Changing Captains

Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus introducing his successor, Russell E. Train, at a 1973 press conference.

William Ruckelshaus would not have to bear that burden; it would fall to his successors. In 1973, as the Nixon administration broke up in the Watergate storm, Ruckelshaus agreed to become acting FBI chief and then the Deputy Attorney General before resigning along with Elliot Richardson in the "Saturday Night Massacre." Russell Train, the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), succeeded him as head of EPA. Train would see the first significant reversal in the environmental movement's fortunes as inflation, unemployment, and the energy crisis forced the nation to re-prioritize its goals.

Train became head of an agency with credibility and an activist image. In the area of water pollution, its efforts forced industries and municipalities to take responsibility for their wastes. EPA became a "gorilla in the closet" for local and state enforcement officials. Sometimes the gorilla became a formidable adversary of states and municipalities when it targeted them for enforcement. In its effort to clean up city skies, the agency successfully encouraged clean air technology development. It also forced the American public to face the personal cost of pollution prevention--a cost considered too dear by many in the 1970s. Upon encountering conflicting scientific opinions regarding toxic chemicals in the environment, EPA policy makers chose to minimize the potential, long-term injury to environmental and human health at the expense of concerns that had figured prominently in traditional decision-making equations. EPA developed a strong, diverse constituency that enabled it to continue to direct national policy in a manner consistent with its mission--to protect the environment by abating pollution and thereby enhance the quality of American life.

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Changing Captains

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