The most significant accomplishment for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the decade of the 1990s may have been the critical role that it played in the Clinton Administration's successful campaign to deflect the efforts of regulatory reform advocates in the 104th Congress to replace the existing statutory foundation of environmental law with a much less protective regulatory regime. In addition to rebutting the arguments for radical reform directly on their merits (in a way that was confrontational to an unprecedented degree), EPA also effectively outflanked the reformers by resurrecting a moribund "reinvention" program and presenting it as a moderate alternative to radical reform. In classical Clintonian fashion, EPA seized the middle ground by reinventing itself, and the existing statutory framework remained largely intact. The Agency's desperate maneuvering, however, planted the seeds for several experiments in so-called second generation regulation that began to flower during the latter half of the Clinton Administration.