Former Interior Secretary and “Defender of Wilderness” Stewart Udall passed at age 90 on March 20. Udall served as Secretary of the Interior for eight years under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He pushed for the Clean Air, Water Quality, and Clean Water Restoration Acts and Amendments, the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966.

As a junior Congressman from Arizona, Udall joined the unanimous vote in favor of the landmark Federal Highway Act of 1956 authorizing $25 Billion to create the Interstate Highway System, a decision Udall would later regret. “All of us acted on the shortsighted assumption that cheap oil was super-abundant and would always be available,” he wrote. (more…)