By Evaggelos Vallianatos (2009)
The EPA came into being in December 1970. President Richard Nixon created this new agency because of the massive failure of the government to protect nature and humans from the unkind touch of toxic chemicals and radiation. But Nixon's first priority was fighting the war in Vietnam, not environmental protection.
So the EPA was put together in a hurry from the failed pieces of larger government organizations, especially the pesticides office of the discredited U.S. Department of Agriculture, which made agribusiness and its lubricants, pesticides, possible.
Nevertheless, the EPA made a serious effort to fulfill its mission, protecting man and the environment from all "unreasonable" risks -- a tall order that lasted no more than four years.
The EPA warned the country it was a mistake to be addicted to pesticides. It banned DDT in 1972, the granddaddy of all agrotoxins, the insect poison that was the metaphor for silent spring: nearly wiping out the golden eagle and several other birds.
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