Regulating hazardous wastes under U.S. environmental federalism: The role of state resources

摘要

We explore the extent to which variation in states' resources devoted to environmental protection leads to variation in environmental outcomes, specifically the monitoring and enforcement of large hazardous waste facilities regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Results from our instrumental variables regressions suggest that the average state responds to a reduction in its per-facility environmental agency budget by decreasing the fraction of large RCRA facilities receiving inspections and enforcement actions. We also find evidence that a reduction in a state's environmental budget may result in a substitution away from resource-intensive on-site inspections to lower-cost offsite inspections. If the latter type of inspection is relatively less effective in detecting violations, then this substitution is likely to lead to poorer environmental outcomes. Overall our results suggest that decreases in EPA funding for state environmental agencies and further devolution of responsibility for environmental programs to states may result in lower levels of environmental protection in some areas. (C) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.