William Ruckelshaus

From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project

William Doyle Ruckelshaus (born July 24, 1932) is an attorney and civil servant in the United States. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Ruckleshaus served as the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, was subsequently acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and then Deputy Attorney General of the United States.

Ruckleshaus was Deputy Attorney General of Indiana from 1960 through 1965. He was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and its majority leader from 1967 to 1969. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate in 1968, losing 51%-48% to Birch Bayh. The President appointed him for the years 1969 and 1970 as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Mr. Ruckelshaus became the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s first Administrator when the agency was formed in December 1970, where he served until April 1973. In April 1973 he was appointed acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and in the same year was appointed Deputy Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice.

In a 1973 event known as the "Saturday Night Massacre", Ruckelshaus and his boss, Elliot Richardson, famously resigned their positions within the Justice Department rather than obey an order from President Richard Nixon to fire the Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, who was investigating official misconduct on the part of the president and his aides.

After leaving the Justice Department, Ruckelshaus returned to the private sector and the practice of law, serving for a time as the Senior Vice-President of Legal Affairs of Weyerhaeuser.

In 1983, with the EPA in crisis due to mass resignations over the mishandling of the Superfund project, President Ronald Reagan appointed Ruckelshaus to serve as interim director, a position he held through most of the following year. He joined Perkins Coie in 1985, a Seattle based law firm.

Mr. Ruckelshaus was appointed by President Bush to serve on the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, mandated by the Oceans Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-256), authorized by Congress and appointed by the President. The commission issued its final report in the Fall of 2004 making recommendations to the President and Congress for a coordinated and comprehensive national ocean policy.

Currently, Mr. Ruckelshaus serves as a director of several corporations, including Cummins Engine Company, Pharmacia Corporation, Solutia, Inc., Coinstar, Inc., Nordstrom, Inc. and Weyerhaeuser Company. From 1983-86, he served on the World Commission on Environment and Development set up by the United Nations. From July 1997 to July 1998, President Clinton appointed him as the U.S. envoy in the implementing of the Pacific Salmon Treaty and in 1999 he was appointed by Governor Gary Locke and currently serving as the Chairman of the Salmon Recovery Funding Board for the State of Washington. He is also Chairman Emeritus of the University of Wyoming Ruckelshaus Institute for Environment and Natural Resources, Chairman of the World Resources Institute, Chairman of the Meridian Institute, and serves on the board of numerous other nonprofit organizations.