big government” was accompanied by his desire to “restore political authority to the local level.”9 It was his intention to use the power of the presidency to bring this about. Yet once Nixon noted the overwhelming popularity of the first Earth Day and the “millions [who] gathered in communities around the nation” supporting it, he realized what political leverage it might give him if he were to appear to exert leadership in the environmental movement.10 It was at that time that he became convinced that this issue should most properly be controlled at the federal level. As he stated on October 21, 1972, “I share the view of the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency that environmental problems are essentially national in scope, and that most problems, even though they may appear to be local in nature, really affect many other States and localities as well.”11 This was not always an either-or situation, with the president obligated either to give his full support to the state governments to...

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