Back When Republicans Cared About The Environment
William Ruckelshaus was the EPA Administrator under Presidents Nixon and Reagan. In a recent interview he fondly recalled the days when protecting the environment was a bipartisan cause.
The Reagan Administration was less sympathetic than the Nixon Administration to environmental regulation, environmental laws, but nowhere near where the Republican Party has come today. There [was] still a lot of bipartisan support for environmental protection back in the ’80s during Reagan’s two terms. But that’s all changed today. The issue divides almost entirely along partisan lines.
The public demand for action has declined so that those people in Congress in Republican districts are not feeling any pressure from their constituents to do anything about the environment. Quite the contrary, they’re being told, and they’re feeding … by their own rhetoric that these things are overblown, that regulation is hurting the economy and that we ought to back away from environmental protection.
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By: Stuart Shapiro
Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.
4 responses to Back When Republicans Cared About The Environment
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rg9rts February 5th, 2015 at 15:53
Bipartisan??? Then what happened Bill???Discovered there was more money in trashing the environment?? That is the sad part Now we have that fiasco of Keystone..
rg9rts February 5th, 2015 at 16:53
Bipartisan??? Then what happened Bill???Discovered there was more money in trashing the environment?? That is the sad part Now we have that fiasco of Keystone..
ExPFCWintergreen February 6th, 2015 at 21:57
Not the same Republican Party. There was GOP beta version: “Lincoln.” After the usual developmental glitches, we got a full-on software upgrade to “McKinley.” Unfortunately, “McKinley” had a bug – TR and the “Bull Moose” defection. But the flaws in the software were fixed by WWI and we got GOP v. 2 “Lodge.” Unfortunately, that software got trounced because it was too isolationist, so the designers went back and upgraded, giving us so a post-WWII reboot and rolling out GOP v. 3 – “Ike.” The National Security Republican OS lasted through several versions, right up to “Nixon.” But there were so many hardware changes in the early- to mid-1970s — 18-year-old vote, Roe v. Wade, feminism — that the designers gave us an all-new OS, GOP v. 4: “Reagan.” Even *that* couldn’t keep up with changes in the marketplace, so after a few tweaks under GHW Bush, we got to the current software — GOP v. 5 (AKA, “Gingrich”). “Gingrich” is an optimal OS for obstruction, pandering, and dog-whistling. So comparing “Gingrich” to “Nixon” is sort of like comparing the Mac OS to an IBM PC XT.
ExPFCWintergreen February 6th, 2015 at 22:57
Not the same Republican Party. There was GOP beta version: “Lincoln.” After the usual developmental glitches, we got a full-on software upgrade to “McKinley.” Unfortunately, “McKinley” had a bug – TR and the “Bull Moose” defection. But the flaws in the software were fixed by WWI and we got GOP v. 2 “Lodge.” Unfortunately, that software got trounced because it was too isolationist, so the designers went back and upgraded, giving us so a post-WWII reboot and rolling out GOP v. 3 – “Ike.” The National Security Republican OS lasted through several versions, right up to “Nixon.” But there were so many hardware changes in the early- to mid-1970s — 18-year-old vote, Roe v. Wade, feminism — that the designers gave us an all-new OS, GOP v. 4: “Reagan.” Even *that* couldn’t keep up with changes in the marketplace, so after a few tweaks under GHW Bush, we got to the current software — GOP v. 5 (AKA, “Gingrich”). “Gingrich” is an optimal OS for obstruction, pandering, and dog-whistling. So comparing “Gingrich” to “Nixon” is sort of like comparing the Mac OS to an IBM PC XT.