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in the 60s of the last century In the United States it was very special and what happened there had an effect on the rest of the world. For example, due to the scandal Watergate, which forced Richard Nixon to resign from the presidency. The press, television news and radio were not subject to reprisals or public condemnation by men in power. They were the ones who publicized the atrocities of the US army in Vietnam. The participation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Henry Kissinger in the overthrow of President Salvador Allende. Another character exposed in the media was Robert McNamara, for hiding documents that demonstrated that the United States would never defeat the people of Vietnam.
Also at the end of the decade, an unemployed actor: Ronald Reagan, set out to achieve the most important job: in the White House, from where his wife Nancy later began the fight against drugs, when she was an addict. It is Reagan, before Trump, who promises to return greatness to his country, and turn it into the beacon of world freedom. And something absurd: a mediocre film, Rockywon the Oscar and the awards for best director, best editing and best screenplay. The classics were relegated All the president’s men, Taxi driver, Power that kills and This land is mine.
But also in that decade in the neighboring country an important event occurred during Nixon’s mandate: the creation, in 1970, of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, for its acronym in English). It was the result of the consensus between Republican and Democratic representatives in the face of the clamor of research centers, the most prominent health specialists and the population, about the need to regulate motor vehicle emissions, avoid water contamination by industrial waste of all types, notably some highly toxic, and guarantee cleaner air from particles and other pollutants. One of terrible quality, the one that was breathed in the city of Los Angeles.
Environmental protection became a national priority at the beginning of that decade. But it was not easy to establish, since the most polluting industries (hydrocarbons and coal, in the first place) influenced Congress and Nixon, and his successors Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, to reduce the scope of the new EPA regulations. They argued that the costs of ensuring fewer pollutants were very high and would be reflected in the prices of their products. They also paid environmental “experts” to prove that their factories did not pollute. Or that their waste was harmless.
But with Reagan’s ascension to the White House in 1981, the obligation to protect public health began to be reduced because the president saw it as a serious obstacle to achieving an increase in economic activities and guaranteeing supremacy in the markets. And the regulations established by previous administrations regarding the environment were opposed to that purpose. On several occasions he argued that the increase in public spending and excessive government regulation of the business sector, as was the case with those that most affected the environment, had slowed prosperity.
His principle above all of the above was summed up in the saying that “the government was not the solution to all the country’s problems, but the problem.” He then eliminated the EPA’s compliance office to limit “unnecessary regulation.” It covered 80 percent of measures to enforce environmental regulations. And to complete the negative picture, he appointed Anne Gorsuch Burford, a state legislator from Colorado, who had always voted against the cleanup of toxic waste and controls to reduce vehicular pollution, to head the EPA.
The principle of reducing government intervention in environmental and health issues as much as possible was followed with its variants by the administrations chaired by the Republican party. And with greater rigor the two of Trump, who has drastically reduced the role of the EPA. This has increased the damage to public health and the environment in the United States and the world, as we will see next Monday.
