Environment

Published — April 22, 2013 Updated — May 19, 2014 at 12:19 pm ET

Earth Day 2013

Steps forward, problems still

Introduction

Today marks the 43rd anniversary of Earth Day, an invention of Gaylord Nelson then a senator from Wisconsin that triggered the environmental movement.

Back in 1970, as the Earth Day Network notes, “Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity.”

Today, as officials with the Environmental Protection Agency are quick to point out, things are better. An EPA study predicts, for instance, that 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act will prevent some 230,000 premature deaths by 2020. In a speech last year, then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the Clean Water Act “has kept tens of billions of pounds of sewage, chemicals and trash out of our waterways.”

Big problems remain, however. The EPA has become a lightning rod for forces hostile to regulation. The 37-year-old law under which it regulates toxic chemicals is widely acknowledged to be ineffective, yet attempts at reform have failed. Emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases in 2011 while down 7 percent from 2005 – reached the equivalent of 6,702 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

The Center for Public Integrity’s environment team will continue to highlight these and other issues, as it has in projects such as “Toxic Clout” and “Poisoned Places,” links to which can be found below.

How industry scientists stalled action on carcinogen

Louisiana sinkhole shatters calm, prompts buyouts on the bayou

EPA unaware of industry ties on cancer review panel

From homemaker to hell-raiser in Love Canal

Community coated in black mist — until citizens fought back

Few criminal cases target big air polluters

Despite lone inspector’s efforts, persistent haze envelops Iowa town

In smelter town, decades of dirty air, disease — and bureaucratic dawdling

Where regulators failed, citizens took action — testing their own air

Industry wields sway over air pollution rules, enforcement

Many Americans left behind in the quest for cleaner air

Read more in Environment

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