The oil spill along the coast of Santa Barbara, California is reminding many in the region of a far larger spill in the same area in late January of 1969. That spill, which measured about 3 million gallons of crude oil, created a 35-mile wide oil slick and killed thousands of birds and sea life
Importantly, it also sparked activists to push for sweeping environmental laws, and helped usher in the modern environmental regulatory regime currently in place.
In the wake of the spill, which alerted Americans to the dangers of poorly regulated offshore oil drilling, laws including the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act were passed. In addition, President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, the same year of the first Earth Day. Read more...
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