Just over a decade before, in 1962, ecologist Rachel Carson had published Silent Spring, documenting how pesticides designed to eliminate insects were devastating entire ecosystems of linked organisms. The realization that human destruction of the natural world could make the planet uninhabitable spurred Congress in 1970 to create the Environmental Protection Agency. And in 1973, when Nixon called for stronger laws to protect species in danger of extinction, 194 Democrats and 160 Republicans in the House—99% of those voting—voted yes. Only four Republicans in the House voted no.
In 1978, Carter placed 56 million acres of land in Alaska under federal protection as national monuments, doubling the size of the national park system. “These areas contain resources of unequaled scientific, historic and cultural value, and include some of the most spectacular scenery and wildlife in the world,” he said. In 1979 he had 32 solar panels installed at the White House to help heat the water for the building and demonstrate that it was possible to curb U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. Just before he left office, Carter signed into law the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, protecting more than 100 million acres in Alaska, including additional protections for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Oil companies, mining companies, timber companies, the cattle industry, and local officials eager for development strongly opposed Carter’s moves to protect the environment. In Alaska, local activists deliberately broke the regulations in the newly protected places, portraying Carter as King George III—against whom the American colonists revolted in 1776—and insisting that the protection of lands violated the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness promised in the Declaration of Independence.
For the most part, though, opposition to federal protection of the environment showed up as a drive to reform government regulations that, opponents argued, gave far too much power to unelected bureaucrats. In environmental regulations, the federal government’s protection of the public good ran smack into economic development.
In their 1980 presidential platform, Republicans claimed to be committed to “the conservation and wise management of America’s renewable natural resources” and said the government must protect public health. But they were not convinced that current laws and regulations provided benefits that justified their costs. “Too often,” they said, “current regulations are…rigid and narrow,” and they “strongly affirm[ed] that environmental protection must not become a cover for a ‘no-growth’ policy and a shrinking economy.”
In his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan explained that he wanted to see the U.S. produce more energy to fuel “growth and productivity. Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched because the present Administration seems to believe the American people would rather see more regulation, taxes and controls than more energy.”
In his farewell address after voters elected Reagan, Carter urged Americans to “protect the quality of this world within which we live…. There are real and growing dangers to our simple and our most precious possessions: the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land which sustains us,” he warned. “The rapid depletion of irreplaceable minerals, the erosion of topsoil, the destruction of beauty, the blight of pollution, the demands of increasing billions of people, all combine to create problems which are easy to observe and predict, but difficult to resolve. If we do not act, the world of the year 2000 will be much less able to sustain life than it is now.”
“But,” Carter added, “[a]cknowledging the physical realities of our planet does not mean a dismal future of endless sacrifice. In fact, acknowledging these realities is the first step in dealing with them. We can meet the resource problems of the world—water, food, minerals, farmlands, forests, overpopulation, pollution if we tackle them with courage and foresight.”
Reagan began by appointing pro-industry officials James G. Watt and Anne M. Gorsuch (mother of Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch) as secretary of the interior and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, respectively; they set out to gut government regulation of the environment by slashing budgets and firing staff. But both resigned under scandal in 1983, and their replacements satisfied neither those who wanted to return to the practices of the Carter years nor those who wanted to get rid of those practices altogether.
Still, with their focus on developing oil and gas, when workers repairing the White House roof removed the solar panels in 1986, Reagan administration officials declined to reinstall them.
Forty years later, we are reaping the fruits of that shift away from the atmosphere that gave us the Endangered Species Act and toward a focus on developing fossil fuels. On November 30 the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), an agency of the United Nations, reported that global temperatures in 2023 were at record highs both on land and in the seas, Antarctic sea ice extent is at a record low, and devastating fires, floods, outbreaks of disease, and searing heat waves have pounded human communities this year. (...)
And yet the forces that undermined that spirit are still at work. In the 2022 West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency decision, the Supreme Court claimed that Congress could not delegate “major questions” to executive agencies, thus limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate the emissions that create climate change; and House Republicans this summer held a hearing on “the destructive cost of the Endangered Species Act,” claiming that it “has been misused and misapplied for the past 50 years” with “disastrous effects on local economies and businesses throughout the United States.” Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources Bruce Westerman (R-AR) accused the Biden administration of stifling “everything from forest management to future energy production through burdensome ESA regulations.”
by Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American | Read more:
Image: NOAA
[ed. Early in my career I had the dubious distinction of being the Federal Oil and Gas Review Coordinator for the State of Alaska's only Fish and Wildlife agency, developing policy and mitigation measures for all federal oil and gas activities affecting the state. Early battles included things like leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, expanding North Slope oil development, drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas (which, among other things, would affect endangered bowhead whales), and responding to then Interior Secretary James Watt's accelerated OCS Leasing Program, which essentially put the entire Outer Continental Shelf adjacent to the state up for grabs over a short period of time ("area-wide leasing"). It was an intense and very busy time (for someone just in their late-20s!). For an excellent overview of the entire process and history see: Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Development in the Alaskan Arctic - Natural Resources Journal, (pdf):]
***
"A vital component of the ESA and another wildlife management statute,
the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act of 1976 (FWCA)"' is the requirement that federal agencies consult with the appropriate wildlife protection agency"' regarding the wildlife impacts of a proposed activity.
Though the FWCA requires consultation to ensure that "equal
consideration"' 's is given to wildlife values when undertaking federal
actions, " it is the responsibility of the agency proposing the activity to
determine whether it has complied with the act. The ESA consultation
provision is more powerful, particularly since formal procedures for a
highly structured process are established in the statute... During the section 1536 consultation, no "irreversible or irretrievable commitment of resources" can occur that would preclude the choice of alternative actions.
By the time the D.C. Circuit court in October 1981 had issued its
remand, James Watt had been appointed Secretary of the Interior by the
Reagan administration. Earlier that year, Secretary Watt had already submitted his proposed five-year leasing schedule for 1982-1987 to Congress, " and after preparing more drafts to comply with the court's order,
Watt approved his final, program in July 1982. Watt's "accelerated"
leasing schedule planned to offer for lease nearly the entire OCS, almost 1 billion acres, which was 20 times the acreage offered by Andrus, and
25 times the acreage offered from 1953 to 1980. Forty-two lease sales were scheduled, with half of the acreage to be offered lying in the frontier
area off of Alaska.
"In addition to this drastic plan to lease nearly the entire OCS, Watt
instituted fundamental changes to the leasing administrative process. The
new "area-wide" leasing program replaced the former "tract selection"
process by which the industry, states, and other groups nominated certain
tracts within a large area to be included or deleted from a lease sale. The U.S. Geological Survey then narrowed the choice of tracts to those
with the most promising hydrocarbon potential, and an environmental
impact statement was prepared only for these tracts. Under the areawide system, Watt divided the United States' OCS into 18 large planning
areas, ranging from 8 to 133 million acres, with lease sales offered
annually in planning areas within the Gulf of Mexico and biennially
elsewhere. An environmental impact statement is prepared for an entire
OCS planning area, and information is gathered on industry interest and
on other concerns which will determine the actual tracts to be offered,
though the tracts are not determined until right before the sale. Tracks
are also no longer evaluated prior to the lease sale to set a minimum bid,
but are evaluated after bids are accepted based on the Secretary's revised
system. Watt's area-wide leasing program was highly criticized22 except by
the oil industry. Soon after Watt approved his leasing schedule, the
state of Alaska, four other states, and several environmental organizations
filed suit."
