Book description
No one remembers Richard M. Nixon as an environmental president, but
a year into his presidency, he committed his administration to
regulate and protect the environment. The public outrage over the
Santa Barbara oil spill in early 1969, culminating in the first Earth
Day in 1970, convinced Nixon that American environmentalism now
enjoyed extraordinary political currency.
No nature lover at heart, Nixon opportunistically tapped the
burgeoning Environmental Movement and signed the Endangered Species
Act in 1969 and the National Environmental Protection Act in 1970 to
challenge political rivals such as Senators Edmund Muskie and Henry
Jackson. As Nixon jockeyed for advantage on regulatory legislation, he
signed laws designed to curb air, water, and pesticide pollution,
regulate ocean dumping, protect coastal zones and marine mammals, and
combat other problems. His administration compiled an unprecedented
environmental record, but anti-Vietnam War protests, outraged
industrialists, a sluggish economy, the growing energy crisis, and the
Watergate upheaval drove Nixon to turn his back on the very programs
he signed into law. Only late in life did he re-embrace the
substantial environmental legacy of his tumultuous presidency.
J. Brooks Flippen is an associate professor of history at
Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
