[…] In January 1969, an oil well blow-out at Union Oil’s offshore rig in the Santa Barbara Channel six miles off the California coast, began one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history. …Killing sea birds and marine mammals, and washing up in a thick blanket of black crude oil onto miles of Santa Barbara beaches, the spill became a televised disaster, helping spur a national environmental movement, and in the process, making President Richard Nixon and his Administration unlikely partners of Congress in creating a new federal framework of environmental protection laws […]