page_title: United States Public Health Service reorganizations of 1966–1973
section_title: Breakup of Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service
hierarchical_section_title: United States Public Health Service reorganizations of 1966–1973 / Reorganizations / Breakup of Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service
caption_attribution_description: English: View of President Richard Nixon signing the Clean Air Act of 1970 at the White House. Looking on are William Ruckelshaus, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (left), and Russell E. Train, Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality.
context_page_description: Between 1966 and 1973, a series of reorganizations occurred of the United States Public Health Service within the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The reorganization by 1968 replaced PHS's old structure with two new operating agencies: the Health Services and Mental Health Administration and the Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service. The goal of the reorganizations was to coordinate the previously fragmented divisions to provide a holistic approach to large, overarching problems. However, the new agencies came to be seen as unwieldy and bureaucratic.
  These agencies would be short-lived. CPEHS was broken up in 1970, as most of it was transferred out of PHS to form the core of the new Environmental Protection Agency. HSMHA was broken up in 1973. This left PHS with six operating agencies, a configuration substantially similar to the current one as of 2020.
  In all, PHS had at least seven discrete reorganizations in as many years. The quick succession of reorganizations created several operating agencies that existed for a short time, as individual components were shifted between them.
context_section_description: The breakup of CPEHS was a consequence of the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, as the result of a desire by the new Nixon administration to gather all federal environmental activities into a single autonomous regulatory body.  During 1970–1971, most of the CPEHS was moved out of PHS and HEW to form the core of the newly created Environmental Protection Agency.  This was accomplished in two phases, with the HEW reorganization order of January 16, 1970 and Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970.
  Some CPEHS components remained within PHS.  The Food and Drug Administration became its own operating division within the PHS, causing CPEHS to be briefly renamed simply the Environmental Health Service.  On the other hand, the entire National Air Pollution Control Administration was moved to EPA.
  The Environmental Control Administration's five bureaus were spit between PHS and EPA.  PHS retained the Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health, which moved into HSMHA; part of the Bureau of Radiological Health, which moved into FDA; and the Bureau of Community Environmental Management, which was later absorbed by EPA and CDC in 1973.  The Bureau of Solid Waste Management, Bureau of Water Hygiene, and the rest of the Bureau of Radiological Health were transferred to EPA in 1971.
caption: President Richard Nixon signing the Clean Air Amendments of 1970.  Along with the National Environmental Policy Act, it provided the context in which Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970 was enacted, creating the Environmental Protection Agency and leading to the demise of CPEHS.
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