245. How 20 Million Americans Got a Republican President to Build the EPA

Today, no guest - just Matt, telling one of the strangest and most hopeful stories in American politics. It's the story of the first Earth Day, when 20 million Americans - about one in ten of the entire country - took to the streets on a single day in April 1970, and changed the course of the nation in just two years.

Matt traces how that one day produced the EPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act - and uncovers the part most people have forgotten: nearly all of it happened with overwhelming support from both parties, under a Republican president. He tells the story of the conservation-minded Republican who co-chaired the first Earth Day, the 374-to-1 House vote for clean air, and the day Congress overrode a presidential veto to protect clean water. Then he asks the question at the heart of it all: how did environmental protection go from a shared American value to a partisan football - and what would it take to get that common ground back?

This episode is part of our “250 for 250” series - solo episodes marking America's 250th anniversary by revisiting the moments in our environmental history when ordinary people changed everything.

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ABOUT THE “250 FOR 250” SERIES

In 2026, America turns 250 - and A Climate Change reaches its 250th episode. To mark both, host Matt Matern is recording a run of solo episodes that revisit the moments in American environmental history when ordinary people changed everything: the fights, the movements, and the laws that built modern environmental protection. The throughline is simple - caring for the air, water, and land isn't separate from the American story. It is the American story.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Key references for this episode:

• The Origins of EPA (U.S. EPA): https://www.epa.gov/history/origins-epa
• Gaylord Nelson Promotes the First Earth Day (U.S. Senate): https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Gaylord_Nelson_Promotes_the_First_Earth_Day.htm
• Nixon's Clean Air Act signing remarks (American Presidency Project): https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-signing-the-clean-air-amendments-1970
• Clean Water Act veto & override (U.S. Capitol Visitor Center): https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/artifact/president-nixons-veto-message-s-2770-october-17-1972
• A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
• A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
• A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids