In this Article, I will share with you my thoughts on the proper roles of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states as we in the Reagan Administration perceive them. To be succinct, we are directing EPA's role toward the achievement of needed environmental results, and away from the stipulation of each step of the process by which those results come about. From the standpoint of the law and of management efficiency, we believe states, not EPA, should be the administrators of most environmental programs conducted within their own boundaries. More often than not, states have the manpower, the skill, and the commitment to protect our environment as well as or better than EPA.

EPA has too often in the past preempted the natural responsibility of states, tipping the scales toward a program of the federal government, when it ought of right to be a program of the federal system. By this, I mean a collaboration, with equal and complementary roles for the national and state governments. In this Administration, we intend to set the balance right again.