How U.S. presidents impacted the environment

Hope ya’ll are hanging on for the ride because February is more than halfway over.

Although February is a short month, it is jam-packed with a lot of important holidays and remembrances. On Monday, we celebrate Presidents’ Day. Designed for the shared celebration of Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays, the day has come to celebrate all the presidents. It was from U.S. History class that I first came to understand the environmental movement that had bits and pieces shaped by some very important presidents.

The first that comes to mind is Theodore Roosevelt. Known as the “conservation president,” Teddy was a great hunter and conservationist. His moniker “Teddy” is synonymous with the stuffed animal shaped like a bear, because Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear cub during a hunting trip since it was unsportsmanlike.

Before assuming the presidency, Teddy was witness to the overhunting, deforestation and the loss of biodiversity that had been happening at a rapid pace since the country was first colonized by European settlers. At the turn of the century, the railroads had crisscrossed the plains and the American bison had suffered great losses as the species was nearly extinct. Wolves had been demonized (and still are today) but due to the writings of scientist/ naturalist Aldo Leopold, some had realized that the loss of an apex predator was detrimental to the health of the full ecosystem.

John Muir had been writing from treetops in the Sierras and had formed the Sierra Club which became a voice for the preservation movement and rallied for Yosemite National Park. There was a national security issue in place: and that was to maintain the vast amounts of natural resources that seemed to be on a fast track to be squandered by industrial tycoons. Teddy Roosevelt was also dedicated to the stopping of the great robber-baron industrialists, who were monopolizing resources.

The growing interest in being outdoors, in protecting wild places and flora and fauna, on the wise use of resources lead to TR’s creation of the US Forest Service, and he subsequently used his authority of designated public lands as national forests – protected from commercial use or development. The National Conservation commission was established, and 41 states adopted their own conservation commissions.

Many other presidents have added to the liturgy of our unique U.S. environmental legacy, but the next most important is Richard Nixon. Unlike Roosevelt who had been involved with the movement intimately, Nixon’s motivation was political, and the call to environmental action at that time was completely bipartisan and he needed to stay in the good graces of his constituents. At that time, American industry was running unchecked, pouring smoke into the air and toxic sludge into the waters of the country. The use of pesticides was causing food chain accumulations of toxins most visible to bird populations unable to sit on brittle eggshells. Rachel Carson’s work in Silent Spring (1962) had sounded a national alarm and the need for regulation was a national issue. Nixon’s creation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1970 created the ability to enforce the Clean Air Act from 1963 by the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1972 a more enforceable Clean Water Act was signed.