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risk, performance not guaranteed. This

1:01

is on the media's Midweek

1:03

podcast. I'm Brooke Gladstone. Last

1:05

Friday, the official website of

1:07

the Environmental Protection Agency featured

1:09

a press release with this

1:11

headline. Praise all around for

1:13

EPA's greatest and most consequential

1:15

day of deregulation in US

1:17

history. This fulsome language was

1:19

extolling recent moves by the

1:21

president's chosen EPA chief, Lee

1:23

Zeldin. The EPA is rolling

1:25

back environmental protections and eliminating

1:27

a host of climate change

1:29

regulations in what it calls

1:31

the biggest deregulatory action in

1:33

US history. The EPA administrator

1:36

is cutting 31 environmental rules

1:38

regarding climate change, pollution, electric

1:40

vehicles, and power plants. It's

1:42

basically a gutting, it would

1:44

be a gutting of environmental

1:46

regulation in this country. Administrator

1:48

Lee Zelden. wrote in a

1:50

statement, we're driving a dagger

1:52

straight through climate change religion

1:54

to drive down costs of

1:56

living for American families, unleash

1:58

American energy, and bring back

2:00

auto jobs. Quite the contrast

2:02

to Ronald Reagan's approach during

2:04

his second White House run

2:06

in 1984. The White House recognizes

2:08

that the environment is a very

2:10

potentially strong election year issue. It

2:13

doesn't cut both ways like an

2:15

abortion issue where any stand you

2:17

take and lose you as many

2:20

voters as it wins. It's held

2:22

strongly and dearly by a

2:24

lot of people. In

2:26

a piece I reported

2:28

back in 2017, I

2:30

wondered how did we

2:32

get here. How did

2:34

environmental protection morph from

2:36

an issue of near

2:38

universal concern to a

2:40

political football? And how

2:42

did the EPA, an

2:44

agency created 55 years

2:47

ago by Richard Nixon,

2:49

become in the eyes of

2:52

the GOP, a job killer?

2:54

For clues, you got to

2:56

go back to the late

2:58

60s. In 1966, dozens in

3:00

New York City died from

3:02

oppressive smog over a single

3:04

weekend, and other cities suffered

3:07

too. In 1969, the Santa

3:09

Barbara oil spill released an

3:11

estimated 3 million gallons of

3:13

crude oil into the ocean

3:15

damaged sea life and spoiled

3:18

California beaches. This is a

3:20

view inside Santa Barbara harbor,

3:22

showing pleasure boats that have turned

3:24

black above their water lines. where

3:26

the crude oil lapped up against

3:29

their house. The oil slick fouled

3:31

nearly 50 kilometers of

3:33

coastline. Polluted waterways were

3:35

clogged with flammable goo. The

3:37

Kailoga River in Ohio is

3:39

so loaded with the waste

3:42

products of petroleum distillation that

3:44

it is actually in danger of catching

3:46

fire. In fact, fires on

3:48

Cleveland's Cuyahoga River weren't

3:50

rare. But a 1969

3:53

blaze caught the country's

3:55

attention. Randy Newman penned

3:57

an ironic serenade. It

4:00

was a time of noxious, visible

4:02

pollution. People cared, Nixon noticed. The

4:05

great question of the 70s is,

4:07

shall we surrender to our surroundings?

