Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970

[2] According to EPA author Jack Lewis, the decade of the 1960s fostered a general consensus of the American public to increase protection and betterment of the environment.

[2] Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, which is widely credited with helping to launch the environmental movement in the United States.

[4] The oil spill polluted a 60-mile stretch of coastline, harming marine wildlife and damaging the local fishing economy.

In his message to Congress President Nixon stated that the national government was "not structured to make a coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that grows our food."

According to Nixon, the assigned duties and responsibilities regarding pollution control for the environment were spread out among many discrete departments, creating a structure that often defied "effective and concerted action."

[8] The 1970 plan was originally approved under special Congressional procedures but its legality was called into question due to the Supreme Court's decision in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983).