No need for EPA eyes on pollution, Scott Walker tells newspaper

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to all but eliminate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and place each state in sole charge of controlling air and water pollution within its borders if he is elected president, he told a conservative newspaper.

“I’m all for a sustainable environment, but you have to balance it with a sustainable economy, and I think in our state we’ve shown you can do that hand-in-hand,” Walker told the Washington Examiner in an article published Monday. “I think states can do it all across America much better than the federal government.”

Reaction was swift from critics of Walker’s environmental record who said without the EPA there would be a “race to the bottom” among politicians in states competing for business investment and no safeguards in one state against pollution flowing through the air or water to another state.