4:10

Or shall we make our peace

4:12

with nature? and begin to make

4:14

reparations for the damage we have

4:17

done to our air, to our

4:19

land, and to our water. Be

4:22

set by protests over the Vietnam

4:24

War, civil rights, and women's rights,

4:26

Nixon was in a bind. And

4:29

he saw Environment as an opportunity

4:31

to jump in front of this

4:34

mob coming toward him and call

4:36

it a parade. Richard Andrews is

4:38

a professor emeritus of environmental policy

4:41

at the University of North Carolina

4:43

at Chapel Hill. The environment was

4:46

just a dramatically popular cause. Four

4:48

months into that period, into the

4:50

1970s, in April, came the first

4:53

Earth Day. How big a celebration

4:55

that it was a celebration not

4:58

just an angry protest good evening

5:00

a unique day in American history

5:02

is ending a day set aside

5:05

for a nationwide outpouring of mankind

5:07

seeking its own survival birthday there

5:10

were demonstrations there were projects there

5:12

were things that really added up

5:14

to the biggest nationwide celebration since

5:17

the celebrations at the end of

5:19

World War II. And in Washington,

5:22

the dire warning of civil rights

5:24

leader James Farmer at the time

5:26

a Nixon administration official. We all

5:29

have a stake equally. Because if

5:31

we do not save the environment

5:34

and save the earth, then whatever

5:36

we do in civil rights? Nixon

5:38

had no environmental policy when he

5:41

entered office, but he grabbed one

5:43

quick. Then he started doing a

5:45

lot of the grave. Nixon had

5:48

no environmental policy when he entered

5:50

office, but he grabbed one quick.

5:53

Then he started doing a lot

5:55

of things administratively, to use the

5:57

president's power to reorganize government, which

6:00

existed at that time, to create

6:02

the EPA, to pull together these

6:05

regulatory functions from... the different agencies,

6:07

put them into one place, and

6:09

put in charge of them, Bill

6:12

Ruckelshaus, a respected, aggressive prosecutor from

6:14

Indiana, Republican, somebody who believed in

6:17

public service and enforcing the laws.

6:19

My feeling was that what we

6:21

needed to do at EPA was

6:24

convince the public that we were

6:26

serious about protecting their health primarily

6:29

and protecting the environment. William Ruckleshouse,

6:31

founding administrator of the EPA. So

6:33

we filed a number of enforcement

6:36

actions. We sued in one day

6:38

Cleveland, Atlanta, and Detroit, filed actions

6:41

against big corporations to get them

6:43

moving toward compliance, to convince them

6:45

that the government was serious about

6:48

carrying out the public's wishes. Did

6:50

you yourself have any particularly strong

6:53

feelings about the environment when you

6:55

got pulled into the EPA? Oh,

6:57

yes, I did. I had seen

7:00

it already in my home state

7:02

of Indiana that absent any government

7:05

interference, not much was going to

7:07

happen no matter how bad the

7:09

situation got. You couldn't rely on

7:12

the individual causing the pollution to

7:14

take steps themselves without being pushed

7:17

by the government on a more

7:19

or less common basis for their

7:21

competitors. So when you say you

7:24

saw it happening in Indiana, what

7:26

were you seeing? Seeing people that

7:29

were... grossly polluting the water in

7:31

the air, discharging raw sewage into

7:33

the rivers. It was very clear

7:36

that something needed to be done,

7:38

having attempted to... regulate industry from

7:41

the state, doing that alone in

7:43

that one state was not going

7:45

to do it because they would

7:48

move someplace else. In fact, George

7:50

Wallace, who was in the governor

7:53

of Alabama, would take out ads

7:55

in the Indianapolis newspaper saying, come

7:57

on down to Alabama. We need

8:00

jobs. We don't care about the

8:02

environment. But. Because the EPA established

8:05

an idea known as environmental federalism,

8:07

it could set national requirements in

8:09

Washington and leave it to the

8:12

states to enforce them. Richard Andrews.

8:14

I think Bill Ruckelshaus is referred

8:17

to EPA as the gorilla in

8:19

the closet. That the states could

8:21

then say, you know, we have

8:24

to do this, all the other

8:26

states have to do it, EPA

8:29

is making us do it, and

8:31

if we don't do it, then

8:33

the EPA is the backup to

8:36

do it itself. And surely... Mr.

8:38

CEO of one of our in-state

8:41

corporations, you wouldn't want the EPA

8:43

to be doing this directly to

8:45

you. And in fact, the EPA

8:48

had 10 regional offices still has.

