[195]

Governmental initiatives and organization
Nixon gives 1971 State of the Union Address
Official Nixon portrait by James Anthony Wills, c. 1984
Graph of increases in U.S. incarceration rate
Nixon advocated a "New Federalism", which would devolve power to state and local elected officials, though Congress was hostile to these ideas and enacted few of them.[196] He eliminated the Cabinet-level United States Post Office Department, which in 1971 became the government-run United States Postal Service.[197]
Nixon was a late supporter of the conservation movement. Environmental policy had not been a significant issue in the 1968 election, and the candidates were rarely asked for their views on the subject. Nixon broke new ground by discussing environmental policy in his State of the Union speech in 1970. He saw that the first Earth Day in April 1970 presaged a wave of voter interest on the subject, and sought to use that to his benefit; in June he announced the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).[198] He relied on his domestic advisor John Ehrlichman, who favored protection of natural resources, to keep him "out of trouble on environmental issues.