Nixon and the Environment

by Flippen, J. Brooks

• ISBN13: 9780826319937
• ISBN10: 0826319939
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction: ``A Wholesale Change in Values''	1	(16)
``Ecology Has Finally Achieved Currency'' 1969	17	(33)
``A Johnny-Come-Lately'' January-April 1970	50	(30)
``All Politics Is a Fad'' May-December 1970	80	(49)
``You Can't Out-Muskie Muskie'' 1971	129	(29)
``This Political Year'' 1972	158	(31)
``Get Off the Environmental Kick'' 1973-1974	189	(44)
Epilogue ``Our Day Will Come Again''	220	(13)
Notes	233	(48)
Bibliography	281	(14)
Index	295