groups lessening their public criticism of corporate
polluters. Some corporations with poor environ-
mental records also saw gifts to environmental groups
as a means to improve their tarnished reputations.
For example, by the end of the decade, Waste Man-
agement, a company with numerous violations of
Environmental Protection Agency regulations on its
record, not only was paying the resulting fines but
also was making substantial contributions to several
environmental organizations. The company’s presi-
dent, Philip Rooney, would join the Audubon Soci-
ety’s board of directors in 1991. Other corporations,
such as Exxon, also saw opportunities to improve
their images by contributing to environmental orga-
nizations or by having executives join organizational
boards. They purchased advertising to inform the
public of their largesse and to tout their environ-
mental credentials. These contributions did not turn
environmental organizations into puppets of their
corporate sponsors, but they did result in some orga-
nizations lessening their criticism of those sponsors.
With an increased emphasis on fund-raising and
membership acquisition, some environmental orga-
nizations became more bureaucratic, employing
larger staffs and requiring more money to pay their
salaries. Some of the new employees were devoted to
membership services, such as publishing slick maga-
zines for members. Other staffers became part of the
congressional lobbying effort that the environmental
groups increasingly turned to in order to counter
Reagan administration efforts to weaken existing en-
vironmental regulations. Some environmental groups
also engaged in substantial public relations campaigns
designed to maintain the environmental awareness of
the American people. Some of these campaigns were
devoted to improving the groups’ own reputations in
the face of conservative critics, who portrayed the
groups as composed of wild-eyed radicals. The groups
therefore sought to represent themselves as responsi-
ble critics of dangerous administration policies. An
ideological tug-of-war existed, in which each side de-
picted itself as representing normal, mainstream atti-
tudes and depicted its opponent as wildly out of touch
with authentic American values.
Although litigation had been used in the past by
some environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club,
an increasing number of organizations employed this
tactic during the 1980’s, as they tried to stop the Rea-
gan administration’s rollback of environmental regu-
lations or to force the White House to take appropri-
ate actions, such as cleaning up hazardous waste sites.
In many ways, in fact, the tactics of the major environ-
mental organizations during the 1980’s were those
of mature political actors. These tactics emphasized
working within the system, rather than engaging in
direct action or making pointed criticisms of industry.
Not all environmental groups chose this approach.
Greenpeace, for example, continued its use of dem-
onstrations and grassroots activism to try to influence
public opinion and policy. During the decade, some
grassroots movements also sprang up to emphasize
racial or gendered aspects of environmental policies.
In some areas, activists began to protest against the
placement of waste dumps in African American or
Native American communities. The mainstream en-
vironmental groups initially did little to help groups
protesting environmental racism for fear of detract-
ing from their project to secure the enforcement of
existing legislation. By the end of the decade, how-
ever, some of the major groups with a signicant his-
tory of grassroots activism—such as the Sierra Club—
began to support the local groups and to adopt as-
pects of their agendas.Mass Movement or Organized Institution? During
the 1970’s, there had been a significant grassroots
environmental mass movement. It had not always
been organized effectively, but it had involved a
great many people, who had participated in an ac-
tive and enthusiastic fashion. During the 1980’s,
some of this enthusiasm was lost, as environmental-
ism became more institutionalized. Students who
had supported environmental change in the 1970’s
often turned their attention to striving for economic
success in the 1980’s. In some cases, environmen-
tal groups expanded but at the cost of their sense
of grassroots involvement, as decisions came to be
made in their Washington offices, often with a look
over the shoulder at their financial backers. Indeed,
by the end of the decade, all but four of the Group of
Ten had moved their headquarters to Washington,
and two of the remainder were contemplating such
a move. Although retaining some of their earlier
missions, some of the mainstream environmental
groups appeared little different from other trade as-
sociations centered in Washington.
Also during the 1980’s, however, a philosophical
movement with roots earlier in history began to be-
come more influential. The movement, known as
“deep ecology,” asserted that all species of life have338 Environmental movement The Eighties in America