8.13 The Environment and Natural Resources from 1968 to 1980

Earlier conservationists like Theodore Roosevelt focused on managing forests and wild lands (7.4). The modern environmental movement focused more on pollution and public health. Postwar growth brought smog-choked cities, polluted rivers and widespread pesticide use.

Rachel Carson, a marine biologist, published Silent Spring in 1962. It showed how pesticides like DDT built up in food chains and harmed birds, fish and possibly people. Chemical companies attacked her, but the book convinced millions of readers and led to government review of pesticides. The U.S. banned DDT for most uses in 1972.

In 1969 a huge oil spill fouled the beaches of Santa Barbara, California, and an oil-slicked stretch of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire, not for the first time, becoming a national symbol of pollution.

On April 22, 1970, an estimated 20 million Americans took part in the first Earth Day, organized by Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson. Environmental protection drew broad support from both parties, and President Nixon signed many of the major laws.

• National Environmental Policy Act (signed January 1, 1970): requires environmental impact statements for major federal projects.
• Environmental Protection Agency (December 1970): created by Nixon to enforce environmental laws.
• Clean Air Act (1970): set national air-quality standards and limits on car and factory emissions.
• Clean Water Act (1972): regulated pollution discharges into rivers and lakes; passed over Nixon's veto, which objected to its cost.
• Endangered Species Act (1973): protects threatened species and their habitats.
• Superfund (1980): after toxic waste at Love Canal, New York, sickened residents, this law created a fund to clean up hazardous waste sites.

The U.S. had become dependent on imported oil. In October 1973, after the U.S. aided Israel in the Yom Kippur War, Arab members of OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) cut off oil shipments to the U.S. Oil prices roughly quadrupled, Americans waited in long lines for gas, and inflation jumped.

Leaders responded with a national 55 mph speed limit (1974), fuel economy standards for cars and a Strategic Petroleum Reserve (both 1975), and approval of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (completed in 1977). President Jimmy Carter created the Department of Energy (1977), called the energy crisis the 'moral equivalent of war', promoted conservation and alternative energy, and installed solar panels on the White House.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution caused a second oil shock and more gas lines. The near-meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania (March 1979) increased fears about nuclear power.

Environmental laws created conflict over costs and jobs. Some business groups argued regulation hurt industry and employment during hard economic times. In the late 1970s Western ranchers and politicians in the 'Sagebrush Rebellion' demanded state control of federal lands. These arguments fed the conservative push for deregulation in the 1980s (9.2), while environmental groups grew into a lasting political force.