Net Zero crumbling in the U.S.
By
Duggan Flanakin
|
March 31st, 2025
Voters last November rejected the grandiose plans of the Biden Administration to abandon gasoline- and diesel-powered engines, natural gas hot water heaters and other appliances, and coal- and gas-fired power plants. But who foresaw the total reversal of the anti-business regulatory climate of the past fifty years?
When Richard Nixon announced the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, it was the heyday of environmental protest. Earlier in the year, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson had launched the nation’s first Earth Day, hailed as a national awakening by a diverse mix of New Leftists, conservatives, businessmen, citizens, and anticommunists.
Rachel Carson’s seminal book Silent Spring in 1962 had sparked concerns over the environment in an America that a decade earlier had emerged from World War II as the planet’s dominant economic power. To maintain control over the burgeoning movement, Nixon consolidated responsibilities of 15 different federal entities and appointed Wiliam Ruckelshaus as the first EPA administrator.
Just days later, Nixon signed the Clean Air Act of 1970, and two years later he signed the Clean Water Act of 1972. Ruckelshaus’ first move was to order Cleveland, Detroit, and Atlanta to come into compliance with water quality standards, and in 1972 he fulfilled Carson’s call for a ban on DDT.
https://www.cfact.org/2025/03/31/net-zero-crumbling-in-the-u-s/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=net-zero-crumbling-in-the-u-s&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=net-zero-crumbling-in-the-u-s
