>> each week, american history tv's "reel america" brings you archival films give you context for today's public affairs issues. president trump has vowed to undo regulations he says are costly and hinders the economy. up next, a 1982 pbs documentary by wvia media in pennsylvania about regulation of air pollution in national parks. the film details the process of turning general language into a -- general language in a 1977 amendment to specific regulations, revealing behind-the-scenes negotiations and debate between epa regulators and environmental and industry interests. this is 50 minutes.

>> funding for this program was made possible by grants and the u.s. department of education. ♪ >> when the cornerstone of this building was still new, thomas jefferson said the execution of our laws is more important than the making of them. i am e.g. marshall. thomas jefferson would have little notion of how far the process of lawmaking would advance in the century and a half that followed, or how complex it would become. within these walls, congress still passes our laws, but today this is only the beginning. determining how the laws are made workable is not the job of congress. this task falls to a powerful but little-known group of bureaucrats known as regulators.

to some, they are more powerful than many of the lawmakers themselves. what they do affects nearly every part of our daily lives and has become one of the hotly debated aspects of government. our story begins in 1980, the last year of the carter administration. in a residential section of the nation's capital, david hawkins begins his daily commute. ♪ hawkins is a federal regulator for the environmental protection agency. his job, like the ever-changing face of the city, is the result of the relentless growth of our government. a century ago, it was relatively simple. under the great capitol dome, laws were passed and the nation followed. but today, our laws are many and

complex. every morning, this city's grand avenues are filled with an army of 100,000 federal workers, regulators whose task are two enforceo implement and the will of congress. to those who defend it, regulation is an absolute necessity to making modern society run. but to its detractors, these agencies represent a bureaucratic monster that generates thousands of unnecessary rules, producing a stranglehold on our economy, our lives, even the air we breathe. ♪ a political appointee of the carter white house, hawkins was chosen to regulate our air pollution laws.

he will be a key figure in a clean-air battle to unfold in the months ahead. a lifelong environmentalist, he has strong opinions on our government's obligations. >> regulation tends to be developed in response to abuse. the food, drug, and cosmetic act thea response to wars in food industry -- horrors in the food industry. securities laws were a response to people losing their shirts in the stock market. it is easy to say you're in favor of less regulation, but if you ask people if they are in favor of dirtier air, they will say no. >> these programs are finally beginning to work. they are actually causing people to have to spend money to clean up what they've been putting into the air for free all these years. >> as his day begins at the environmental protection agency, so does that of a natural

adversary across town. henry nickel is a lawyer for an industry which feels the weight of david hawkins' regulations. he is the washington representative for a group of power producers in the west. to him, regulation creates as many problems as it solves. >> because the utility industry is building and operating large industrial facilities which produce a great deal of energy and therefore require the the use of a great deal of fuels, they are number one on the list oftentimes for regulation. ♪ the principal problem is the atmosphere of uncertainty that exists. you are talking about investments of hundreds of millions of dollars, and every time they build a plant, only -- all the environmental requirements that applied to the last plant they built have

likely been changed. >> in the next two decades, a power demands of the nation will double. as the population grows, so does the threat of a future energy crisis. >> we need energy to run our economy, and any regulatory action that can affect that must be very carefully considered in light of the key importance of developing energy independence. >> and in the american west, our possible solutions to energy problems for the next 200 years. coal for electricity and synthetic fuel. shale to release the u.s. from its crippling dependence on foreign oil. but there is a problem. facilities to convert these riches will threaten another resource, one serving the human spirit. ♪ >> the national parks are held as something sacred.

