Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as Americans became more aware of the need to protect the environment, political organizations and campaigns arose to combat pollution and the waste of our country’s natural resources. The League of Conservation Voters, established in 1969 to raise public awareness, began to publish an annual list of congressional legislators who consistently voted against clean energy and conservation.
This 1974 poster distributed by Environmental Action depicts 12 members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, who were accused of voting on the side of commercial interests over environmental concerns. Their faces are superimposed on a picture of an early 20th-century “sports team” wearing the letter “D” (Dirty Dozen) on their sweaters.
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