When politicians work together to save the land

Richard Nixon’s may not be the first name to come to mind when thinking about presidential environmental legacies. We remember the conservation achievements of Theodore Roosevelt — 230 million acres of public land protected as national parks, national monuments, national forests, game preserves and bird reserves — but not Dick Nixon. 

Roosevelt was an active champion of conservation and Nixon was not, but on his watch Congress passed and the president signed into law some of the most significant environmental legislation in our nation’s history.

• The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

• The Clean Water Act Extension of 1970

• The creation of the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) in 1970

• A major amendment to the Clean Air Act in 1970 requiring controls for air pollution

• The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972

• The Endangered Species Act of 1973

• Ratification of the Convention of Trade in International Trade in Endanger Species of Wild Flora and Fauna

• The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974

• Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco

• Gateway National Recreation Area in New York City

I am old enough to remember the sulfur skies of Manhattan, a polluted Boston Harbor inhospitable to most marine life, and the effects of DDT on many bird species. I also remember when I saw my first returning osprey (1975) and bluebird (1981).

Nixon was not an environmentalist by nature. He was pro-business and saw himself fighting a delaying action against a rising tide of consumer protection and environmental advocacy. In 1971 he told Lee Iacocca and Henry Ford II, “We are now becoming obsessed with the idea that … a lot of what it really gets down to is that … progress …industrialization, ipso facto, is bad. The great life is to have it like when the Indians were here. You know how the Indians lived? Dirty, filthy, horrible.”

Not all conservatives shared this view of environmentalism as anti-progress. Conservative Party Sen. James Buckley  (a resident of Sharon), one of the primary authors of the Endangered Species Act, was described by a colleague as a true Conservative who “saw the whole idea of conservation as working on the interest, not the principal.” 

It was people like Sen.Buckley who found cause with the Democratic majority to craft meaningful and effective protections for the green infrastructure that sustains the diversity of life. The idea for Earth Day may have been conceived in 1970 by Democratic Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, but it was co-sponsored by Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey of California.

Citizen action and legislative leaders of conscience made the difference, and Nixon, ever the opportunist, went along. I take some comfort in that. As Edward Abbey put’s it: “God bless America — Let’s save some of it.”

Tim Abbott is program director of Housatonic Valley Association’s Litchfield Hills Greenprint. His blog is at www.greensleeves.typepad.com.