Hey wolf!
Remember what a difficult time "the guys" had in getting the EPA. After trying and trying and failing, we began to get all those oil spills. This was during the Jimmy Carter period.
Immediately, they passed the legislation that gave us this "great" new agency and voila!, the spills stopped immediately.
Could there have been a plan? No response is necessary. Just another snippet from my "Yes, Dorothy, there is an invisible government" scrapbook.