I don't think Carter was a bad president, just an ineffective one. (No, I didn't really experience first hand but did one pay $1,000 for the privilege of studying it.)
In terms of natural resources regulation he was generally full of very good ideas and just didn't have the political acument or power to follow through on them and then worsening political and economic crises forced him to throw those ideas under the bus for short term wins that were more politically necessary.
But for a very short window in 1977 and 1978 there was actually a chance that the president was going to stand up to the BLM and Army Corps of Engineers and rationalize our very broken water resource management and land use regulations. But the window closed and hasn't come close to reopening.
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