We the consituents of Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton and Holmes Counties say NO to the abolishment of the EPA and ask Representative Matt Gaetz to honor his constituents wishes. 

Congressman Matt Gaetz has drafted a bill to completely abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, created in 1970 by a Republican administration- a response to the environmental hazards that were increasingly becoming more common in the United States. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act are the most well-known and comprehensive achievements created by the agency. There is quantifiable evidence that these laws have saved lives and health costs. See cost and health benefits

Congressman Gaetz says that states have more money now to deal with their own environmental issues and believes that environmental regulations should be governed by individual states. The problem with states taking care of their own enviromental problems is that air and water don't have invisible boundaries on state lines. Rivers and watersheds can cross several state lines and the states downstream inherit the pollution and stream bank manipulation that the states upstream create. How will the upstream states be motivated to decrease pollution when they don't have to deal with the consequence of it?  There must be some kind of uniform accountability that all states answer to or it will end up turning into a quagmire.

Gaetz cites the legal battle over the Chattahoochee Water Basin between Florida and Georgia as a way to respond to water resource issues or potential pollution that a state could inherit. This is a legal battle that has still not been resolved and has been ongoing for decades. The way to deal with this is through prevention through Federal Law, not by reacting to a problem that takes decades to solve. We do not want an agency to be destroyed that will continue to insure the health of our children and for generations to come.