i don't remember home, but -- i don't remember whom, but someone referred to them as islands of hope. >> in washington, barbara brown is concerned. the government will be inundated with some 90 new permits to put power plants and strip mines in the shadow of the parks. this could be the biggest battle of her career. >> what really brought me to this job was i took a backpacking trip for the first time in my life, and i was totally stunned by the beauty of the grand canyon. ♪ the grand canyon is there because it is a natural thing of wonder. i have seen it when it is crystal-clear and all the colors shimmer, and i've seen it when

it is very difficult to even see a rock on the other side of the gorge. air pollution is probably the number one threat to our national parks. there is a problem, and if something's not done about it, there might not be national parks as we know them today. ♪ >> one of the first to see the problem is a former park ranger and now naturalist photographer, gordon anderson. from a remote corner of bryce canyon, utah, his is a remote voice in the wilderness. >> throughout the year i make several trips to bryce canyon to photograph. my favorite time to visit is the winter. the blanket of snow as a new dimension to the colors in the canyon. when the founding fathers of the

national park system back in 1916 set aside parks to be preserved, they could not anticipate 50 years later these parks would be threatened by enormous power plants operating just outside their boundaries. >> anderson have been taking pictures of the western parks for years. as time progressed, he felt that his photographs were revealing an increasing amount of air pollution entering from nearby power plants. could these scenic wonders survive the effects of large-scale energy development? five years before, in the fall of 1975, he began a one-man crusade to save these natural treasures. in our nation's capital, with the help of a small band of environmentalists, friends of the earth, anderson brought his

photographic evidence to petition congress. the goal of the lobbying effort, find a key legislator who would help. congressman paul rogers, author of the monumental 1970 clean air act, was now revising the law. although a great deal had been accomplished in cleaning up the nation's air, the anderson slides were alarming evidence that parks were still unprotected. >> the navajo power plant in 1974. we flew over the plant to photograph the plume from the air and smoke was blowing into the grand canyon. isn this happens, the vista reduced to less than the width of the canyon. when pollution finds its way into this huge basin, and the view becomes something more like this. this is a candlestick peak when

it is being impacted by air plants, itrom power looks like this. >> in december of 1976, rogers and his staff went west to see for themselves. here they experienced the rugged beauty of our national parks and followed a trail of pollution that led from the grand canyon to the massive navajo power plant 50 miles to the north. from the four corners plant, they saw a screen of nitrates that had nearly obliterated part of the navajo reservation. to the lawmakers, the nation's energy needs were clearly conflicting with another national value, the preservation of our parks as we know them. >> i am not sure that the monitoring that you did is necessarily all-natural. in other words, it could well be man-made, as well, could it not?

>> in the process of amending over 100 new sections of the clean air act, one section would read, "congress hereby declares as a national goal that the prevention of any future and the remedying of any existing impairment of visibility in national park areas." this is section 169-a. its final passage is swift. but the process does not end here. congress has neither the technical knowledge nor the staff to turn its desires into reality. this is where the regulators take over. those scores of agencies formed by congress in the past century to enforce the will of the regulators. formed in 1970, epa was given the mandate to mount an attack on sources of pollution.

one of the newest and largest of regulatory agencies, it regulates all sections of the clean air law. our story deals with one small part of the law, the threat of air pollution in national parks. but since the lands near the parks are rich in resources, regulation here sets the stage for a classic struggle between government and free enterprise. ultimate decisions to shape the regulation from this point will be made by david hawkins. as chief of air pollution programs for epa, his task is to implement the intent of congress, but the clean air law has swamped his office was work, and while 100 new sections must be regulated, clean air in the parks is left untouched for two years. to get things moving again, gordon anderson and friends of the earth take the matter to federal court.

the judge orders the epa to draft a proposed regulation within six months and complete the job in one year. ordinarily, the task should take twice that long. with his environmentalist sympathies, hawkins will want a strong interpretation of the law, one that will in his eyes achieve results. with a vaguely-worded statute such as this one, to many he becomes the real lawmaker. >> when a group of people start to think about the actual details of translating a law into specific requirements, questions often come up. it is my job to provide those answers. the approach i took was, we are implementing a clean air act, and when in doubt we should be detecting the environment. -- protecting the environment. >> dave hawkins' power at this

