Established through the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) are independent agencies, whose chairperson reports directly to the president.
Both the NEA and NEH are organized along similar lines. Each has a chairperson appointed for four years, selected by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The respective chairs are advised by the National Council for the Arts and the National Council for the Humanities, panels of citizens recognized for their achievements and knowledge of the arts or humanities, and appointed by the president to six-year terms. These bodies meet quarterly to review grant applications and advise the chairs, who have the final word on policy and the awarding of grants.
During the 1970s the budgets for the two endowments grew quickly, each topping the $100 million level by the end of the decade. For much of the period the NEA was considered the more successful of the two. With well-known exhibits and strong administrative leadership, the NEA maintained a high profile.
During the Reagan administration, both endowments suffered major budget cuts, and the NEH came under harsh criticism from political conservatives, who questioned its accomplishments and economy. Reagan’s first chairman, William Bennett, worked to focus the mission of the endowment with his report, To Reclaim a Legacy, calling for a return to a canon of great books in the Western tradition. Lynne Cheney, Reagan’s second NEH chair, worked to encourage private donations to augment the remaining federal funding. Both of these endeavors proved successful in lessening some of the conservative criticism.
The NEA remained prominent during the 1980s, but also came under increasing attack from social conservatives as elitist. Opponents created an uproar by noting that NEA funded the homoerotic photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and the artwork of Andres Serrano, most notably Piss Christ, and conservatives lashed out at the “obscene” subject matter funded by the taxpayers. Actually, neither artist directly received any money from the NEA. A museum had received a grant to exhibit Mapplethorpe’s work, and Serrano had received a grant from a local arts council, which had an NEA grant to use as it saw fit. Regardless, the public outcry against the NEA from the political right damaged its support. Meanwhile, the political left was questioning the NEA’s grants as too narrowly distributed to “established” artists, thereby excluding artists from ethnic minorities.
During the 1990s, the NEA continued to come under fire. By extension, the NEH suffered from the NEA’s controversy. Former NEH chairs Bennett and Cheney attacked both endowments and called for their abolition. When the Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994, there were serious threats against the endowments. Both endowments suffered major budget cuts. In 1997 the House OF Representatives voted to abolish the NEA, but the Senate insisted that the endowment continue to receive funding. Congress has been less hostile to the endowments in the last few years, and their future seems more secure than it has for over a decade.
The NEA continues to receive federal funding. Of the thousands of grants it has made since 1966, only a handful have created any controversy. The NEA has encouraged the growth and democratization of the arts, grants are made to every state, and the number of artists in the United States has grown from approximately 700,000 in 1970 to 1.8 million in 2001. All of this has been accomplished at the cost, in 1995, of 64 cents for every American.
The NEH has provided more than $3 billion in fellowships and grants since its inception. In 1991 the NEH supplied 64 percent of funding to scholars in the humanities. In addition, the endowment has funded the publication of the papers of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Dwight Eisenhower, and Thomas Edison, as well as sponsoring documentaries on the Adams family and the Civil War, along with many other projects.
See also art and architecture.
—John Korasick
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (1969) Rachel Carson’s 1962 seminal work, Silent Spring, launched the modern environmental consciousness movement in the United States. As scientific evidence increasingly supported findings of unhealthy levels of toxins in human bodies and in the environment, a conservation, environmentalism, and environmental policy movement emerged in the late 1960s. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is the foundation for contemporary environmental policies. President Richard M. Nixon signed it into law on January 1, 1970, in response to polls that showed strong mainstream support for federal protection of the environment.
NEPA’s mandate required all federal agencies to protect the environment. As part of this, the Council on
Environmental Quality, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were created. During the course of the 1970s, important environmental legislation was enacted, including the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Occupational Health and Safety Act (1970), the Water Pollution Control Act (1972), the Endangered Species Act (1973), the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (1980). The result of these laws was the addition of millions of acres to the federal wilderness system, the requirement of environmental impact assessments on major construction projects, the cleaning up of American lakes and streams, and the preservation of several species of wildlife native to the Americas.
Both the James Earl Carter, Jr., and Ronald W. Reagan administrations pursued a policy of deregulation of the economy, and making government more economical and efficient through agency reorganization. As a result, both the Carter and Reagan administrations unsuccessfully sought to disband the Council on Environmental Quality. The Reagan administration, in particular, sought to reorient environmental policy to favor business. In doing so, Reagan cut the EPA by a third. At the same time, the EPA pursued a policy of “voluntary compliance” by businesses in enforcing environmental regulations. While many conservatives called for the repeal or amendment of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Reagan administration was hesitant to undertake such action. It would have been unpopular in Congress, and moreover, the environmental movement had grown in power over the last decades. In 1960 there were approximately
150,000 members of environmental organizations, whose budgets totaled $20 million; by the 1980s, environmental organizations claimed 8 million members with budgets totalling $500 million.
The William J. Clinton administration also called for a review of environmental policy. One result was that under Clinton, the Council on Economic Quality became the White House Office on Environmental Policy. In 1994 Republicans won the House with a platform called “Contract with America,” which called for a reassessment of environmental regulation and enforcement. Although legislation was enacted that mandated economic impact studies of environmental enforcement, the Republican-controlled Congress did not repeal the Environmental Policy Act. The George W. Bush administration eased environmental regulations in a number of areas, including standards of arsenic levels in drinking water. The administration insisted that it remained committed to a pro-environmental policy, but one that seeks to promote economic growth, business development, and sound protection of the environment and natural resources.
—Michele Rutledge
World History
