Growing out of the death and destruction of the American War in Vietnam, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was formed in 1970 with overarching federal powers to assure American mothers and fathers that the air their children breathe and the water in which they fish, swim and drink from and over which they have no personal control, is safe. Today, 52 years later, EPA has strayed so far from its founding precepts of setting national technology-based pollution standards on a timely basis, working closely with state and local government to facilitate capacity building, ensuring delegated states do their job in holding polluters to account for those national standards, and using enforcement discretion and work with cooperating industry to tap into their knowledge to regulate pollution cost-effectively to reduce and prevent pollution, it is unrecognizable. Only by stepping back and examining EPA's history contained in
Gorilla in the Closet
, particularly from its early years when sweeping national environmental laws were rolled out, can we understand how these precepts to EPA's organization and relationship-building were blown up, resulting in an unaccountable, overburdened federal agency of today that cannot do its job because it does not align limited resources and priorities with states and oversee their operations (a metaphor for gorilla in the closet). EPA is tethered to whichever political party occupies the White House. It cannot have a strategic focus because of the ever-revolving door of its political leadership. It needs to be brought up to the times.