moment is a real concern to henry nichols. he knows it could cost his clients $90 million. a stricter implementation could force them to spend as much as $3 billion. laws, way congress rights they are not models of clarity. there are a spectrum of interpretations. you want to look at the facts and pick the one that makes the most sense. >> what the procedural posture will be in the rebuttal comments? >> the sad part is that it is easier to identify the needs of the program then it is to implement them. >> in their stand against hawkins, the upcoming months will bring intense work for nichols and his staff. to modify the regulation, he will form alliances with sympathetic agencies and members of congress. for the court battles he will create, to delay or even kill the rule, he must constantly

sift through all available evidence. to the utilities, more regulation could mean delays in constructing new facilities, new -- huge additional costs, and a climate of uncertainty caused by changing rules. >> the regulations in question would affect the licensing of every new facility in the west. if industry does not participate, they could face rules that could not be met. >> at national park service headquarters, there is worry that future energy development will bring more air pollution within the parks. >> if the courts are going to overturn it, then that is the opportunity to look toward alternative ways for protection. >> barbara brown must map a strategy for the months ahead. her immediate problem is that the national park service is not a regulatory agency. she and her staff will have to

fight even to be heard. >> i knew it would be a feat of hercules if a good regulation was written within a year, but i think it was a wonderful incentive to get moving. >> durham, north carolina. to the epa's office of air quality come representatives of the park service, the department of energy, the forest service, and others in the government's first attempt to write the regulation. >> i want to just start at the front and work our way through. >> the group is made up of those who must live with the rule after it is regulated. they must draft a proposed regulation within six months, but it becomes evident that every member brings separate marching orders from his agency. >> the starting place is what is significant. what is worth spending money on.

that means there has to be a significant improvement. >> no, it provides criteria. if we were going to set public -- yeah, it is other things. >> epa engineer johnny pearson is chairman of the group. a tenured bureaucrat with the epa, this is his first chance to head up the writing of a regulation. >> it's a resource to manage like the other ones. it is not unique or special. >> it is how much protection that is the issue. >> the working group will be aided by public input. soon in three western states, workshops will be held to seek initial reaction to eliminating visible pollution and the parks. in denver, the industry voices its opinion. a damn what the

visibility is. congressreport to points out -- >> they remind the epa that the clean air act was one of the most burdensome and costly public laws in history. they agree that america's air is now cleaner, but to them, this regulation would only duplicate existing roles and create more paperwork and red tape. simplyosed controls result in wheel-spinning and more and more control by inexperienced and unknowledgeable bureaucrats who love to spend money on the impossible. >> we have a power plant up for permitting that is 12 times cleaner than what was presented to congress. they are telling us we do not meet the class two regulation. >> my name is gordon anderson. >> as usual, the regulation industry shows up in force.

one of the 2 who speaks for the environment is gordon anderson. >> i sent here all day listening to people condemn the environmental protection agency. we should be complementing these individuals on their efforts to clean up the environment. the reasons they have been criticized by industry is because the intent of industry is to weaken and destroy the provisions of this act. what good is a national park if it is full of smog? what good is the grand canyon if you can only see 15 miles because of the navajo powerplant plumes filling the entire grand canyon with smog? this is one of the most important resources not just in america but in the world. this is no way to treat it. is do the are saying best job we can right now. we cut back to what we can accomplish, recognizing the limitations. the consideration of these long-term strategies, we will begin to look at. but what are my other problems? >> as time pressures mount,

johnny pearson asks the group to limit the effort to industries already polluting the park. he suggests that the group ignore for now future pollution. but before rules can be written, definitions must be reached. >> what is the national goal? any perceptible change to the human observer, from that which would upset natural conditions. >> how do we define natural conditions? >> i don't think we can define natural conditions. >> than that is meaningless. >> we are looking for cases where it is not natural conditions. >> if you don't put that in there, you could go to the l.a. basin and put up a plume there and somebody could say, you can't see it because the l.a. smog is in your eyes, so why can't i build my source? we are saying you can't do that. >> when you use that source to calculate his impact, what you going to tell him natural conditions are? >> it is natural conditions,

that which occurs naturally. you can't define it as a number. >> the simple intent of the united states congress to clean the air in a national parks of begins to appear unsolvable for many reasons. >> we have a hypothetical plant -- >> existing means of scientific measurement are not designed for situations of this complexity. clearly, area power plants are not the only polluters. smelters and other industries add to the picture, as do urban centers as far away as los angeles. wind conditions change hourly, defying accurate monitoring of pollution sources. finally, one thing overlooked by congress, much of the scenery observed by visitors lies outside park boundaries.