8:50

Half of the EPA staff is

8:53

out in these offices? Yes, partly

8:55

overseeing, but really also partly sort

8:57

of backing up and assisting the

9:00

states. They've built enormous capacity at

9:02

the state level in many states,

9:05

although their philosophies under different governors

9:07

vary about how tough they want

9:09

to be. And now, according to

9:12

reports this week, the Trump administration

9:14

is considering eliminating two of those

9:17

regional offices. Back to the Nixon

9:19

era, a bit of a tangent,

9:21

but during the fallout from Watergate

9:24

in 1973, William Ruckelshaus was shuffled

9:26

around, first as acting director of

9:29

the FBI and then Deputy Attorney

9:31

General. I was only there to

9:33

deputy for about 23 days. Before

9:36

we got involved in the squabble

9:38

with the White House and the

9:41

president over Archibald Cox, the independent

9:43

prosecutor appointed by the Justice Department

9:45

to investigate Watergate. Nixon wanted Attorney

9:48

General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox.

9:50

Richardson quit in protest. Then... the

9:53

president ordered Ruckelshaus to fire Cox.

9:55

Richardson's deputy William Ruckelshaus has been

9:57

fired. Ruckelshaus refused in a moment

10:00

of constitutional drama to obey a

10:02

presidential order to fire the special

10:05

Watergate prosecutor. The events became known

10:07

as the Saturday Night Massacre. Afterward,

10:09

Ruckelshaus took a break from government.

10:12

In the meantime, the 70s saw

10:14

the rise of deregulation from airlines

10:17

to stock markets to telephone companies,

10:19

and not just under Republicans, Jimmy

10:21

Carter too. But Richard Andrews said

10:24

it was Reagan who expanded that

10:26

philosophy to environmental protections. Rather than

10:28

trying to reform or tweak the

10:31

environmental regulations that had come into

10:33

play in the 70s, he tried

10:36

to just reverse them, and it

10:38

didn't go well. Reagan nominated Anne

10:40

Gorsuch Burford as the EPA administrator.

10:43

Incidentally, her son Neil is Trump's

10:45

Supreme Court nominee. Anne Gorsuch and

10:48

most of Reagan's other EPA appointees

10:50

had no experience in environmental regulation,

10:52

and so the EPA was blasted

10:55

for supporting polluters over people and

10:57

mishandling the Superfund program created to

11:00

clean up toxic waste. Critics charged

11:02

Superfund super fund hasn't been used

11:04

enough. because of political delays or

11:07

because EPA has been too easy

11:09

on the industries which polluted. Political

11:12

delays? Example, the string fellow acid

11:14

pits, where not a penny of

11:16

the federal super fund has been

11:19

spent yet. More than 20 EPA

11:21

officials resigned or were fired from

11:24

the agency. Public outcry led to

11:26

congressional investigations. And the head of

11:28

the Superfund account went to prison.

11:31

Well, the public was riled up.

11:33

They were mad. They were angry.

11:36

They believed that this agency created

11:38

a protecting the environment and their

11:40

health was being undercut. So they

11:43

demanded change. Once again, in the

11:45

midst of public outcry, Ruckel's house

11:48

was asked to run the EPA.

