Myth: Nixon created the EPA to help the environment

Not that Nixon was any sort of Republican to write home about anyway.

Scripps Howard reports in “GOP attacks on EPA — what’s behind them?“,

… The GOP attacks are ironic given that the EPA was created during a Republican administration — under President Richard Nixon in December 1970 — and charged with comprehensively regulating environmental pollutants…

Nixon created the EPA by executive order in 1970 as a sop to the anti-Vietanm war left — not because he thought an EPA was needed.

Nixon reassigned to the EPA the ongoing environmental protection activities of other federal agencies.

So Nixon’s move was little more than a cynical bureaucratic reshuffling done to facilitate his Vietnam policies — not some proud legacy of the Republican party.

20 thoughts on “Myth: Nixon created the EPA to help the environment”

  1. The Constitution of The United States of America says, my Rights are given to me by God. If I owned land in Oregon that has on it a Natural Spring; I own it.
    According to the EPA The state of Oregon says that I do not own this Natural spring; it belongs to the State!.
    The EPA is usurping our Constitution, God help us go back to common sense; The Constitution…Eliminate the epa

  2. LOL Frank Dias the car industry didn’t do all that on it’s own… they were required to reduce emissions to reduce smog pollution. Holy hell you people need to get your facts straight.

  3. I cant believe how ignorant you people are. The 50 states need something to keep them ethical. Just review the reasons they joined together to create the USA.

  4. This is a bunch of BS. You give no support for this whatsoever. No quotes, no biographies, no scholarly articles. The only thing you give us is that statement. However if you look at Jonathan Aitken’s biography, he recognizes the Nixons creation of the EPA as a response to Earth Day 1970 but also notes an aid to Nixon stated that Nixon was a believer in environmentalism as long as the plans were economically responsible. (Aitken, 1993, pg. 397-398)

  5. Don’t take my word for it. He represents the 14th district in Texas. He is a Libertarian and like many others in Congress has been in office too long. He needs to be retired this election. If he were a true conservative he would have resigned his congressional seat rather than continue to draw his $174K+/year salary while he is out campaigning. Watch what they do, not what they say.

  6. I hope you’re wrong. Paul’d be MUCH, MUCH wealthier if he went along with all the proposed spending, never mentioning its un-constitutional and all. The Republican-RINOs and the Globalists HATE him, because he’s NOT their boy. Sometimes the best thing to do to a bill is to make it so bloated, it’s “poisenous to pass”. With Congress the way it is, some would get through, no matter what he added. MOST bills should NOT pass. I think he wants a good legacy for his son, Rand. We WILL go to war with Iran, maybe also Syria, but for Paul, if he’s able to gain the Presidency. I wouldn’t care if we fought Iran/Syria, except while we’re doing that, Red China & Russia may strike-US with a limited nuke-attack, with China maybe occupying us. If sheltered 3 days, then maybe 3 months, most would survive, maybe losing no more than 20-40million killed to blast and all our Command & control bases. A hundred years ago, the Globalists were INTENDING 3 nuclear wars, before we’d surrender to World Governance under a Soviet-style Socialism. They’ve got a 100-million men they could put in their PLA. Although it looks like he’s fading, the Globalists HATE Romney, because both he & Paul don’t need them, so they may not cooperate with the agenda. Politics is a LOT rude-er than corporate boards, so Romney’s not used to yet being as tough as it takes. Any moderate, now, is a liberal. If JFK was alive & politically active, he’d be a Reagan Republican(–whether he switched parties or not). Only Paul’s a Constitutionalist, and we’ve fallen-away from that so much, we need Paul, or a Paul-type. The three front-runners are very weak on gun rights, which could be bad for the safety of you & yours, if the country collapses. No problem with Paul. Paul WOULD attack the EPA, because that’s just one of the bureaus founded via Executive order (–by Nixon, the Swine), and Paul’s pledged to eliminate ALL Executive Orders (–un-constitutional, you see), so the EPA’s history under Paul.

  7. Right on whitetop. In addition to the EPA it should also apply to US Forest Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Geological Survey, Natural Resources and Conservation Service (formerly Soil Conservation Service), et al. and all ot their natural resource functions devolved to each of our ’57’ states. Then, each state will compete…

  8. Newt said the EPA should be abolished and replaced with some other bureaucracy which I suspect would be staffed by former EPA staff so what would be gained? Nothing. Abolish EPA and leave it to the states to handle their environmental issues.
    Funny how democrats were against the Civil Rights Act and NEPA but have since taken ownership of both and claim to be the rightful owners. While charging republicans with being against both laws.

