When was epa formed

The country had 5. The reasons for such heavy consumption went beyond mere economic ability to consume, some theorized. The U.

Despite backlash from all directions, the message was getting through to at least one person: Nixon, who was elected President in As dawned, with American concerns about the War in Vietnam no longer dominating headlines, concerns about the environment became a further priority for the president. In his State of the Union address delivered that January, he underscored the point :. The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land, and to our water?

Restoring nature to its natural state is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a common cause of all the people of this country. It is a cause of particular concern to young Americans, because they more than we will reap the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.

Clean air, clean water, open spaces-these should once again be the birthright of every American. If we act now, they can be. We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and now that debt is being called.

Nixon followed his State of the Union with a special message to Congress in which he put forth more than a dozen orders and 23 requests to address problems like automobile emission standards. Scenes like the ones shown in this gallery are why Nixon, one of the left's most despised figures, created the Environmental Protection Agency.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters theatlantic. Skip to content. Sign in My Account Subscribe. The Atlantic Crossword. The U. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy for conduct unbecoming of a senator. On December 2, , the Enron Corporation files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a New York court, sparking one of the largest corporate scandals in U.

An energy-trading company based in Houston, Texas, Enron was formed in as the merger of two gas Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox.

Enrico Fermi, the Italian-born Nobel Prize-winning physicist, directs and controls the first nuclear chain reaction in his laboratory beneath the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, ushering in the nuclear age. Upon successful completion of the experiment, a Good Will Hunting, which opened in wide release across America on January 9, , Opening testimony takes place in the highly publicized rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of President John F.

Smith, then a year-old medical student at Georgetown Following a year of severely strained relations between the United States and Cuba, Cuban leader Fidel Castro openly declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist. The announcement sealed the bitter Cold War animosity between the two nations. Castro came to power in after leading a