Thursday, October 1, 2026
In 1970, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created, William Ruckelshaus, its founding administrator, said “We will live up to the President's challenge that ‘the 1970s absolutely must be the years when America pays its debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of its air, its water, and its living environment.’"
Ruckelshaus (1932-2019) had been a federal Justice Department Assistant Attorney General before he was tapped to lead the newborn EPA. Just two years later, he banned DDT, a widely used, long-lasting pesticide based on the “preponderance of evidence” of its lasting harm, thus establishing science as the basis for environmental law and policy.
The New York Times obituary of him notes that “Once at the helm of the EPA, it didn’t take Ruckelshaus long to conclude that ‘as a society we know very little about what we are doing to ourselves.’”
A rising environmental movement supported Ruckelshaus as he initiated the required use of catalytic converters in cars and unleaded gas in their tanks, and as he established the nation’s first air quality standards.
That same environmental movement caused bipartisan majorities in Congress to override Nixon’s veto of the Clean Water Act in 1972. Nixon thought sewage treatment was too expensive.
By 1973, the EPA was well established, and Ruckelshaus was called back to the Justice Department, where he soon became Deputy Attorney General.
You might think that his pioneering role at EPA would have cemented his fame, but it’s what came next that is more often remembered: He, along with his boss, Attorney General Elliot Richardson, resigned rather than follow Nixon’s order to fire a special prosecutor who was unraveling the scandal of Watergate that implicated President Richard Nixon in a series of crimes.
Those crimes would have violated the integrity of the next election and American democracy. This is remembered as the “Saturday night massacre.” Within months, Nixon resigned rather than face certain impeachment by both Republicans and Democrats.
Eventually, Ruckelshaus moved to this Washington, collaborated with Billy Frank Jr. on creating the first real plan to save Chinook salmon, and became a leader of the Puget Sound Partnership, which aims to save all the species in Puget Sound. In these roles, he also successfully promoted reliance on science, and collaboration among agencies, jurisdictions, and tribal, state and local governments.
The stark contrast between his integrity-driven leadership in the Justice Department and at the EPA and the people who hold those positions today is jaw-dropping. Even after living through the Nixon administration’s corruption and criminality, Ruckelshaus and his colleagues would find today’s versions of those institutions so systematically and thoroughly degraded they are unrecognizable.
The Justice Department has now been staffed not to defend the constitution, or our land, water and air. Instead its mission is to support policies and programs that value profitable resource extraction at the expense of a livable, sustainable future. The Elliott Richardsons and William Ruckelshauses of the world need not apply.
The EPA now actively denies science, especially as it relates to climate change. It proposes to remove protection of small streams and wetlands that host a critical food web for thousands of species. Its leader hopes to limit the reach of the Endangered Species Act whenever and wherever it might limit oil drilling, mining, or other profit-making ventures. And its leader — our president — wants to allow for more drilling in more places, including coastal waters and the Arctic.
Today the lack of respect for good government, decency, and the rule of law is more extreme than it was during the Nixon years. But the obsessive, paranoid and power-hungry behavior of presidents Nixon and Trump is appallingly similar. The difference is that Trump is causing more and deeper damage.
There are many reasons for this, but the most fundamental is that the American public has not yet put a stop it. That’s on all of us.
But Bill Ruckelshaus — a man people in Washington state are proud to count as one of us, and who has a major local institute named in his honor, was a Republican. So was Elliott Richardson. And so were many in the House and Senate who were poised to impeach Nixon. He resigned because he knew even his own party judged his behavior criminal and unconstitutional. To continue to support him would betray their oaths of office.
Where are today’s honorable Republican leaders — local, state and national _ who see just as plainly that to continue to support Trump is to betray their own integrity? We know such Republicans exist. And with Democrats in the minority, we urgently need them if we are to restore our democracy and revive our shared commitment to the common good, not just for ourselves, but for generations to come.
The message that honorable Republicans need to hear is this: Please stand up.
8 comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here
Annierae
Yes, where have they all gone.
Friday, November 28, 2025 Report this
Carolyn Byerly
This is a great reminder of another problematic moment in our history and the courageous leaders like Ruckelshaus who took ethical stands. I also admired his wife Jill Ruckelshaus, a good feminist leader who helped to shape second wave feminism in the 1970s. Thanks for this article, Jill.
Friday, November 28, 2025 Report this
JW
"We know such Republicans exist. And with Democrats in the minority, we urgently need them if we are to restore our democracy"
Please show how, using specifics, that 1) Democracy has apparently fallen and needs restoration and 2) What that restoration looks like. Please show specific examples.
Friday, November 28, 2025 Report this
Musicfan12b
I am standing. I am hopeful. I am aware of the systematic, deliberate steps being taken by the current president.
He should be ashamed. He should be surrounded by people shouting for his impeachment. He should be aware that the future of America rests on the shoulders of We the People.
We are here. We are listening. We are ready.
Thank you Jill for your ability to craft meaningful articles.
Friday, November 28, 2025 Report this
JulesJames
I've been standing up. Supporting good candidates where I find them. Yet I'm standing up against reputation assassination and censorship as the Democratic playbook. I question giving drugs to addicts. I am "heartless". I am also "racist". And "anti-science." A "Nazi". Anti-Alphabet-American because child sexual organ mutilation doesn't seem to me conducive to long-term mental health. And every other derogatory imaginable -- at the expense of actual counter-arguments. After a while, I resent the airs of superiority. The "ownership" of government by one party. Donald Trump is an awful evil man. I could never vote for him. But I understand and feel the groundswell resentment he has harvested into votes. Only 40% of the registered voters turned out for this year's primary. That means the fringes voted, not the middle. How do I re-engage the middle when the Left has become so good at painting "EVIL" all over anyone not toeing to their party's line?
Friday, November 28, 2025 Report this
chrispc2u
Power, greed and a cult mentality have sucked the ethics and morals out of the Republican Party. Today’s sycophants (and there’s a lot of them) aspire to be tomorrow’s tyrants. The strains are beginning to show however with an almost bipartisan unanimous vote to release the Epstein files and a searing exit missive against the Republicans by the Queen of Sycophants Marjorie Taylor Green who’s having a convulsive case of buyer’s remorse and who has finally realized Trump is not for the people, he’s for his own family and his wealthy donors. There’s rumors of more Republicans quitting before the midterms because they’re disgusted by Trump. At least the GOP will be weakened after the midterms. No one ever claimed democracy wasn’t messy.
Friday, November 28, 2025 Report this
CobraCommander
JW - Project 2025 is the dismantling of American democracy and its reformation into an authoritarian surveillance state run by billionaires.
https://www.project2025.observer/en
Sunday, November 30, 2025 Report this
ShomshorFamily
Thank you, Jill. I was unaware of his connection to this Washington.
Monday, December 1, 2025 Report this