11:50

by a president backed into a

11:52

corner. When he returned to Washington,

11:55

he was free to repair the

11:57

tattered agency any way he saw

12:00

fit. It was the one promise

12:02

I asked the president to make,

12:04

and that was to let me

12:07

find the people who could take

12:09

the place of those who were

12:12

being replaced. President looked at me

12:14

in the Oval Office and said,

12:16

go ahead, obviously, we don't know

12:19

what we're doing. So these were

12:21

people that had been there before

12:24

that I'd kept in touch with

12:26

and we straightened it out in

12:28

a big hurry. You mean you

12:31

didn't want to drain the swamp

12:33

of all those experienced bureaucrats? We

12:36

didn't think of it as a

12:38

swamp. It was a wetland which

12:40

is to be preserved. You wrote

12:43

in the New York Times this

12:45

week. that as you were awaiting

12:48

Senate confirmation for becoming the EPA

12:50

chief the second time, you had

12:52

conversations with the execs at chemical

12:55

companies that stunned you. They were

12:57

worried about the EPA having been

13:00

gutted. Yes, they really were. This

13:02

group of chemical manufacturers which were

13:04

heavily regulated by EPA. I asked

13:07

to see me and I assumed

13:09

they were going to complain about

13:12

over regulation. Because that's what happened

13:14

the first time you were at

13:16

the EPA. Yeah, everybody was complaining

13:19

then. They came in and said

13:21

just the opposite, that they had

13:24

no credibility with the public, that

13:26

the agency charged with regulating their

13:28

conduct had essentially been eliminated as

13:31

far as the public was concerned,

13:33

and that I needed to get

13:36

in there and start regulating. and

13:38

start showing that the government was

13:40

serious about protecting public health and

13:43

the environment. What were they afraid

13:45

was going to happen if the

13:48

public couldn't trust them or the

13:50

EPA? Then the public will turn

13:52

on them and take away their

13:55

license to operate. They were finding...

13:57

that they had so little support

14:00

from the public, even from their

14:02

own employees, that the government needed

14:04

to step in and say, we're

14:07

going to protect your health, we're

14:09

going to keep you safe. They

14:12

requested that. You need an agency

14:14

there to ensure that the rules

14:16

are followed, that the rules are

14:19

clear and fair and protect the

14:21

public. Clean and fair rules. but

14:24

not too many. In the mid-80s,

14:26

the Democratic Congress over-corrected for Reagan's

14:28

cuts by writing environmental laws that

14:31

directed the EPA to issue a

14:33

certain number of new requirements a

14:36

year. And this, according to Richard

14:38

Andrews, is when the EPA's reputation

14:40

began to sour. We'd already regulated

14:43

the big companies, and so now

14:45

we were doing things like regulating

14:48

drinking water and underground storage tanks

14:50

and things that... hit much more

14:52

heavily on small businesses and local

14:55

governments. But still, this issue remained

14:57

bipartisan for a time. The first

15:00

President Bush made maybe the last

15:02

serious effort to really define himself

15:04

as a Republican environmentalist president. I

15:07

don't have to tell those of

15:09

you who are hunters and fishermen

15:11

how important the wetlands are as

15:14

a habitat for fish and ducks

15:16

and geese and other waterfowl. But

15:19

they also help control flooding flooding.

15:21

In 1990, he spearheaded the Clean

15:23

Air Act amendments that gave us

15:26

cap and trade for a sulfur

15:28

and nitrogen, really one of the

15:31

most effective innovations in environmental policy

15:33

we've seen since the 1970s. But

15:35

in 1992, he was then beaten

15:38

by Clinton running with Al Gore,

15:40

who was clearly identified as an

15:43

environmentalist. Saving the Earth's environment. Must

15:45

and will become the central organizing

15:47

principle. of the post-cold war world.

15:50

Over these several events, the Republican

15:52

Party generally decided that no matter

15:55

how much... they tried to burnish

15:57

their environmental credentials, there would always

15:59

be some democratic opponent who would

16:02

push for more government action than

16:04

they were comfortable with as a

16:07

party. And so they began to

16:09

dig in deeper with the anti-environment

16:11

constituents, these and so forth, while

16:14

the Democrats in turn said, okay,

16:16

this is our winning issue and

16:19

the environmental groups can be our

16:21

ground level support troops, sort of

16:23

like teachers and so. My own

16:26

assessment is I think it's unfortunate

16:28

that environment has sort of been

16:31

captured by this increasingly polarized partisan

16:33

dynamic as a big government issue.

16:35

My first day in office, I'm

16:38

also going to order a review

16:40

of every single regulation issued over

16:43

the last 10 years. All needless

16:45

job killing regulations will be canceled.

16:47

Do you have a sense of

16:50

deja vu? Well, it's hard not

16:52

to. People in EPA are afraid.

16:55

They're afraid they're going to lose

16:57

their jobs, that they're going to

16:59

lose their ability to function as

17:02

they believe they should. And I

17:04

would guess that their fear is

17:07

justified. What do you think the

17:09

EPA's number one priority should be

17:11

now? Well, I think they should

17:14

do their job. I think they

17:16

should do a better job of

17:19

communicating with the public as to

17:21

what they're doing and why they're

17:23

relevant. to their lives. The EPA

17:26

doesn't have a whole lot of

17:28

constituencies. There's not people who say

17:31

that my favorite agency in the

17:33

government is the Environmental Protection Agency.

