While Nixon was far from a right-wing conservative, what branch of the US Government has the authority under the Constitution to create agencies? Anyone? Anyone?
And what party controlled both houses of Congress in 1970? Anyone? Anyone?
When the EPA was initiated, it was sorely needed. Also, it did a lot of good that again, was sorely needed. It's original mission was technology based and there was a very healthy, mutually beneficial interaction with industry.
However, in the late 1970’s, the EPA began a change that essentially diminished its engineering capabilities and replaced it with lawyers and assorted paper pushers with an agenda. There is still a small core of top notch technology folks but they're sort of locked up. Every once in awhile, I have a technical question that the paper pushers can't handle and I keep poking up through the EPA and generally can get to a real smart, practical person. It's kind of funny, these folks are usually so excited to be talking to a real person and they gush great information to you when they realize that they're talking engineer to engineer without any filtering.
Bottom line, I have little to no respect for EPA paper pushers and agenda pushers. I have top respect for their (locked away) engineers.
Federal agencies are part of the Executive branch of the government. The EPA would not have been created and developed unless Mr. Nixon WANTED it.