TAMPA, Fla. -- President Nixon created U.S. EPA in 1970. The first official celebration of Earth Day, and with it the birth of the modern environmental movement, came a year later. The OPEC embargo, which spawned the first U.S. energy crisis, was just a couple of years off. But when Nixon stood at the podium of the Miami Beach Convention Center on Aug. 23, 1972, to accept the Republican nomination for a second term, he said not a word about energy or the environment. Speaking in the same auditorium a month earlier to accept the Democratic presidential nomination, South Dakota Sen. George McGovern mentioned those issues only in passing. Go to story #1