EPA and industries

Q: How would you characterize your relationship with the industries you were asked to regulate as EPA Administrator?

MR. TRAIN: It was pretty hard going. The agricultural industry, for instance, was always very difficult to deal with, and almost always opposed pesticide regulations. They also had very vocal allies on Capitol Hill, which made life difficult.

Manufacturing industries were a good deal more difficult in those days than today. Even then, attitudes within industry were evolving; but since that time there has been a generational change. Younger people who are more accustomed to environmental issues and values have assumed positions of responsibility. But in my time we had some awfully tough struggles with the steel industry, particularly U.S. Steel (now called U.S.X.). They fought us tooth and nail over coke oven emissions, fugitive emissions, all those things. They had more lawyers than we did. It was hard. They had plants in so many locations, it was very difficult for us to fight them on all fronts. I eventually closed down U.S. Steel in Birmingham; we actually shut down their ovens. It came to that kind of head-on collision.

The chemical industry was very divided over the Toxic Substances Control Act. But I will say that from our point of view, there was considerable leadership shown by the DuPont Company. Again, I would say relationships were often strained, but they were evolving. They were changing. I think more and more, industry was seeing that they had to do these things.

The auto industry always fought tooth and nail against any additional standards, either on emissions or fuel efficiency. I don't ever remember the auto industry or any related manufacturers saying, "That's something we could do." It was always, "We can't do it."

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EPA and industries

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