Founding Father

• Pages: 44-46

Page 44 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2010, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, May/June 2010

Founding Father

Stewart L. Udall, who died on March

20 at the age of 90, was one of the prime

movers of the modern environmental

movement, building a f‌irm legal and

policy foundation

re m e m B r a n c e

Before the f‌irst Earth Day, before

the vast outpouring of legislation

whose implementation and admin-

istration is our profession’s daily

bread and butter, Stewart L. Udall

came to Washington and changed

the way the nation views its envi-

ronmental heritage and the ability of government to

preserve it, helping to make all that followed both

natural and necessary.

Following three terms as a U.S. representative

from his native Arizona, during which time he served

on the House interior committee, he was named sec-

retary of the interior by President John F. Kennedy in

1961. During the eight years that followed, continu-

ing in the administration of President Lyndon John-

son, he championed measures that forever changed

the country’s view of the federal role in conserva-

tion, preservation, and pollution prevention. He also

helped to safeguard millions of acres of federal land

as national parks, seashores, and wilderness areas.

As President Obama put it on learning of Udall’s

death on March 20, he “left an indelible mark on

this nation and inspired countless Americans who

will continue his f‌ight for clean air, clean water, and

to maintain our many natural resources.” Or as one

of his successors at the Department of the Interior,

Bruce Babbitt, put it, “Stewart Udall, more than any

other single person, was responsible for reviving the

national commitment to conservation and environ-

mental preservation.”

“at was a wonderful time,” Udall said recently

of his tenure at the Department of the Interior, “and

it carried through into the Nixon administration,

into the Ford administration, into the Carter admin-

istration,” embracing the 30 years of progress from

the natural resources laws of the 1960s, to the NEPA

to CERCLA legislative burst in the 1970s, and to

their strengthening amendments in the 1980s. “I

don’t remember a big f‌ight between the Republicans

and Democrats in the Nixon administration or un-

der President Ford and so on,” he said. “ere was a

consensus that the country needed more conserva-

tion projects of the kind we were proposing.”

Udall played a critical role in forming that con-

sensus. In recent years, however, according to his son

Tom, now a Democratic senator from New Mexico,

the senior Udall often lamented the change in tone

in Washington that has stalled environmental prog-

ress, including the end of bipartisan support for pol-

lution and natural resources legislation. In his latter

years he became a f‌ierce critic of President George