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Letting States do the Dirty Work: State Responsibility for Federal Environmental Regulation

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  • Hilary Sigman
Abstract
Under most U.S. environmental regulations, the federal government shares responsibility with the states by authorizing them to implement and enforce federal policies. Authorization provides states with considerable discretion over the effects of regulation and is perhaps the most significant decentralization in U.S. environmental policy. However, few studies address its role. To fill this gap, this paper explores the empirical determinants of authorization for water pollution and hazardous waste regulation. Although no single hypothesis strongly explains authorization, I find some evidence that states authorize to increase the stringency of regulation, which suggests that environmental decentralization would be beneficial.

Suggested Citation

  • Hilary Sigman, 2003. "Letting States do the Dirty Work: State Responsibility for Federal Environmental Regulation," NBER Working Papers 9451, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9451
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    Cited by:

    1. Levinson, Arik, 2003. "Environmental Regulatory Competition: A Status Report and Some New Evidence," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 56(1), pages 91-106, March.
    2. Liu, Yunqiang & Ye, Deping & Liu, Sha & Wang, Fang & Zeng, Hui & Tang, Hong, 2024. "Whether the agricultural energy rebound offsets the governance effectiveness of the China's natural resource audit policy?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PA).
    3. Ying She & Yaobin Liu & Yangu Deng & Lei Jiang, 2020. "Can China’s Government-Oriented Environmental Regulation Reduce Water Pollution? Evidence from Water Pollution Intensive Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-19, September.
    4. Per G. Fredriksson & Le Wang, 2020. "The politics of environmental enforcement: the case of the Resource and Conservation Recovery Act," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(6), pages 2593-2613, June.
    5. Fredriksson, Per G. & Wollscheid, Jim R., 2014. "Environmental decentralization and political centralization," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 402-410.
    6. Bowman Cutter, W. & DeShazo, J.R., 2007. "The environmental consequences of decentralizing the decision to decentralize," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 32-53, January.
    7. Neal D. Woods, 2022. "Regulatory competition, administrative discretion, and environmental policy implementation," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 39(4), pages 486-511, July.
    8. Aaron A. Elrod & Serkan Karadas & Katherine C. Theyson, 2019. "The effect of gubernatorial political parties on monitoring and enforcement of federal environmental regulation: evidence from the Clean Water Act," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 21(2), pages 171-202, April.
    9. Sjöberg, Eric & Xu, Jing, 2018. "An Empirical Study of US Environmental Federalism: RCRA Enforcement From 1998 to 2011," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 253-263.
    10. Sigman, Hilary, 2005. "Transboundary spillovers and decentralization of environmental policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 82-101, July.
    11. Michelle C. Pautz, 2009. "Perceptions of the Regulated Community in Environmental Policy: The View from Below," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 26(5), pages 533-550, September.
    12. Hilary Sigman, 2014. "Decentralization and Environmental Quality: An International Analysis of Water Pollution Levels and Variation," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(1), pages 114-130.
    13. James Alm & H. Spencer Banzhaf, 2012. "Designing Economic Instruments For The Environment In A Decentralized Fiscal System," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 177-202, April.
    14. Joungseok Park, 2016. "How Democracy Matters: Evidence of Electoral Incentives for Environmental Policy," Working Papers 16-20, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    15. Chang, Howard F. & Sigman, Hilary & Traub, Leah G., 2014. "Endogenous decentralization in federal environmental policies," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 39-50.
    16. Millimet, Daniel L., 2013. "Environmental Federalism: A Survey of the Empirical Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Michelle Pautz & Sara Rinfret, 2011. "Making sense of the front lines: environmental regulators in Ohio and Wisconsin," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 1(4), pages 277-288, December.
    18. Hilary Sigman, 2007. "Decentralization and Environmental Quality: An International Analysis of Water Pollution," NBER Working Papers 13098, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Matthew Gibson, 2019. "Regulation-Induced Pollution Substitution," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(5), pages 827-840, December.
    20. Yuanchao Bian & Kaiyi Song & Junhong Bai, 2021. "Impact of Chinese market segmentation on regional collaborative governance of environmental pollution: A new approach to complex system theory," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 283-309, March.
    21. Caihua Zhou & Hualin Xie & Xinmin Zhang, 2019. "Does Fiscal Policy Promote Third-Party Environmental Pollution Control in China? An Evolutionary Game Theoretical Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-18, August.
    22. Dorothy M. Daley & Megan Mullin & Meghan E. Rubado, 2014. "State Agency Discretion in a Delegated Federal Program: Evidence from Drinking Water Investment," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 44(4), pages 564-586.
    23. Dietrich Earnhart & Lana Friesen, 2021. "Enforcement Federalism: Comparing the Effectiveness of Federal Punishment versus State Punishment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 78(2), pages 227-255, February.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

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