Why we need a strong EPA

Created in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency helped heal a nation of smog-smothered cities, polluted lands and contaminated waters — and the agency remains vital today

In April 1970, millions of Americans came together for the first Earth Day, gathering in their communities to call attention to environmental concerns.

There was toxic lead in gasoline. Smog choked cities, making the air so dirty that you could see it. Industrial pollution filled waterways like Ohio’s Cuyahoga River, which had famously caught fire — over a dozen times.

But many people believed the country could do better, and their advocacy made a difference. In late 1970, President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency.

Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River on fire (left) and a modern-day view (right).
Ohio’s Cuyahoga River was once so polluted that it caught fire (left) numerous times. A 1969 fire helped spur the country to action on the environment, and the river is making a comeback thanks to transformational environmental protections.

The agency’s 1972 decision to ban DDT in response to legal action by EDF was among the first of countless vital EPA actions to protect human health and the environment.

Let’s look back at what the EPA has helped accomplish — and ahead at how we can ensure the next generation enjoys these protections, too.

What is the EPA?

The EPA is a federal agency whose mission is to protect human health and the environment. This includes working to make sure people across the country have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink and communities that aren’t contaminated by toxic pollution.

The EPA implements environmental laws passed by Congress. The agency’s responsibilities include setting and enforcing limits for many types of pollution that harm people, wildlife and the environment.

What does the EPA do?

Historically, it was the EPA that banned DDT, implemented bedrock clean air and water protections, and phased out leaded gasoline. The EPA has also been crucial to global environmental progress like protecting the ozone layer and cutting the pollution that drives global warming.

Smog clouds a city street, shrouding residential buildings and small trees as a person in a tie walks by.
In this photo produced in 1972 as part of the EPA’s Documerica series, industrial smog shrouds part of Birmingham, Alabama. Credit: LeRoy Woodson

Today, the EPA funds cleanups of many brownfields — properties like former factories, gas stations or dry cleaners where hazardous substances may be present. And it’s the EPA that oversees cleanups of some of the most highly polluted sites across the country — places where hazardous waste has been dumped or poorly managed.

The agency also continues to protect people against exposure to toxic chemicals in air, water and more. Here are a few vital EPA protections that EDF helped secure in recent years:

EDF’s attorneys, scientists and advocates work hard to make rules like these as enduring and protective as possible. Attempts to halt several recent protections have already been denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Let’s protect what matters, together

We need a strong EPA that stands up to polluters

Since the EPA was created in 1970, it has made the country’s air, land and water cleaner, protecting people’s health and keeping the places we cherish beautiful — all while the United States enjoyed a growing economy and expanding population.

But important environmental protections are in jeopardy.

Under the first Trump administration, the EPA frequently put the interests of polluters first. Trump’s EPA worked to weaken protections that were in place to keep people safe from air pollution, toxic chemicals and more. The administration also proposed deep cuts to the EPA’s budget and tried to keep important research out of EPA decision-making.

Dismantling environmental protections is reckless. People across the country care deeply about the environment, and we need to be moving forward — not backward — when it comes to protecting the people and places we love.