In its founding statement, Environmental Action pledged to focus attention on poor people, African-Americans, anti-war groups, workers and the 1970 Congressional elections.
[citation needed] The staff went from organizing Earth Day into lobbying for political change on Capitol Hill, advocating for meaningful new environmental laws and pressing for corporate reform through media efforts and demonstrations.
[20] As part of the Coalition for Clean Air,[21] Environmental Action lobbied for legislation engineered by Senator Edmund Muskie (D-ME) and John Sherman Cooper (R-KY).
[citation needed] In conference committee, Muskie's Senate version dominated a weaker House bill, and President Nixon signed the Clean Air Act into law on December 31, 1970.
[24] By the mid-1960s, however, significant environmental impacts were coming to the fore, including massive fuel consumption, potential damage to the upper atmosphere, and a continuous sonic boom emanating in a 15-mile (24 km) wide wake behind the plane.
[30] In rural areas the highways were popular, but by the late 1960s many Interstates had begun to penetrate inner cities, destroying neighborhoods, adding pollution, and generating political resistance.
Local anti-highway groups sprang up in dozens of locations from Boston to Seattle calling for changes to the Highway Trust Fund, an exclusive source of highway-only dollars from Washington.
[citation needed] In 1984 Environmental Action revealed that EEI had unlawfully skimmed from utilities' dues $15 million that should have gone to the non-political Electric Power Research Institute.
[citation needed] With insurmountable corporate opposition in Congress, the organization focused on public education and state advocacy, resulting in the passage of bottle bills in Vermont (1973), Maine and Michigan (1976), Connecticut, Delaware and Iowa (1978), Massachusetts (1982), New York (1982), and California (1987).
In 1978, in order to pressure the president to act, Environmental Action organized the "Cans to Carter" campaign, resulting in the postal delivery of an avalanche of 50,000 empty soda and beer cans—complete with educational wrappers and a U.S. postage stamp—from around the country to the White House mail room.
[citation needed] Environmental Action also sought to reduce all forms of over-packaging and solid waste, and it played a role in the enactment of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976.
A few months later, Environmental Action collaborated with the UAW (and the United Methodist Church) in an unprecedented labor-environmentalist gathering in Onaway, Michigan, where 250 participants agreed to build a labor–environment alliance and to focus attention on the need to move automotive technology beyond the internal combustion engine.
Two years later, Environmental Action staff helped create a new organization, Environmentalists for Full Employment, to undertake research and advocacy into the many ways that pollution control can provide good jobs.
Working with a coalition of peace and religious organizations, Environmental Action helped defeat the bomber's appropriation, with President Carter canceling the B-1 on June 30, 1977.
Environmental Action prided itself on challenging the motives and methods of corporations and politicians; in the early years, its most popular column was "Debunking Madison Avenue," which exposed fraudulent and misleading advertisements.
"[50] Environmental Action published several specialized newsletters on individual topics, including The Concrete Opposition, Garbage Guide, Power Line, Exposure, and Waterways.
[citation needed] Rights to the Dirty Dozen name were given to the League of Conservation Voters and in November, 1996 the organization's files were donated to the environmental archives at the University of Pittsburgh.
[citation needed] Utilizing grassroots activism, it raised a beacon against rampant consumerism by focusing on its severe environmental effects, from electricity usage to throwaway bottles and cans.
While Environmental Action ultimately closed, it also served as a training ground for scores of young activists who went on to become leaders in such organizations as the Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, Common Cause, Center for Science in the Public Interest, League of Conservation Voters, Solar Lobby, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Federation of American Scientists, Smart Growth America, Trust for Public Land and Worldwatch Institute, as well as numerous federal and state agencies, newspapers and magazines, foundations, universities and other non-profit organizations.