Milestones: Rollbacks of clean air laws thwarted

‘Corrections days’

On March 23, 1995, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich announced his plan to establish procedures for identifying “the dumbest things the federal government is currently doing” so Congress could “just abolish them.” He called them “corrections days.”

Not a terrible idea on the face of it.

But the speaker’s targets included such “dumb” things as clean air protections, as well as clean water safeguards, toxic waste cleanups and asbestos removal.

At an event with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner, Speaker Gingrich called the EPA the government’s “biggest job-killing agency.” As an alternative, he envisioned businesses, not the EPA, taking the initiative on clean air and other issues.

The speaker’s majority whip, Rep. Tom DeLay (Tex.) was even more extreme, referring to the EPA as the “Gestapo” and pledging to rescind the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments that his fellow Texan, George H.W. Bush, signed into law (and which PIRG campaigned vigorously for).

1.2 million Americans objected

The attacks on clean air and environmental protections at first flew under the radar. After all, the Republican Party had not enjoyed a majority in the U.S. House since 1952. Gingrich’s Republican Revolution was big news.

At doorsteps, on college campuses, on the phone and elsewhere, PIRG organizers and our allies began to raise awareness of the urgency of stopping the rollback of America’s environmental protections.

During the weekend of February 24-26, a thousand students came together at the University of Pennsylvania for the Free the Planet conference. It was “thrilling to see over 1,000 students from 35 states speak out for the environment,” said Pete Maysmith, then field director for U.S. PIRG. “Now is the time to act to save the environment and these are the people who will do it.”

Many of those students became PIRG canvassers that summer, gathering petition signatures demanding that Congress stop its efforts to roll back 25 years of environmental progress.

On Nov. 1, our coalition delivered 1.2 million signatures to Congress. U.S. PIRG’s Karpinski told the Associated Press, “These are the most signatures gathered on environmental issues in the history of the environmental movement.”

Defense when necessary

For the most part, the nation’s bedrock environmental protections were left unscathed by the speaker’s “corrections” and other attacks. By 1996, Speaker Gingrich had shifted his rhetoric, calling for a “new environmentalism” based on sound science.

Meanwhile, the Stop the Rollbacks campaign solidified PIRG’s reputation on the national stage as a group that delivers what we promise – including the largest share of the 1.2 million signatures gathered by a single group within the environmental coalition.

More importantly, the experiences gained and lessons learned in the Stop the Rollbacks campaign provided a strong foundation for subsequent efforts to thwart attacks on our environmental protections during the George W. Bush administration and the Trump administration. The price of environmental protection, to paraphrase Jefferson, is constant vigilance. PIRG, together with our environmental allies and, as of 2008, our partners at Environment America, remains on watch.

About this series: PIRG, Environment America and The Public Interest Network have achieved much more than we can cover on this page. You can find more milestones of our work on clean air below. You can also explore an interactive timeline featuring more of our network’s clean air milestones.