Introduction

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President Richard M. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, in an effort to increase government efficiency. Forty years later, top politicians in his party are trying to dismantle it.

In The New York Times last week, John M. Broder ran through the field of Republican presidential contenders, detailing the candidates who have opposed the agency: Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, Representative Ron Paul of Texas, the Georgia businessman Herman Cain, the former Utah governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr. and the former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

The candidates seem unanimously in agreement with Mrs. Bachmann’s assessment that the federal environmental agency should be called the “job-killing organization of America.” So what would happen if we got rid of the E.P.A.? Is there a better model to do what the agency was created to do?