Regulating the states: federal mandates and environmental primacy

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:5340969

Crotty, P M

National environmental laws passed in the 1970s preempt state responsibility for pollution control. These laws contain a unique implementation scheme, primacy, which offers states the opportunity to become the primary enforcement agent for pollution control if they adopt state laws and regulations at least as stringent as the national ones. This examination of primacy addresses three important issues in intergovernmental relations: whether national mandates destroy the states as quasi-sovereign entities; whether primacy is a successful technique for co-opting the states into accepting national priorities; and whether states that have adopted primacy produce different policies from states which have not. Multiple regression is used to compare the importance of national and state factors in influencing primacy assumption. The findings of this research indicate that national preemption of responsibility for pollution control has diminished the role that intrastate political and socio-economic factors play in policy making. The federal presence injected into the policy determinants process can be traced in its consequences. Federal regional districts affect states' decisions on primacy assumption and states' efforts at protecting the environment. These regional patterns were not present before primacy was instituted.

• Research Organization: State Univ. of New York, Binghamton (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5340969
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290300* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Environment
Health
& Safety
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
GOVERNMENT POLICIES
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
LAWS
MATHEMATICS
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
POLITICAL ASPECTS
POLLUTION LAWS
POLLUTION REGULATIONS
REGRESSION ANALYSIS
REGULATIONS
SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS
STATE GOVERNMENT
STATISTICS