Reagan administration

In addition, manufacturers obtained language allowing federal standards to preempt state efforts in most cases. Pursuant to this legislation, the Carter Administration proposed appliance standards in mid-1980, but was unable to issue a final rule before the Reagan Administration took over. 

The movement toward federal appliance efficiency standards stalled in the 1980s as the Reagan Administration, which opposed standards from an ideological perspective, began. That administration s approach was made evident by its refusal to finalize the DOE s 1980 standards proposal, and in 1983, by the issuance of a federal rule that determined that no standards were necessary. Both the delay and the no standard determination were challenged by NRDC, with the support of several large states, through the courts. 

OTS has focused its control efforts on two other chemicals in addition to PCBs. Working in conjunction with the Food and Drug Administration, EPA used TSCA s Section 6 to prohibit the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as propellants in nonessential aerosol products. An advanced notice of proposed rulemaking under TSCA outlined approaches for restricting other uses of CFCs, but the attempt to deal with other CFC uses has been abandoned by the Reagan Administration. 

January 28 Responding to the growing drug activity and violence in Miami, the Reagan administration creates a special interagency task force headed by future president George Herbert Walker Bush. 

April 14 A report of a congressional subcommittee chaired by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) concludes that the U.S. antidrug effort had been compromised by the Reagan administration s ignoring evidence of drug trafficking by its Nicaraguan contra allies. 

In 1984, Congress passed amendments to the RCRA that are known as the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA). The HSWA were filled with specific deadlines and requirements to ensure that the USEPA implemented the RCRA (Rosenbaum, 1995). In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration cut USEPA spending and effectively slowed the work of the agency... 

Acid rain was implicated in the sterilization of lakes in North Eastern United States and in Eastern Canada. Studies showed much of the air pollution responsible for acid rain originated in the United States. The Canadian government requested the United States reduce its emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. In response, the Reagan administration promised to spend 2.5 billion on a program of research and demonstration (read this to mean study). The aim was to reduce pollution from coal fired power stations. 

Working groups under the MOI picked up where the BRCG had left off, and eventually produced reports (United States-Canada 1983). The MOI, however, ultimately proved not to be the kick-start to the negotiation process that Ottawa, at least, had intended it to be. In early 1982 Canada proposed formally that SO2 emissions be reduced by 50% in both countries. This target was designed to achieve a level of deposition of no more than 20 kg of wet sulphate per hectare per year in areas sensitive to acidification. The United States rejected the proposal, firmly. The Reagan administration made clear its conviction that action was premature and, for the rest of the decade, consistently took the position that more research had to be done on the problem of acid rain before control actions could be considered. 

Cook, Richard C. (2006). Challenger Revealed An Insider s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age (Thunder s Mouth Press New York). 

Because records checks were used instead of site visits in about 15 percent of inspections and because a construction site inspection counted each subcontractor as a separate inspection the total number of workers visited by OSHA inspectors dropped by over 40 percent during the Reagan administration. During the first Reagan term, 1981-1984, OSHA inspections covered only about two to three million workers annually. 

This traditional reserve may have been compounded by the experience of the yellow rain controversy, in which the evidence, reports and testimony proferred in support of the Reagan administration s charges were subjected to a withering critique. Douglas Feith, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, despaired of the critics who focused upon a thin slice of the total body of evidence and say that it does not prove the case , and who insisted upon standards of proof unrealistic even for scientific laboratories, let alone the international diplomatic community . He contended that these demands for absolute proof reflected The mentality that fears the effects on the arms control process of highlighting treaty violations more than it fears the harm caused by the violations themselves... 

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