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National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, United States

National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, United States

This article has been reviewed by the following Topic Editor: Cutler J. Cleveland

An unemployment line in New York City during the Great Depression.  (Source: <a href='http://www.loc.gov/index.html' class='external text' title='http://www.loc.gov/index.html' rel='nofollow'>Library of Congress</a>) An unemployment line in New York City during the Great Depression. (Source: Library of Congress)

In an attempt to recover the economy of the United States after the Great Depression, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933 temporarily suspended antitrust laws, established minimum wages, eliminated child labor, maximized working hours, and strengthened labor unions. It created the National Recovery Administration (NRA), who administered the Act and attempted to develop fair competition codes for discrete industries or lines of business. The NIRA also created the Public Works Administration (PWA), which put public works programs under the control of the federal government.

The Act contained a section pertaining directly to the oil industry. It gave the President regulatory power over pipelines, interstate and foreign transport of petroleum and petroleum products, allowed for agreements between companies with presidential approval, and allowed the President to establish an administration separate from the NRA to oversee the oil code. The NIRA encompassed all fuel industries until January of 1935 when the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated the President’s authority to prohibit interstate and foreign transport of oil. In May of that same year, the Supreme Court found the entire Act unconstitutional; however, federal energy law following NIRA incorporated many of the same features.

Further Reading

Citation

Ida Kubiszewski PhD (Lead Author);Cutler J. Cleveland (Topic Editor) "National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, United States". In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth August 21, 2008; Last revised Date August 21, 2008; Retrieved June 18, 2013 <http://www.eoearth.org/article/National_Industrial_Recovery_Act_of_1933,_United_States>

The Author

Ida Kubiszewski Stewardship Committee The Encyclopedia of Earth   Dr. Ida Kubiszewski is a Senior Lecturer at the Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian National University.  She is also a co-founder and former-Managing Editor the Encyclopedia of Earth.  Dr. Kubiszewki is currently working as the Managing Editor for a magazine/journal hybrid called Solutions.  Solutions is an outlet for discussions focusing on solutions to the complex problems we are now facing in ... (Full Bio)

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