States Take the Lead: The Determinants of State Environmental Policy Activity

Scholars have noted the high level of policy activity at the sub-national level in the United States when it comes to environmental policy. Current research has left unanswered questions regarding the determinants of environmental policy activity within states. The central question addressed in this study is why states vary in their level of environmental program support. This paper utilizes original data collected for the 50 states on a set of 18 environmental programs during the time period 1994-2007. These programs represent a variety of environmental areas including energy, sustainable development, climate change, and hazardous waste. Based on these data, an additive scale of environmental program activity is created and utilized as a dependent variable in a time-series, cross-sectional analysis. Findings indicate that a large variety of indicators are relevant to state environmental policymaking. Wealthy states with strong environmental interest groups, a large manufacturing presence and Democratic governments are most likely to maintain high environmental policy support. In addition, states with a large mining interest and lower emissions levels are less supportive. In 2002, California enacted major legislation that requires new vehicles to meet a 30 percent emissions reduction by 2016. This statute has the capacity to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state of California. Florida enacted legislation in 2008 that requires urban planning organizations to consider ways to reduce traffic and create efficient land use projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Georgia passed a brownfield redevelopment program in 1996 (amended in 1998 and 2002) that relieves some liability for those who purchase these contaminated properties. This type of program encourages the redevelopment of brownfields, which has the potential to increase cleanup of sites. These state policy adoptions are only a token glance at the vast number of environmental laws the American states have adopted in recent years. The impact states have on environmental quality and public health is quite significant and implores further exploration of state environmental policy activity (Woods et al 2009). State environmental policy research typically examines factors behind individual policy adoptions, with less regard for general environmental activity. While there have been studies that consider state environmental commitment (e.g. Hays et al 1996; Bacot and Dawes 1997), findings vary and the data utilized in these studies are quite dated. Since these studies states have become increasingly active, especially in the areas of climate change and energy. The variation in state activity around these issues is left unexplained by current research. The current environmental policy literature is also lacking in the use of a comprehensive dependent variables, such as an index of environmental action, that run over time. This analysis focuses on why states are generally environmentally active or inactive, rather than examining the determinants of individual adoptions. In addition, this study utilizes pooled cross-sectional, timeseries data from 1994-2007, which provides a fairly up to date and long-run view of state environmental activity. State statutes, administrative actions, and executive orders associated with a set of environmental policies are examined over time to provide a clear picture of environmental policy activity in the states. Internal determinants including political and economic variables are regressed on an environmental policy activity scale for the states. The design allows for an understanding of the dynamic process that occurs around environmental policy. The central question addressed in this study is why states are more or less environmentally active in a given time period. From a democratic theory perspective it is expected that political actors will be responsive to their constituents and relevant interest groups. I argue that political, economic and environmental characteristics lead to differences in environmental activism among the American states. Results indicate that the ideal conditions for environmental action include a wealthy state with a liberal citizenry, Democratic control of the state legislature, a large manufacturing industry presence, high carbon emission levels, and a strong environmental interest group population. Explaining State Policy Activity The state policy literature has focused on a variety of determinants for state policy adoptions. Early work concentrated on whether economic or political indicators were more influential in state policymaking (Dawson and Robinson 1963; Dye 1966; Lewis-Beck 1977), with findings often leaning towards the economy as the driving force. New advances in methodology point to the marginal impact politics has on state welfare policy, tax policy and lottery adoptions (Plotnick and Winters 1985; Cnudde and McCrone 1969; Berry and Berry 1992; 1990). In addition, new composite measures were developed to capture state public opinion, spending priorities and ideology (e.g. Wright, Erikson, McIver 1985; Jacoby and Schneider 2001; and Berry et al 2007), which have demonstrated significance in a wide range of state politics studies. Using these measures numerous scholars have found politics to matter across several policy areas including welfare (e.g. Soss et al 2001), environment (Hays et al 1996) and health care policy (Hackey and Rochefort 2001). Explanatory models for state policy adoption often center around three areas: internal models, regional diffusion, and national interaction (Berry 1994). Seminal works by Walker (1969), Gray (1973) and Canon and Baum (1981) find support for both internal determinants and diffusion explanations. This literature suggests that states with good fiscal health, professional capacity, and a willingness or interest in enacting new policy are the most likely to innovate (see Walker 1969, Canon and Baum 1981, Berry and Berry 1990). Walker (1969) finds that a number of characteristics are at play when states decide to innovate including education, per capita income and urbanization. Gray (1973) argues that Walker’s work is too general and that states vary in their reasons for innovation depending on the issue area and time period of analysis. Since these prominent works scholars have found a variety of factors to be influential in state policy adoption. Considering the literature as a whole it seems that certain factors consistently show up as statistically significant predictors of policy adoption, including state fiscal health and legislative professionalism. For other predictors, their significance depends on the policy issue being examined. The literature also points to the importance of policy entrepreneurs. It is argued that policy entrepreneurs move states to innovate because they invest time and resources, develop ideas or solutions to policy problems (Kingdon 1984; Walker 1981), interact with other policy actors to make things happen (Cobb and Elder 1984), and engage the public (Kingdon 1984). Another major part of the policy innovation literature includes diffusion models. Diffusion of policy occurs when programs that are passed in one venue are emulated and implemented in other governments (state, national or local). Berry and Berry (1990) find that state lottery adoptions follow a diffusion pattern. In addition, tax innovation is partially explained by whether neighboring states also have the policies in place. Walker (1969) notes that if diffusion is going to occur there must be interactions between policy makers. In agreement with this argument, Mintrom and Vergari (1998) find that stronger policy networks lead to a greater likelihood that school choice policies will diffuse to other states. For purposes of this work, diffusion is a smaller part of the picture on why states pursue environmental policy generally. States may be more likely to innovate with regard to a single program if neighboring states or leading states on environmental issues innovate first 1 , though general environmental activism is less likely to show this kind of diffusion. Given the fairly large number of programs examined here, it is less likely that each policy diffused in the same way and is outside the scope of this study. Environmental Policy Literature State environmental policy literature utilizes many of the variables found to be important in more general state policy adoption research, though there are some additions. As previously discussed, evidence suggests that general state policy is affected by state fiscal health and political factors like ideology or partisanship. These variables are used in almost every state environmental policy study in addition to environmental specific measures such as pollution levels and environmental interest group population sizes. Work regarding state environmental policy examines a range of environmental issues from hazardous waste to air pollution policy. Much of the early state environmental literature 1 For instance, Daley and Garand (2005) find that hazardous waste programs have diffused regionally. had a primary focus on how states implemented federal mandates (Williams and Matheny 1984; Wood 1992). In addition, it is common for this literature to focus on singular areas of environmental policy. Studies have examined mining oversight (Hedge and Scicchitano 1994), air and water pollution (Potoski and Woods 2002; Ringquist 1993a, 1994), hazardous waste (Williams and Matheny 1984; Ringquist 1994), and overall state environmental effort (Bacot and Dawes 1996; Bacot and Dawes 1997; Hays et al. 1996). The literature on environmental policy tends to follow one of four arguments regarding internal determinants of policy adoption: state fiscal capacity, political factors like ideology and interest groups, environmental conditions, and institutional capacity. State Fiscal Capacity Several environmental po