should not these integral vistas , as the bureaucrats would call them, also be protected? yet, there are hundreds of these views adjacent to the parks. limiting development of these lands would certainly be opposed by industry. with all of these problems, there is still the pressure of the first court deadline in which a proposed regulation must be ready for review by may 15. johnny pearson makes the decision. his first draft will ignore future sources and regulate existing holders only. -- existing polluters only. a step not popular with park service officials in washington. >> it was an aggravating process at times, when you sent something over and over, and they said gotcha, and it was really not what you said at all. when you care about what you're

doing, you identify very personally with the product you see on paper. it is not just a regulation, it means that will people see the grand canyon 100 years from now. i've seen this gobbledygook before but i'm surprised at this stage it is still gobbledygook. >> it is better than it was. >> i begin to feel like a manic-depressive on a roller coaster. >> across town, friends of the earth received copies of the draft leaked to them by allies within the park service. >> 80 pages from epa. quite frankly, it is pitiful. it does not mention anything about new sources at all. >> we have to raise the issue, that is our responsibility. >> you could not intelligently evaluate what the agency was proposing because the agency had not given us all the information we needed to make a judgment.

>> and information is the lifeblood to henry nickel in presenting a strong case. he invokes the freedom of information act, dispatching a team of attorneys to search park service files. >> the sort of thing we are looking for, what is known about the areas. >> first cut. >> probably finish relatively early. >> well, have at it. >> we are doing all of this with an eye ultimately to the courts, because if you don't get what you want, you have to go to court or forever waive any right you have to be heard on the question. of course the history of the , last several years is that the ultimate decision upsets everybody. >> from durham, johnny pearson and his assistant come to washington to present the proposed regulation to top management within the epa.

the draft must pass the scrutiny of the agency's steering committee. the acid test of 16 working group meetings and five months of effort. >> the rule will subsequently be tested. >> the deputy to dave hawkins is charged with keeping the regulation on schedule. with about five weeks before the court-ordered deadline, the reaction of the steering committee is critical. >> there were a number of concerns about the quality of the guidelines we have and their linkage to the regulations themselves. >> the regions, the states, the industry, the environmental , are looking at this set of regs as providing a new tool. the package does not do that. >> we are not going to go out with scientific data that has not been published or accepted. particularly on modeling and monitoring, where i have directors beating on me constantly that i cannot use the

tools they are developing in any way until they are peer-reviewed. >> it is easy to do that when there are minor modifications that are necessary. it is not so easy to do when a major overhaul is necessary. >> we entered this exercise, talked to doug, and agreed with the schedule with the court in and the environmentalists with the upfront understanding we would do the c+ job first time through. it is all you can do in this timeframe. but if we are making the to a-, i wantm c+ to do that in the next three years. >> we're talking about d- or below, i think. one of myr every damn phone calls, every day, i don't understand why if we are so deficient that we are at d or f, i am going to hear about it today.

everybody in this room knows damn well the administration has a court order. >> we have been raising these major arguments at meetings for the last 2-3 months. i have copies of four memos that have commented on the inadequacy of the whole package going back over the last two months. >> and asking again, we had a working group. working group, the definition starts with w-o-r-k. we need the language. >> it involves your folks working with these people. >> there are more people critiquing this role than there are to work on it, by a long shot. i need the working group to do some work. >> the steering committee sees the first draft as unacceptable. it does not pass its first critical test from epa leadership. five weeks from the first deadline, johnny pearson is back at square one.

