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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

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Trash filling the Skagit River in Washington State, 1971.

The Necessity of History for the EPA

Using evidence to remind us.
by Adam M. Sowards via Taking Bearings on March 5, 2025
Heavy machinery pushes coal at the Ramaco Resources Stonecoal Alma mine near Wylo, W.Va., on Aug. 8, 2017.
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Supreme Court Could Thwart EPA’s Ability to Address Climate Change

No matter the outcome of West Virginia v. EPA, the agency can take action to engage the public and make its data more accessible.
by Leif Fredrickson via Made By History on February 28, 2022
Demonstrator outside the U.S. Capitol protesting Scott Pruitt's confirmation.
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Would Firing Scott Pruitt Save the EPA?

Not unless the most dangerous assault in the EPA's history also ends.
by Leif Fredrickson, Jennifer Liss Ohayon, Christopher Sellers via Made By History on May 22, 2018
Crop duster flies low over a field.
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The Real Scandal at the EPA? It’s Not Keeping Us Safe.

Instead of banning dangerous pesticides, the EPA is actually loosening the rules on who can use them.
by Frederick Rowe Davis via Made By History on February 26, 2018
Sign marking an EPA superfund cleanup site.

The Environmental Protection Agency is Not the Nation's Janitor

How Scott Pruitt misunderstands the primary role of the EPA.
by Leif Fredrickson via The Guardian on July 28, 2017

The Other 100 Days: 5 Decades Before Trump, the New EPA Truly Made America Great Again

Once upon a time, the EPA had a golden age.
by Karen Hao via Mother Jones on April 28, 2017

How Reagan’s EPA Chief Paved the Way for Trump’s Assault on the Agency

Anne Gorsuch Burford — the mother of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch — cut its budget by a quarter and its workforce by 20 percent.
by Cally Carswell via The New Republic on March 21, 2017

What U.S. Cities Looked Like Before the EPA

Whatever the Trump administration does with Environmental Protection Agency, its urban legacy is clear.
by Andrew Small via CityLab on March 2, 2017
Purse in the style of the American flag.

The Power of the Purse

The first time a president withheld funds for something approved by Congress, it led to the Impoundment Control Act. We’ll soon find out if that law has teeth.
by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on February 12, 2025
Collage art of Supreme Court Justices.

Science Historian Naomi Oreskes Schools the Supreme Court on Climate Change

Scientists and lawmakers in the 70s knew more than we think they did about climate change and the impacts of fossil fuel regulations.
by Naomi Oreskes, Jessica McKenzie via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on August 15, 2024
Edmund Muskie with a concerned expression, next to a globe.

The Lost History of What Americans Knew About Climate Change in the 1960s

It wasn’t just scientists who were worried, but Congress, the White House, and even Sports Illustrated, newly unearthed documents show.
by Kate Yoder via Grist on August 5, 2024
Supreme Court of the United States.

Deference and Doomposting

Ironically, Chevron deference — which the conservative Supreme Court scrapped last month — began as a conservative legal tool.
by Christopher Deutsch via Contingent on July 14, 2024
Site of leaking underground gasoline tanks in Colorado.

How Environmental Law Created a World Awash in Toxic Chemicals

Putting the burden on the government to demonstrate significant risk of harm before regulating has allowed willful ignorance to undermine public health.
by William Boyd via LPE Project on May 28, 2024
Uncle Sam sleeping on the job, avoiding looking at x-rays of damaged lungs.

Asbestos Is Finally Banned in the U.S. Here’s Why It Took So Long.

The carcinogenic effects of asbestos have been known for decades. We should have banned it long ago.
by Naomi Oreskes via Scientific American on May 14, 2024
U.S. Supreme Court building.
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Why History Supports the EPA's 'Good Neighbor' Rules

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about the rule, but Congress originally intended to prioritize public health.
by Warren Dennis via Made By History on February 21, 2024
Graphic showing a gasoline tank (in green) leaking underground.

