The rise of environmentalism led to calls for legislative and other government initiatives to regulate planned obsolescence. A nongovernmental organization of researchers and businessmen, the National Commission on Materials Policy, issued a report in 1973 suggesting the need for “counterincentives to planned obsolescence,” in order to combat environmental degradation.91 In 1973, the Muskie bill (sponsored by Senator Edmund S. Muskie, a trailblazer for environmental legislation), which addressed the problem of solid waste disposal, incorporated a provision for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Ofice of Solid Waste Disposal “to specify the useful life of such major items as tires, appliances and vehicles to discourage planned obsolescence.”92
In the early 1970s, the energy crisis was added to the growing list of reasons for rejecting planned obsolescence. “The reasons for the profligate American use of energy are basic,” wrote prominent public intellectual and journalist Anthony Lewis in a New York Times article: “They include the dominant place of automobiles in transportation, the suburban pattern of living, the emphasis on energy intensive rather than labor intensive industry and the economics of planned obsolescence.”93 Similarly, an article about the challenges facing the US economy against the backdrop of the oil shock leaves its readers with the following warning: “The policy of planned obsolescence which pervades manufacturing is another source of great waste. A slogan of ‘make it do, wear it out, and do without’ might help this situation. Our children are going to be left with many serious problems as a result of our profligate waste.”94
Moral Panic about Utility
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