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We owe you an explanation.

June 19: An important update for readers in the United States.

You deserve an explanation, so please don't skip this 1-minute read. It's Friday, June 19, and you only had a small chance of seeing our message. This year, Wikipedia has seen fewer visitors and fewer new supporters, so your visit today means a lot. We hope that Wikipedia has given you at least $2.75 of knowledge recently. If everyone who finds Wikipedia useful gave $2.75, we'd hit our goal in a few hours.

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History

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Background

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Stacks emitting smoke from burning discarded automobile batteries, photo taken in Houston in 1972 by Marc St. Gil, official photographer of recently founded EPA Same smokestacks in 1975 after the plant was closed in a push for greater environmental protection

Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, the US Congress reacted to increasing public concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment.[6][7][8] Senator James E. Murray introduced a bill, the Resources and Conservation Act (RCA) of 1959, in the 86th Congress. The bill would have established a Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President, declared a national environmental policy, and required the preparation of an annual environmental report. The conservation movement was weak at the time and the bill did not pass Congress.[9]

The 1962 publication of Silent Spring, a best-selling book by Rachel Carson, alerted the public about the detrimental effects on animals and humans of the indiscriminate use of pesticide chemicals.[10]

In the years following, Congress discussed possible solutions. In 1968, a joint House–Senate colloquium was convened by the chairmen of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Senator Henry M. Jackson, and the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Representative George P. Miller, to discuss the need for and means of implementing a national environmental policy. Congress enacted the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and the law was based on ideas that had been discussed in the 1959 and subsequent hearings.[11][9]

The Richard Nixon administration made the environment a policy priority in 1969–1971 and created two new agencies, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and EPA.[12] Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1, 1970. The law established the CEQ in the Executive Office of the President. NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The "detailed statement" would ultimately be referred to as an environmental impact statement (EIS).[6]

Establishment

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[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Ruckelshaus_Swear

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