Costle, Douglas M. (Douglas Michael), 1939-2019

Douglas M. Costle was born July 27, 1939 in Long Beach, California. He received an A.B. from Harvard University in 1961, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1964. From 1964 to 1965 he was a trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, and from 1965 to 1967 served as an attorney for the Economic Development Administration, Department of Commerce. In 1967, he entered private practice and was associate attorney for the law firm of Kelso, Cotton, Seligman and Ray in San Francisco, and from 1968 to 1969 was a senior associate at the urban policy planning law firm of Marshall Kaplan, Gans and Kahn, in the same city. From December 1969 to December 1970 he was Senior Staff Associate, Environmental and Natural Resources, for the President's Advisory Council on Executive Organization, where he headed the study which recommended the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1971, he was a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. From January 1972 to July 1975 he was Deputy Commissioner, then Commissioner, of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. From March to July 1975 he was also a consultant to EPA on land use policies. From July 1975 to 1977, he was Assistant Director for Natural Resources and Commerce at the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, and prior to his EPA nomination was on President Jimmy Carter's transition team for government organization. On February 16, 1977, he was nominated to be EPA administrator and served from March 7, 1977 to January 20, 1981. Under his direction, the EPA followed the path toward a "quiet victory." He began by hiring 600 new employees. During his administration, the agency worked to support its regulations with scientific data. He also delayed imposing certain new auto standards, allowed the construction of a nuclear power plant, and compromised with U.S. Steel on pollution reduction. He later became Chairman and Distinguished Fellow with the Institute for Sustainable Communities.