MY TURN: Lived history and the hollowing of American manufacturing
I was a school-age kid in the 1960s, when environmental destruction was impossible to ignore. I remember the Cuyahoga River catching fire in Ohio in 1969 and Lake Erie being declared a "dead lake" due to pollution. Acid rain swept across the Midwest, damaging crops and forests. These weren’t abstract problems — they were visible, immediate and dangerous.
In response, President Richard Nixon — a Republican — signed the National Environmental Policy Act and the updated Clean Air Act in 1970. Two years later, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, overriding Nixon’s veto with broad bipartisan support. These laws led to meaningful improvements in air and water quality and remain some of the most effective environmental legislation in our history.
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