The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.
Stacks emitting smoke from burning discarded automobile batteries, photo taken in Houston in 1972 by Marc St. Gil, official photographer of recently founded EPA
Same smokestacks in 1975 after the plant was closed in a push for greater environmental protection
Ruckelshaus sworn in as first EPA Administrator
Headquarters of the EPA at the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building
Rachel Carson
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Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book Silent Spring (1962) are credited with advancing marine conservation and the global environmental movement.
Carson's childhood home, the Rachel Carson Homestead, in Springdale, Pennsylvania, in November 2009
Carson and Bob Hines researching off the East Coast in 1952
Statue of Carson at the Museo Rocsen in Nono, Córdoba, Argentina