Understanding Libertarianism - Question#1?

Ok, this is a series of questions I have concerning the Libertarian philosophy and its practical application.

-#1 The EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency is reponsible for writing and enforcing standards for the release of pollutants into the environment and how land is used in connection with watershed areas. Air ,water, and land. In the Libertarian ideal society would the EPA still exist? If not where would responsibility for protecting the environment lie? The air isn't 'owned' by anyone, it's for the use of everbody, same with water. Who would be responsible for the public good?

No, there wouldn't be an EPA in the perfect Libertarian State. There probably wouldn't be much 'public land,' either. The idea would be that property owners would be concerned enough about the state of thier property (and the air and water it has access to), to put pressure on or take legal action against anyone degrading it's value through polution. Libertarians are willing to recognize that ownership of a property includes ownership of rights associated with it. For instance, even libertarians might not allow you to divert a river going through your property away from the property of someone downstream - polution is similar.

More to the point, resources that are owned privately rather than publically (in common) tend not to be depleted or over utilized, because the owner has an ongoing interest in them.

Yes, good question. I've always been curious about the true core beliefs of Libertarians. Their general belief that gov't should stay out of everyone's business doesn't square with many of the obvious needs of the country for centralized efficiency

Under libertarianism, there would be no EPA. Nobody would be responsible. The free market would be responisible. People supposedly would stop buying from companies that were destroying the environment.

Disclaimer: I've never heard of a "real" libertarian society, so my ideal libertarian society is just my opinion.

I think that libertarians are against government intervention because it removes from private citizens/businesses incentive. So I think that libertarians would be against regulation, but not necessarily against something like a "license to pollute." The government could create codes for environmental protection, and each code would have a certain financial ramification. For example, my water bill in a drought-ridden state is tied to the amount of water I use. I pay per gallon, but the price goes up after about 20,000 gallons. If I use less than 20,000 gallons, I pay 2.28 per 1,000 gallons. But if I were to use more than 20,000 gallons, the price jumps to 4.51 per 1,000 gallons. So the incentive is to use less, but the incentive is for me, not for the government. That's the key to libertarianism. So I think that the government wouldn't necessarily have something like the EPA, which really lobbies for change, but codes that are tied to money.

The EPA wouldn't exist or it will be minimized. As a minarchist Libertarian I believe in little government and I'm pro-environment. I believe that private insititutions might do a better job than government bureacracy. This applies to the EPA.

Air & water are fluid, but the locations where air & water can be accessed can be restricted (ie. owned). But that's beside the point. There is nothing in Libertarian ideology that allows you to pee in your neighbor's pool or throw your crap in his yard. Nor should you be allowed to poison the air he breathes or the water he drinks. So there is no reason that government cannot regulate air & water use so that everyone can breathe & drink them. Whether there should be a designated regulatory agency like the EPA or Congress should be required to do the regulation itself doesn't matter from the standpoint of ideology. It does from the standpoint of efficiency. The EPA is delegated the day to day regulation & rule making & fact finding that Congress could hardly do itself. So it' more efficient to have a designated regulatory agency do the job.

Before 1969 the EPA did not exist in the USA. President Nixon signed the EPA into law that year. Prior to 1969 EACH state had & still does operate a department titled...Department of Ecology. If Libertarians were in control the defunct EPA would most likly be renamed..."the department of interstate water ways & off shore waters". Each SOVERIGN state would be responsible for it's own ecological matters. The "politics" of people control regarding "your state is polluting my states air" would now be a null & void, if not an ILLEGAL issue to bring forth.

Liberterians are exactly like republicans except for two points. The want to legalize or decriminalize drugs and legalize prostitution.

So, liberterians are Republicans who want to get high and legally visit prostitutes to party.

Fascinating question. Liberitarians oppose the FDA, but your question about the EPA is different. What studying of liberitarianism I have done indicates that Libs. (I needed an abbreviation) do not oppose prohibitions that protect others and do oppose all victimless crimes. But are drug use and prostitution really crimes without victims? Regarding the FDA, they believe people should be able to use unproven drugs even if they are harmful. If the EPA protects us all, how can it be victimless--which is an important criteria to Liberitarians? Liberitarianism seems a bit vague to me. It also seems somewhat arbitrary. They believe in fewer laws and I think that sounds good to most of us--but how can we say the FDA or EPA have no protection value? We have to remember that the Katrina disaster--just to use an example--does not make FEMA useless. It just means they had a failure. Anyway, I'm not trying for a best answer, but I am truly interested in a good discourse on liberitarianism. What I have found and read is too generic. I hope you get some concrete answers with examples. Thanks for asking this.
Just went back and read the previous answers. Thanks to all of you. Lots of good information and opinions from people who know a lot more than me.

The concept of property rights would be adopted to handle many environmental and pollution cases.

If a power company's smoke from its somkestack blew over your property, you could take them to court for 'tresspassing".

Or more likely, you would hire an attorney who specializes in this area and the attorney would get an impartial party to take pollution readings, etc. Then you would have your day in court.

Personally, I'd settle for free electricity unless the smoke was really bad, but that's me.