Local View: Jobs and the environment can and should work together From the column: "To truly take advantage of this moment, finding collective solutions is the only way to succeed." Written By: Dan Olson and Paul Austin | 10:00 am, May 2, 2021 × The challenges ahead of our country in these days and weeks following Earth Day 2021 are no less alarming than those on the first Earth Day in 1970. That was when President Richard Nixon put forth a groundbreaking plan to address pollution and create the Environmental Protection Agency. In the years that followed, Congress passed, with bipartisan support, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.