In 1970, in response to ineffective environmental protection laws enacted by states and communities, President Richard Nixon created the EPA to fix national guidelines and to monitor and enforce them. The EPA was initially charged with the administration of the Clean Air Act, enacted to abate air pollution primarily from industries and motor vehicles; the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act, and the Clean Water Act, regulating municipal and industrial wastewater discharges and offering grants for building sewage-treatment facilities. By the mid 1990s the EPA was enforcing 12 major statutes, including laws designed to control ocean dumping, safe drinking water; insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides, and asbestos in schools. One of the EPA’s early successes was an agreement with automobile manufacturers to install catalytic converters in cars, thereby reducing emissions of unburned hydrocarbons by 85 percent. The EPA’s enforcement was in large part responsible for a decline of one third to one half in most air-pollution emissions in the United States from 1970 to 1990, and during the 1980s the pollution standards index improved by half in major cities; significant improvements in water quality and waste disposal also occurred. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, providing billions of dollars for cleaning up …show more content…
However, it also introduced new rules. The EPA’s accomplishments during this period included the requirement that all primary and secondary schools be tested for asbestos starting in 1982, the reauthorization of the Clean Water Act in 1987, the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act with amendments that called for reductions in sulfur dioxide generation and the phasing out of chemicals that deplete the ozone layer, and a rule requiring the removal of all remaining lead in gasoline starting in