upset over the draft submissions, barbara seizes her moment. she demands and gets a meeting with hawkins and staff. >> the first draft was missing a critical piece of the puzzle. the first draft of the regulation totally ducked the issue. >> this package is one of several tools. >> brown alerts hawkins to the dangers of not regulating future polluters. to her, this issue should never have been compromised in the first place. >> it was like alice in wonderland. we are working to clean up the old sources but not catching up because of the pollution from the new sources. unless it was addressed, we would be on a treadmill. >> the demands of the park service team do not make them of

the most popular figures within the epa staff, but controlling of pollution is reinstated by a sympathetic hawkins. a major victory for barbara brown. >> time and energy putting words on piece of paper is welcome. going back to court for a delay is not in the cards. >> in a return to the drawing board, barbara works with the park services. each point is reviewed again, each objection discussed a new. >> the basic instruments are there and nobody thinks there -- changes we talk about making in the regs get us a long way there. >> two weeks before the first

deadline, the regulation approaches another internal checkpoint. red border review. as a measure of its growing complexity, the package now contains 420 pages of regulation to explain five pages of law. >> what i am going to do is put it in today. get this thing going. ok, it is signed. >> the red border process is basically the last chance for the assistant administrators to object to the administration before it goes to the administrators. and of course, in government we don't use a simple word like "object." we say "non-concur." it is either concur or non-concur rather than agreeing or object. >> on the morning of the first

deadline, there is proof that the rush to regulate has taken its toll. a phone call brings news that the supporting cost data are filled with errors. there is no way the proposed regulation would be approved with these figures attached. >> missing the first part of 2.0. it goes to 3.3. >> i think the principal concern is in the dependency. those are too high. >> there is no sense getting comment on a set of numbers which several other offices have severe problems with. this might be a record in cutting down on government paperwork. feels the supplementary figures can be corrected and published within a few weeks. by eliminating the faulty numbers for the moment, epa will meet the first deadline. the front 20 pages stay, the

back 400 go. with epa administrator's signature, the midpoint deadline is reached. the regulations reflect hawkins' strong environmentalist sympathies. future and existing sources of pollution are to be regulated as our integral vistas lying outside. but the proposal must next to go through the all-important public comment. with signature in hand, phase two begins. in the summer of 1980, tourist season begins anew in the western parks. as they had done for so many years, some 3 million would return to that great, wondrous chasm called the grand canyon. return to marvel at the power in -- power and beauty of their land. >> you wish you could take them

home, huh. >> yeah. would return to the magnificent wind-carved land, unaware of the debate nearby that could decide the future of these lands. in salt lake city, a public comment period of 75 days would begin. here, the argument of costs, delays, and uncertainty would again be emphasized by industry. >> the proposed regulations appear to have been generated only to applied by the court mandate to have regulations in place by november 15 -- >> congress did not intend for important considerations to be made in a slipshod manner. >> based upon a hope they would be with it. >> we therefore urge the environmental protection agency to moderate its schedule for promulgating the regulations until 1985 at the earliest. >> delay, delay, delay.

this is a tactic industry is simply using against the epa to delay it indefinitely. the skies over the great southwest is not an open sewer. >> as governor of utah i am fully cognizant -- thehe regulators also hear views and frustrations of those that would ultimately enforce this and a tangle of other rules. >> the regulations we are addressing today sometimes cross the fine line between federal guidance and interference. we are directed to protect air quality and visibility, endangered species, retain all lands disturbed by mining, preserve the wilderness, and at the same time, provide over 200 million barrels of synthetic oil in the early 1990's. trying to balance all of those goals within the limited statutory guidelines and

resources in this country, i say in my testimony a difficult task -- it is almost an impossible task. >> in washington, henry nickel and is allies within industry accelerate their campaign. on capitol hill, they urge members of congress to pressure epa for modifications. eventually, even the white house itself is drawn into the debate. >> the cost estimates are rather , from something on the order of 90 million to 3 billion in federal cost. >> they were trying to grapple with minimizing the impact on industry and the economy. what that comes down to is how often are we going to dilute the regulations. >> that would be identified in terms of the particular feature that is important and that in itself is limiting. >> the issue here -- >> a white house concerned with

