December 2, 1970, 50 years ago: The Environmental Protection Agency begins operation. For over half a century, it has -- when the federal government has cared enough to properly fund it -- improved America's land, air and water. And we really needed it.
From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, pollution had been as American as doctoring the baseball, uninspected hot dogs, crabapple pie and a Chevrolet without seat belts. The occasional minor effort had been made before 1970, 2 notable examples being Franklin Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, and Lady Bird Johnson's urging of her husband Lyndon to get Congress to pass the Highway Beautification Act to clean up America's roads (including reducing the number of eyesore billboards).
The 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson led to President John F. Kennedy putting some of her recommendations in motion. By the late 1960s, environmental activism had become serious. President Richard Nixon figured that out: Signing the EPA into law was not just good policy, it was good politics. He knew that some of the men running against him in 1972 would have run on the environmental issue, and he took it off the table.
Sadly, Carson did not live to see this. Her investigations into pesticides led to her exposure to them, and she was already ill with cancer when the book was published. She was unable to attend most of the ceremonies for the awards she received.
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