William Ruckelshaus, picked by Richard Nixon as the first head of the U.S. Envir...
- William Ruckelshaus, picked by Richard Nixon as the first head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and as deputy attorney general before being fired for defying the president in the Watergate scandal, died on Wednesday at the age of 87, U.S. media reported.
In what was known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” in October 1973, Ruckelshaus, then deputy attorney general, and his boss, Attorney General Elliot Richardson, resigned rather than carry out Nixon’s order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was pursuing recordings of conversations that eventually brought down Nixon’s presidency.
Ruckelshaus was the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, created in 1970. He later noted that 16 major pieces of environmental legislation were enacted during Nixon’s years in office, when visibly filthy air and water forced action.The White House shifted Ruckelshaus in 1973 to acting director of the FBI and then deputy attorney general, plugging gaps as the Watergate scandal engulfed the Nixon administration.
But the White House cut Ruckelshaus’ requests for more money for the agency, and sided with industry against his efforts for stronger enforcement of the Superfund law to clean up toxic waste dumps, tighter controls on pollution causing acid rain and other regulations business and industry opposed.In an essay in 1995 on the EPA’s 25th anniversary, Ruckelshaus talked about the periodic beating the agency takes, with repeated attacks on its very existence.
He served as chairman of the board of the World Resources Institute, special envoy to the Pacific Salmon Treaty between the United States and Canada and on the President’s Council for Sustainable Development.
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