Earth Day In The 1970s

Earth day was a huge protest. That people all over the country participated in, during the spring of 1970. Roughly 20 million people participated in the protest addressing concerns of the air and water pollutions, the pesticides that were harming all wildlife, the population boom, and much more. After this event happened in 1970. The government needed to take action to satisfy the people needs. They created the Clean Air Act (1970), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Clean Water Act (1972), and much more. People from all over were tired of being worried about what was in their water. They were tired of never seeing the sun. They were even tired of breathing in the air that was riddled with all the fumes that came from cars and factories.
However, based on the documentary that was watched earlier in the semester. There were a lot of people that disagree with this movement, they thought that it would hurt the country is some way. The example that was used in the Earth Days documentary of people not wanting to follow the laws and regulations that were placed by the government after the first Earth Day were the loggers that were clear cutting out west. In the 60s and 70s people went out to where these loggers were and said, “Stop clear cutting” (Earth Days, 2010). However, these loggers refuse to because their economy was solely based on the money they made from logging. If they stopped. They wouldn’t have money to keep their communities going (Earth Days, 2010). Also mentioned in Merchant’s book, American Environmental History, she states in chapter 9 “The legislation victories of the environmental movement in the 1970s came back as a financial and ideological reaction, leading to failures in environmental regulation in 1980s” (Merchant, 2007, p. 200). What came down to every conflict from the environmental movement was the fact that people wouldn’t make as much money as they would with out these regulations. This also was inside the letters that Congressman Latta received as well, when it came to the Toxic Substances Control Act as it was being processed through
This act helped build regulations that businesses and people had to follow that allowed for cleaner air. However, six years into this law first being passed, there were a lot of people that did not like how this amendment was gradually becoming. In 1976 Congress was trying to adjust the Clean Air Act to where there was less restriction on pollutions that were created. Carol Tobias a resident of the Bowling Green area, was one of those citizens that were concerned and happy about different amendments that congress were soon to vote on. She asks congressman Latta to oppose the Chappell amendment which was to weaken the protection of clean-air areas (Tobias, 1976). A company that was concerned about the Clean Air Act during this time was Coppus Motors. They urged that Congressman Latta did not vote for the amendments that were going to be added to the Clean Air Act. The president of the company, Harry Coppus, stated in the letter “In my opinion, Congress should not seek to adopt automotive exhaust emission standards any more stringent than those already recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency” (Coppus, 1976). He thinks that with stricter regulations, this will affect the economy worse than what the current regulations already do. Mr. Coppus thought that his company would lose money due to those stricter regulations (Coppus, 1976). Once