Gingrich Calls For Replacing EPA

Newt Gingrich

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Tuesday for the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency. Gingrich wants to replace EPA with a new organization that would work more closely with businesses and be more aggressive in using science and technology. He made this recommendation during comments in Iowa before the Renewable Fuels Association.  Iowa is traditionally the state that holds the first primary.  Iowa's next presidential caucus is Feb. 6, 2012.


Gingrich believes that the EPA was founded on sound ideas but has become a traditional Washington bureaucracy. This was the first time he had proposed eliminating EPA. Gingrich noted that:

"We need to have an agency that is first of all limited, but cooperates with the 50 states," Gingrich said. "The EPA is based on bureaucrats centered in Washington issuing regulations and litigation and basically opposing things.   I think you have an agency which would get up every morning, very much like the National Institutes for Health or the National Science Foundation, and try to figure out what do we need to do today to get a better environment that also gets us a better economy.  There's a whole new emerging technology that allows you to build smaller nuclear plants, but all of our rules were designed for very complex, very expensive systems."

Gingrich denied his proposal would result in environmental damage, saying he would replace the EPA with what he called the Environmental Solution Agency. Gingrich also said his proposed agency would pursue the development of a clean coal and rewrite regulations governing the development of small nuclear plants. (AP)