17:35

Quite the contrary. I also think

17:38

that there are some legitimate criticisms

17:40

of EPA. Sometimes regulators get arrogant.

17:43

They push people around unnecessarily. They

17:45

need to be firm and they

17:47

need to be fair. But at

17:50

the same time, they need to

17:52

recognize that a lot of the

17:55

people they're dealing with are their

17:57

customers. be better at convincing people

17:59

that they really are on their

18:02

side. I think also EPA can

18:04

make some better choices in terms

18:07

of what they really focus on.

18:09

It would be a tragedy for

18:11

this country to drop out of

18:14

paying attention and taking a leadership

18:16

role in dealing with climate change.

18:19

If EPA were to go away,

18:21

the ability to deal with climate

18:23

change by our government would be

18:26

severely compromised. Why do you think

18:28

then? that so many congressmen and

18:31

senators in the GOP are climate

18:33

change deniers or agnostics? Well, it's

18:35

a number of factors. I think

18:38

part of it's religious in the

18:40

sense that the climate of the

18:43

world is pretty much predicted by

18:45

events that will occur in the

18:47

future by the Bible. But weren't

18:50

they just as religious under Nixon

18:52

and Reagan? Yes, but they weren't

18:55

as politically organized. Pollution was smell,

18:57

touch, and feel kind of stuff.

18:59

You could see it. You didn't

19:02

need to be told it was

19:04

either coming as part of some

19:07

biblical revelation. It was there. Climate

19:09

change is a gradual kind of

19:11

problem that religiously you can explain

19:14

it in terms of something that's

19:16

going to have them anyway. So

19:19

why worry about it? And there

19:21

are concerted efforts on the part

19:23

of the fossil fuel industry. scientists

19:26

that they hire who will contest

19:28

the overwhelming number of scientists who

19:31

say climate change is real and

19:33

it's coming at a accelerated rate

19:35

and that we need to do

19:38

something about controlling carbon and other

19:40

gases that cause climate change, that

19:43

we don't do that, then we

19:45

have to adapt to it and

19:47

that's a lot more expensive than

19:50

trying to mitigate it. There was

19:52

a pupole last year that found

19:55

that most Americans... 74% say that

19:57

the country should do whatever it

19:59

takes to protect the environment. But

20:02

in terms of priorities, the environment

20:04

ranks below issues like the economy

20:06

and terrorism, it's almost as if

20:09

the public is saying, hey, could

20:11

you just take care of this,

20:14

but you know, don't make a

20:16

big fuss about it? It's about

20:18

right. They say get to it,

20:21

but it's not our first priority.

20:23

In fact, when the economy is

20:26

in trouble, it usually drops down

20:28

to about the last priority. They

20:30

think we can get at that

20:33

when it's everything else is. in

20:35

good shape. So where does this

20:38

leave the EPA? Unless the public

20:40

rises up and tells their congressman,

20:42

we will stand for this, then

20:45

it will continue to deteriorate in

20:47

terms of its effectiveness. I think

20:50

people have to make their voices

20:52

heard as they are supposed to

20:54

in a democracy. If they do

20:57

it, they can stop this deterioration

20:59

of regulation necessary to protect their

21:02

health. But if they don't, then

21:04

it'll continue and we'll be in

21:06

real trouble. William Ruckleshouse, founding director

21:09

and then reconstructor of the EPA

21:11

under Nixon and Reagan, died in

21:14

2019. Thanks for listening to the

21:16

Midweek podcast on this week's big

21:18

show. We're examining the dissolution of

21:21

the Department of Education and checking

21:23

in on the crypto grift at

21:26

the White House. See you Friday.

21:28

I'm Brooke Gladstone. This is Ira

21:30

Flato, host of Science Friday. For

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