  9. Mark seems closest to the correct answer. Newt is not anti-green. However, I’m sure his call for the elimination of the EPA some months back was based on science. The science of statistics. Commonly known as polls.

  10. Ron Paul has never taken any action to slow down EPA and never will. He is so disingenuous it is pathetic. He loads bills up with pork and then votes against them. His district receives so much money every year because of his pork. Then he can point to his record to claim he is a conservative. All Ron Paul is doing is padding his retirement benefits.

  11. I suspect only Ron Paul would eliminate the EPA. Newt and the others are big-government internationalists.

  12. It grows and grows. It is possible that the strangling overreach will grow so invasive that a large majority will agree that the head has to be cut off. None of us want to see what that monster would do first, though. The need to write upper limits and closed ends to enviornmental laws and regulations will probably need to be recognized in catastrophies proportional to the thinly imagined catastrophes those laws and regulations claim to “prevent.”

    I’d like clean water to drink and to fish in too. Doesn’t mean that institutionalizing a cleanliness OCD as the ultimate priority is a good idea. And that is exactly what we ended up with and precisely because the EPA was made limitless and open-ended. Nixon was really into control and he was quite “mental” about it.

  13. A new administration could take some of the edge off EPA rules, but not much more. Getting rid of the EPA would require rewriting the major environmental laws. I doubt any of the candidates for president have the guts to even reverse many of the more egregious administrative rules. They couldn’t stand the heat of the enviro’s caterwauling about killing babies and destroying the earth. Congress surely couldn’t. On his way out the door (he didn’t have the guts to do it early) Clinton made some really stupid changes in the New Source Review rules. They are still there. One of the reasons Obama and Jackson are in such a rush for all sorts of new rules is tht they know most of them won’t be undone, no matter who holds the office.

    Nice dream about getting rid or even reversing the EPA. It’s all talk because, unfortunately, none of them have the guts to do it.

  14. Mr. Newt is more likely to kill EPA than Mitt.

    That’s not saying much, is it?

    Reigning in the EPA will be enough. Killing it directly would be impolitic.
    Once it has been neutered (Newtered?), there will be no reason to delete
    it.

  15. Dear Frank: YOU ARE SO CORRECT..I HOPE! I certainly HOPE Newt’d get RID…of the EPA, but WILL he? Having been “in-bed” with the Grand-Fascist-Dragon, Nuncy Pal-O-see, “Kween of the Kommunists in Kongress”(–the Left’s KKK), even the FACT that the Bilderbergers INSISTED to Nobama & Hillery, when they slipped their press entourages in 2008(–Never happened Before or Since!), to attend that secret Virgina Bilderberger meeting (where they were TOLD to “Crash the Economy, USING the EPA”, and Nobama, HAS USED the EPA, –even to SCREW his OWN labor support over the Pipeline) ASIDE…, –CAN NEWT…be TRUSTED…to pare-back/eliminate the EPA, (–the “Schutz-Stafel” of DEPORTATION of the US-Economy to the East)…because if Newt IS…a Globalist, the “Powers That Be(–Joel Skousen, WAB)” will NOT WANT him to ‘defang’ that agency, because the US economy, on the ropes, is still not YET collapsed as the Globalists desired/intended, and it might be resusitated, if it(EPA)IS eliminated. Plus, with the Vote-count-TOTALING… NOW in the private hands of some firm based in Spain(which is very sympathetic to Socialists like Nobama), WHY would that firm allow ANY Republican to win the Presidency, anyway? The Clintons may OWN a percentage of that firm! So ANY Republican gaining his party’s top-slot is just a “Sham-candidate”, right, –part of the Republicrat-Demican Phoney-party-system, that makes it LOOK like we are in control of our political system, when really, we are devolving, steadily, towards Communism and Soviet-style World Governance, our rights disappearing under the Presidential Fiat(pen), while Kongress politically-masturbates.

  16. THE EPA SHOULD BE ELIMINATED TOTALLY AND USE COMMON SENSE POLICIES. IN THE 70 WE DID LOTS OF SMOG PROBLEMS WHICH WERE ADDRESSED BY CAR MAKERS WITHOUT THE GOVERNMENT
    INTRUSION… SO GOOD BY EPA WHEN NEWT IS ELECTED

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