inflation recommends the rule be significantly weakened. a victory for electrical utilities. encourage, henry nickel will -- >> there are fundamental questions we should be looking at. epa has equated impairment with any change. >> encouraged they next argued , that epa's moved to include non-park land within the regulation is not only unfair but illegal since it was never mentioned why congress. >> the job of the regulators is to implement the laws congress adopts and not create laws. i think the agency created laws. it seems to be pretty straightforward. >> go back to the court. >> visibility? >> three months before the final

comment period officially ends. in addition to the massive legal brief are the written comments of 382 others. arguments of regulated industries, the white house, key members of congress, and letter-writing campaigns of opposing environmental groups. by the day's end, a stack of paper seven feet high will be under lock and key. with the end of the public comment period, the people have now spoken. their reactions reflect the problems the epa faced with a court-ordered deadline, a vaguely worded law, and imperfect scientific information. the utilities industry, fearful that regulation will hamper development and increase cost takes advantage of these weak

points. henry nickel has mounted an effective battle, and his efforts bear fruit. working through a coalition of legislators, sympathetic federal agencies, and even a cost-conscious white house, pressure is brought to relax the requirements. epa will exempt existing power plants from adding costly power -- pollution controls. it is worth an estimated $3 billion to industry. at the same time, barbara brown is victorious in her battle to have the regulation applied to future industrial development which might pollute the parks. the rule is now a total turnaround from what johnny pearson originally proposed. vista issueegral comes perhaps the knottiest is the epaall -- doe team creating law that congress never intended?

as the one-year court deadline draws near, a concerned johnny pearson heads toward washington and the final decision. >> as you all know, we are required by september 15, looking over 236 comments, virtually every comment we received mentioned integral vistas one way or another. in reading over all of the comments, i have some reservations about our ability to support in court the integral vista issue, as proposed. and wemake the argument tha thought we could make the argument in court with a straight face, so to speak. we have now seen the comments. there are some very persuasive arguments being made that will again be made in court. if dave hawkins wants to go forward with the integral vista

concept, that is a policy decision that has to be made. >> we have substantial issues. quite divided, as you might expect. they look at the comments and they believe there is some risk as far as a court action. >> despite the furs of his fears of his staff, he thinks integral vistas are important. he decides to go ahead. >> if you have eliminated it altogether, you have taken away the process. >> you have to proceed from the sed.that congress pas we have to make sure we can defend it when we get to the ultimate lawsuit. we all expect there will be a lawsuit. >> the decision on integral vistas gives the ammunition needed.

he petitions the court to review the entire regulation. there is an added motive for halting the relation. -- regulation. a court delay now would grant time for the election of a new president, one more favorable to his cause. with two weeks to go, barbara brown makes final recommendations. for her, each turn of phrase has potential for protecting or endangering the parks. >> an integral vista is the view of a scenic landmark. that is too limiting. >> he makes contact with the legal counterpart at epa. >> henry nickel. >> henry, how are you? >> what is up? what have you heard? >> we have not heard anything,

so i thought i would call you. the agency should not be rethinking the entire package. to do that, there would have to be an extension of the deadline. >> which will give the epa until november 24 to respond to your motion and give counsel two weeks from today. >> this is not henry nickel's round. the regulation will go forward , but both men know that when rule is published, henry will return to the courts and another round of legal maneuver. >> ok, thanks a lot. >> we will have our day. bye-bye. >> the regulation as a result of many efforts. barbara brown has fought to protect the parts from future polluters. henry nickel has gained concessions from the 21 existing power plants. even one issue of personal importance to hawkins will not remain unaltered.

