A first-time Congressman from the state of Florida, Matt Gaetz, has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would abolish the US federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2018 and hand over responsibility for enforcing clean air, water and soil laws to the individual states. The bill, co-sponsored by US representatives from Georgia, Kentucky and Missouri, comes as President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, makes his way through the Senate confirmation process.

Pruitt, who has positioned himself as an ally of the fossil fuel industry and who has filed 14 lawsuits against the EPA challenging anti-pollution legislation, is also on record as saying the federal government should not legislate and regulate environmental protection. Gaetz and the other Republican sponsors of the bill contend that state governments are in a better position than the federal government to set and enforce environmental guidelines and that shifting responsibility would create more jobs within their states.

“When the EPA was established in 1970 under the Reagan administration, states did not have the wherewithal to properly legislate and regulate environmental protections, Gaetz asserted. That is no longer the case in Florida," he said, adding that “states not equipped for self-regulation will have two years to figure something out.” Some observers noted, however, that Gaetz’s timing might be off, as the congressman – who was born in 1982, when Reagan was indeed president – was apparently unaware that another US president, Richard Nixon, was in office in 1970.

The new bill is one of the shortest ever put before Congress, according to reports.  The draft copy is three paragraphs long and states only that the bill's purpose is "termination of the Environmental Protection Agency" and its plan is, "The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018."

"My legislation does not repeal a single law," the Republican from Fort Walton Beach told US news media. "What it does is downstream authority to the state". Environmental advocates and legislators both point out, however, that along with initiating legislation that protects federal lands, the EPA also creates the framework for state regulation.

The agency awards grants to state environmental programs, nonprofits and educational institutions, among others, a spokeswoman for the US Department of the Environment, which enforces legislation drafted by the agency, told a Florida newspaper.  Around three-quarters of the grant money, she said, is funneled to the states for infrastructure projects or drinking water treatment.

One of Trump’s first actions after taking office on Jan. 21, apparently unaware of how the system works, some said, was to freeze the EPA’s grant money and contract operations. The freeze has since been lifted so it can resume sending money to state-run environmental protection programs. However, the administration's gag order – which means the EPA may not address the public or publish press releases – will remains in place.

A Republican state senator from Washington, who is acting EPA spokesman, told the newspaper USA Today that a week of enforced silence gave the new administration time to internally review the $3.8 billion in federal funding that the agency sends to states for cleanup and monitoring projects. "As of now, nothing has been delayed. Nothing has been cut. There was simply a pause and everything's up and running," he is quoted as saying. However, another $100 million in grant money is still under review, the paper said.

Reflecting on the failure of efforts to gut the federal government’s environmental authority in the past, most commentators said there was little chance that the bill would pass both chambers of Congress. "It's hard to imagine Congress being willing to do so, and the American public would almost certainly virulently oppose such a move," Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles Law School, told the news agency Bloomberg earlier this year. In view of recent events, however, other voices said anything is possible.