--- title: The Environment Used to Be a Non-Partisan Issue description: When the EPA began its work, exactly 45 years ago, a Republican president embraced the environmental cause canonical: https://time.com/4127200/epa-founded-1970/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-02T11:00:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:54:35.525Z article:section: History og:title: The Environment Used to Be a Non-Partisan Issue og:description: The EPA began its work, exactly 45 years ago, under a Republican president og:url: https://time.com/4127200/epa-founded-1970/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d304215c4d6e060/698872c6ab6d777a096a7513/epa.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Pollution in 1970s og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Environment Used to Be a Non-Partisan Issue twitter:description: The EPA began its work, exactly 45 years ago, under a Republican president twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d304215c4d6e060/698872c6ab6d777a096a7513/epa.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # When the Environment Was a Non-Partisan Issue > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Dec 2, 2015 11:00 AM UTC  A plant in Saltville, Va., that for decades dumped its calcium chloride effluent into the North Fork of the Holston River which flowed past the plant. In 1970 the company announced it could not meet the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) water pollution standards and would close the plant. A plant in Saltville, Va., that for decades dumped its calcium chloride effluent into the North Fork of the Holston River which flowed past the plant. In 1970 the company announced it could not meet the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) water pollution standards and would close the plant. Robert Alexander—Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Dec 2, 2015 11:00 AM UTC As world leaders meet in Paris to discuss the future of the Earth and its climate, environmental issues tend to play out [along partisan lines](http://www.gallup.com/poll/182105/concern-environmental-threats-eases.aspx?utm%5Fsource=Politics&utm%5Fmedium=newsfeed&utm%5Fcampaign=tiles) in the United States. Things were far different 45 years ago, when the Environmental Protection Agency began operations on Dec. 2, 1970\. The agency was created by President Richard Nixon, a Republican who had made the environment one of his signature causes. “The great question of the ’70s is,” Nixon had said in his State of the Union address earlier that year, “Shall we surrender to our surroundings or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land and to our water?” And, TIME pointed out shortly after, the nation’s reaction, on both sides of the aisle, was a sigh of relief: --- > “” --- That “visible decay” was key: pollution by the end of the 1960s was something you didn’t have to be a scientist to see. Astronauts had reported observing smog from space. [Rivers caught fire](http://time.com/3921976/cuyahoga-fire/) within view of large cities. In some places, the snow fell black. (Since then, many of the most noticeable kinds of pollution—[air](http://www2.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning-air-and-improving-peoples-health#pollution) quality, for example—have improved, though invisible pollution still exists.) The [first Earth Day](http://time.com/3822575/earth-day-history/) was held, and polling [showed](http://time.com/vault/issue/1971-01-04/page/27/) that pollution was seen as the most serious problem facing American communities. The establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency was a matter of consolidating 15 parts of five agencies that had previously been working–and often competing–on their own. As TIME [explained](http://time.com/vault/issue/1970-11-23/page/49/), the hope was that a strong federal agency would make it so that environmental regulations were not state-by-state, a system that had previously left states fearful that enacting their own rules would make them lose business. The new EPA was well-funded at $1.4 billion—which, adjusted for [inflation](http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1.4&year1=1970&year2=2015), is more than the EPA’s [2015](http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-03/documents/fy15%5Fbib.pdf) budget. Despite the increase in partisanship and the loss of funding, the EPA still has reason to celebrate its 45th birthday: its first chief[ just received ](http://time.com/4116945/presidential-medal-recipients-2015/)a Presidential Medal of Freedom. **_Read more about environmentalism in 1970, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Fighting to Save the Earth From Man](http://time.com/vault/issue/1970-02-02/page/60/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4127200/epa-founded-1970/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4127200/epa-founded-1970/"},"headline":"When the Environment Was a Non-Partisan Issue","datePublished":"2015-12-02T11:00:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T12:54:35.525Z","description":"The EPA began its work, exactly 45 years ago, under a Republican president","url":"https://time.com/4127200/epa-founded-1970/","keywords":["Environment","politics","EPA","nixon"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d304215c4d6e060/698872c6ab6d777a096a7513/epa.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2d304215c4d6e060/698872c6ab6d777a096a7513/epa.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Pollution in 1970s","caption":"Pollution in 1970s","creditText":"Robert Alexander—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/environment/","name":"Environment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4127200/epa-founded-1970/","name":"When the Environment Was a Non-Partisan Issue"}}]}] ```