>> where we compromised on the integral vistas was allowing the states to in effect have the final say for the impact on an integral vista. it requires an open decision-making process. if people care deeply about the impact at issue, they will have an opportunity to influence the decision. >> november 21, 1980, a final trip from durham to washington. johnny pearson has arrived to deliver the completed documents personally. inside the box are 2000 pages telling a nation how to implement a congressional resolve to clean the air in our national parks. after 48 drafts created with the assistance of congress, the white house, the courts, 15 government agencies, 36 states, and 383 public comments, johnny pearson's job is over.

what began as a simple observation of one man through the viewfinder of a camera will shortly become a set of regulations affecting millions. although existing plants will not be required to change, future agencies must prove they will not foul the air before they build. but perhaps, most importantly, the regulation will establish clean air in our parks as a national goal. for dave hawkins, a moment to reflect after a year of conflict and compromise. >> even though we have done it, nine days are short of a year. impossible. >> yeah. well, it should not be but it is. >> yeah. >> i will see you.

thanks a lot. >> in a quiet moment, reflecting on the effort to get there, a the final step in creating the regulation arrives. >> this one regulation is not by any means going to do the whole job. it is a place to make a mark and say you don't have to be able to buy a high-quality environment in order to be able to enjoy one in the united states. >> on 3:00, november 21, three years after it passes congress, section 169-a of the clean air act will now take effect. dave hawkins's job is done. >> around the world, this country is known for the vistas in the western united states. if you look at the travel

posters that are displayed in foreign capitals, you will always see the grand canyon. it is a treasure of the world can afford to protect it. >> the law will bear the imprint of all concerned. by eliminating existing power plants from the full impact of the regulation, henry has served his clients well. >> had we not participated in the process, there could have been a set of rules that would have had immediate and disastrous impact on industry. that did not occur. but environmental requirements can be made much simpler than they are right now because it is costing the public a great deal of money and the public is not getting that many benefits. you are going to have to balance what your interests are with the national park vs. your interest in the economy and energy development. >> barbara brown's success and

in controlling future polluters is a significant beginning. she has helped to shape the law with concern and dedication. >> you have two great warhorses. you have the protection of national parks the future of our national energy and development at stake. industry and protecting the national parks can coexist. i have seen it when industry has come in and we have been able to lay out what we want to accomplish. but it does take a certain of trust and sometimes that is hard to develop because we're so used to wearing our white hats and our black hats that we forget to talk to one another but the first step has been taken and that in itself gives me a great deal of satisfaction. ♪ >> barbara brown would be the first to admit that in washington, rarely has there

such a thing as a clear victory and almost never is there such a lasting one. the political drama that shapes our laws and lives is a constant struggle. for now, the regulation as written will be enforced. but this rule and the clean air act itself will be challenged again, as will all our laws. we have seen from a former park ranger that one person can have an effect on national legislation and so too may you and i make a difference if we let our voices be heard. i am e.g. marshall. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, this evening at 6:00 eastern, 2 days after president lincoln's assassination and a week after robert e lee's surrender in april 1865, generals sherman and johnston met to discuss the future. a look back on the historic meeting. >> once they were inside, sherman took out of his pocket the telegram that he had been

handed just as he was leaving for the meeting and showed it to joe johnston. so far he had shown it to no one else. before,d that 2 days abraham lincoln had been assassinated in washington, d.c. johnston looked up at sherman with horror and declared it was the greatest possible calamity for the south. 6:50, a biography of the inventor of blue jeans, levi strauss. >> the patent was awarded after 3 tries with the patent office on may 20, 1873, for an improvement in fastening pocket openings, which is really boring language for basically the invention of the blue gene. >> sunday at noon, we begin a series of five interviews with prominent african-american women from the explorations and black leadership all history collection get the late gwen if

ill, and american peabody award-winning journalist, discusses her life including racism in the newsroom. >> when i got in i had to prove to them that i could write, that i could meet a deadline, that i could be a good colleague in the newsroom in the newsroom environment where once again i was one of the very few people of color. just getting in the door is not enough. it is nice getting in the door, but it is what you do when you go through it. >> for the complete schedule, go to cspan.org. >> join us sunday at six clark p.m. eastern for live -- 6:00 p.m. eastern for live coverage from the smithsonian museum of african american history and culture. to members oflked congre