The EPA: A Historical Overview and Current Challenges

President Trump's appointee at the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, is making a lot of changes at the EPA. Including cutting 31 environmental rules regarding climate change pollution, electric vehicles, and power plants. Environmentalists say this is a gutting of regulation. 

GOP lawmakers deem the EPA a job killer that does nothing but burden businesses with regulations. In the eyes of the American public, the environment ranks low on the list of priorities the government should address.

But flash back to the late 1960s, and it's a very different story. The environment was a bipartisan issue, and a Republican president created the EPA in 1970 in response to public pressure. So how did we get here? How did the environment go from universal concern to political battleground — with the EPA caught in the crossfire? 

In a piece we first aired in 2017, Brooke considered the tumultuous history of the EPA, its evolving relationship with the public, and its uncertain future.

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