Former Bay Area congressman “Pete” McCloskey, co-founder of Earth Day, has died at 96

Former Bay Area congressman Paul “Pete” McCloskey died of heart failure Wednesday at his home in Winters, California.

His death was announced in a statement emailed to CBS News Bay Area by family spokesman Lee Houskeeper.

McCloskey died peacefully at the home where he lived with his wife, Helen, and six rescue dogs, the statement said. He was 96 years old.

As a U.S. Congressman, he represented San Mateo County from 1967 to 1983.

McCloskey will be remembered as a political outsider: a liberal Republican and fiscal conservative who co-founded Earth Day in 1970 and helped draft the Endangered Species Act in 1973. McCloskey was an abortion rights advocate and supported stem cell research.

McCloskey was born in Loma Linda and earned a law degree from Stanford in 1953. He was an assistant district attorney in Alameda County.

He served in the military from 1945 to 1974, in the US Navy, US Marine Corps and US Marine Corps Reserves. By the time he retired from the Marine Corps Reserves, McCloskey had reached the rank of colonel.

He received several military awards, including the Navy Cross for exceptional heroism, the Silver Star for valor in combat, and two Purple Hearts as a Marine during the Korean War.

McCloskey was the first congressman to call for the impeachment of then-President Richard Nixon and the first to speak out against the Vietnam War.

McCloskey changed his party affiliation to the Democratic Party in 2007.