The Hidden Cost of Gasoline

Gas stations caused a $20 billion toxic mess — and it’s not going away.
by Kate Yoder via Grist on June 14, 2023
Chainlink fence in a desert with a danger sign warning of arsenic poison

The Toxic Legacy of the Gold Rush

Almost 175 years after the Gold Rush began, Californians are left holding the bag for thousands of abandoned mines.
by Leah Campbell via Gizmodo on May 15, 2023
The outline of a U.S. map with a fire symbol in the middle.

Why the U.S. Is Losing the Fight to Ban Toxic Chemicals

How the U.S. became a global laggard in chemical regulation.
by Sharon Lerner, Neil Bedi, Kathleen McGrory via ProPublica on December 14, 2022
People watching uranium mill waste blow in the wind.

The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater

A catalog of cleanup efforts at the 50-plus sites where uranium was processed for nuclear weapons, where polluted water and sickness were often left behind.
by Mark Olalde, Mollie Simon, Alex Mierjeski via ProPublica on December 3, 2022
Photo of E.P.A Headquarters, shot through a bush

How Government Ends

Through an assault on administrative agencies, the Supreme Court is systematically eroding the legal basis of effective governance.
by Lisa Heinzerling via Boston Review on September 28, 2022
Book cover of "Republican Reversal."

Conservative Ideology and the Environment

“Big money alone does not fully explain the Republican embrace of the gospel of more.”
by Jonathan H. Adler via Regulation on June 1, 2020

Wearing The Lead Glasses

Lead contamination in New Orleans and beyond.
by Thomas Beller via Places Journal on May 31, 2019

Bureaucrats as Activists: A Revisionist Take on Conservation

Career bureaucrats in the Trump administration are proving that bureaucrats can be dedicated to a cause other than themselves.
by Benjamin Heber Johnson via Process: A Blog for American History on May 23, 2017
Front entrance of the abandoned Florida Solite plant.

The Machine in the Garden

After decades of unchecked hazardous waste pollution, a Florida hamlet fights the developers eager to build homes there anyway.
by Jordan Blumetti via Oxford American on March 18, 2025
An illustration of the book "Silent Spring" on top of the earth.

This Book Helped Save the Planet—but Created a Very Harmful Myth

It radically shifted the way the world looked at the environment, but created a wave of misinformation we’re still dealing with today.
by Katie MacBride via Slate on September 29, 2024
The recycling symbol.

How the Recycling Symbol Got America Addicted to Plastic

Corporations sold Americans on the chasing arrows — while stripping the logo of its worth.
by Kate Yoder via Grist on June 12, 2024
Plastic kitchen containers in red liquid.

How 3M Discovered, Then Concealed, the Dangers of Forever Chemicals

The company found its own toxic compounds in human blood—and kept selling them.
by Sharon Lerner via The New Yorker on May 20, 2024
Richard and Pat Nixon plant a tree on the White House lawn on Earth Day, 1970.

The “Carbon Dioxide Problem”: Nixon’s Inner Circle Debates the Climate Crisis

A collection of records from the Nixon Presidential Library and other sources on the internal debates Nixon advisors were having about climate change and environment.
by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Henry Kissinger, Hubert Heffner, U. Alexis Johnson, Rachel Santarsiero via National Security Archive on April 26, 2024
Two men carrying a weakened hunger striker.

Remembering the 1932 Ford Hunger March: Detroit Park Honors Labor and Environmental History

On March 7, workers at the Ford Rouge River plant marched for better working conditions. Almost a century later, a quiet park honors their memory.
by Paul Draus via The Conversation on April 2, 2024
The Interstate 10 junction with Highway 90 near downtown New Orleans, Louisiana.

A New Orleans Neighborhood Confronts the Racist Legacy of a Toxic Stretch of Highway

In New Orleans, plans compete for how to deal with the harm done to minority communities by the Claiborne Expressway.
by Drew Hawkins via KFF Health News on March 15, 2024
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