Foreword

• Author: William D. Ruckelshaus
• Pages: 17-19

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Foreword

e book that follows is a series of essays and book reviews regarding envi-

ronmental issues written primarily during the period 2005-2015. ey were

authored by Oliver A. Houck and G. Tracy Mehan III, two longtime observ-

ers and developers of environmental policy while serving in the government,

the Environmental Law Inst itute, or other related a ssignments. ese are

thoughtful and insightful pieces that deserve the comprehensive treatment

this book provides.

If you nd yourself interested in the environment and thirsting for more

information about what is meant by being an environmentalist, this is the

book for you. If you want to understand the multitude of complex issues

raised by dierent players in the debates—heroes and villains— then read on.

What you will nd is the rich and fascinating unfolding of a movement that

in its modern form is now over 50 years old.

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created

45 years ago, its pur pose was to centralize and consolidate the federal gov-

ernments’ approach to environmental and public health protection in one

agency. In cooperation with the states as implementers, EPA was to set stan-

dards to gu ide human and corporate conduct. Enforcing these standards

would halt the environmental degradation that then gripped America. e

public in the late 1960s and early 1970s was demanding that their health and

environment be protected. Smell, touch, and feel pollution caused this public

demand and the president and Congress answered to it.

Our initial eorts captured t he essence of public demand for reform and

we made remarkable progress. e automobile engines were remodeled to

be much less polluting, watershed s were cleaned up, large point sources of

water and air pollution from industrial facilities and municipal sewage treat-

ment plants were brought under social control. Prodded by the public, we

reformed our country’s procedures for controlling toxic materia ls from their

creation in the manufacture of products, to their transportation, use, a nd

nal disposal. All of this was done by a series of massive comprehensive stat-

utes seeking to create a series of rules, controls, and deadlines t hat promised

an America with greatly reduced health and environmental risk.

While we made remarkable progress in our initia l eorts, the more bad

stu we removed from the environment, the more we studied what risks