Joe Turk, one of my mentors as a young man, writes as follows:
Tomorrow will mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Clean Air Act by Nixon. An Act lobbied against by: Big Oil, Coal, the Auto Industry, Electric Utilities, etc. In spite of this intense pressure, the Bill passed the Senate unanimously and the House with one no vote. Can you imagine anything like that happening today? The Act mandated reductions in emissions that weren’t even possible with the available technology, but those legislators remembered how innovative American Industry became during the war and were convinced they could do it again. So what happened?
Cars are 99% cleaner than they were in 1970, mostly from removing lead from gasoline, but also using catalytic converters to remove NOx. Our air is 75% cleaner and was improving every year until Trump and his band of “experts” came along. Today’s twenty somethings have probably never even heard of acid rain. They take clear skies and clean rivers for granted.
I remember when Lake Erie was declared “Dead”, never to recover, but recover it did. I remember being in Cleveland in ’69 when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire.
Imagine the pressure brought to bear on Members of Congress. The Big Three auto companies had not yet been decimated by foreign cars and were told to dramatically increase their mpg and decrease their emissions. Coal produced probably 70% of our electricity and these generators were told to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions to almost zero and NOx by a significant amount, making nuclear and natural gas plants more attractive. States were ordered to make all their major rivers usable for recreation by 1983. All this with Vietnam in full war mode.
But persevere they did, Baker and Dole on the Rep side and Muskie and Eagleton on the Dem side, along with others, brought forth a bipartisan Bill which made the US the healthiest of the developed nations. Maybe we can get back to that, and think of the future we’re leaving to our children.
This is excellent, Joe. My assessment as to what happened is that:
a) Big Money became so intrusive in the law-making process that it eventually managed to achieve a stranglehold on any legislation that might affect a certain particular industry, and this caused contention between our representatives. Now, some have been bought by big pharma, while others are owned by Wall Street or the auto giants, and they’ll do anything necessary to please their paymasters. The will of the people has long since ceased to have any effect on their behavior.
b) The media saw dollar signs as well, and realized that cooperation and handshakes don’t sell advertising minutes on Fox and CNN. Only hard-biting conflict reaches that purpose.
As to the future we’re leaving our kids, most of these people simply couldn’t care less.
Joe Turk, one of my mentors as a young man, writes as follows:
