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This study assesses what causes American states to assume the authority to administer federal environmental programs within their borders, rather than leave implementation to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some observers have argued that interstate competition for mobile capital may motivate states to seek this authority so that they may reduce the regulatory burdens imposed on industrial polluters. Other scholars highlight the importance of intrastate political and economic factors or vertical influences emanating from federal officials. I argue that the relative importance of each of these classes of explanations will vary across environmental policy arenas, depending on the amount of implementation discretion that federal programs provide to state agencies. Results from event history analyses of two major environmental programs are generally, though not entirely, consistent with this theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines trends in American state environmental policy scholarship from 1990 to 2019 and assesses the progress that has been made during that time in addressing the numerous deficiencies noted by Lester and Lombard (1990). A survey of more than 300 published articles suggests that researchers have made significant advances in theory and methodology over the last three decades. Yet some core elements of Lester and Lombard's critique continue to apply, and more work needs to be done to reach their goal of a theoretically coherent and methodologically sound body of research. The article concludes by offering suggestions for scholars working in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across many social–ecological systems, policy makers and scholars increasingly call for science to inform policy. The science–policy interface becomes especially complex as collaborative approaches include multiple stakeholders working together across jurisdictions. Unfortunately little is known about how much and how science is used in collaborative governance for social–ecological systems. This exploratory study examines instrumental, conceptual, and symbolic use of science in a science‐rich collaborative planning case in the Puget Sound, USA. It also examines the influence of science, relative to other factors, in collaborative planning, and what factors affect it. Results from a survey and document analysis indicate the prevalence of conceptual use of science, with relatively little symbolic use. Some factors promoting conceptual and instrumental use discourage symbolic use. Overall, while science is seen as influential in this science‐rich context, its influence is balanced by local stakeholder preferences and contextual information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to calls from previous scholarship for further bottom‐up examination of local government roles in environmental policy, the authors revisit local air agencies to examine two separate phenomena occurring in environmental federalism: one from the top down (second‐order devolution) and one from the bottom up (local activism). Using survey data from local air agencies on devolved authorities to set air quality standards and to enforce federal and/or state standards, the authors identify three different types of local agencies: state administrative subunits (only enforcement authority), fully devolved agencies (authority to both set and enforce standards), and activist agencies (neither authority). Further findings indicate that state administrative subunits and fully devolved agencies are likely functions of second‐order devolution, while activist agencies are likely functions of local activism. Conclusions suggest that both top‐down and bottom‐up approaches to environmental federalism are shaping local government roles in environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing climate change requires consideration of mitigation and adaptation opportunities at multiple spatial scales. This is particularly true in the built environment, defined here to include individual buildings, neighborhoods, and the spaces between. The current U.S. political environment portends fewer resources and coordinating services for mitigation and adaptation at the federal level, however, reinforcing the relevance and necessity of actions at subnational levels. In this study, we evaluate the applicability of a polycentric model of governance to the implementation of mitigation and adaptation practices, as well as the presence of polycentric systems in the built environment. We assemble a database of practices with the potential to achieve both mitigation and adaptation objectives, as well as those that may be cross‐purposed or that may achieve one but not the other. We review practices to gauge the applicability of a polycentric model of governance to mitigation and adaptation practices in the built environment, and examine the attributes of three existing adaptation and/or mitigation programs to assess the extent to which they exhibit polycentric attributes. We conclude with recommendations for a broader research agenda, including efforts to develop more in‐depth examinations into individual programs and comparative analysis of performances of different governance attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014 the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) released CalEnviroScreen 2.0, developed to identify communities facing "multiple burdens of pollution and socioeconomic disadvantage" (CalEnviroScreen FAQs, 2016). Contemporaneously, California was suffering a severe drought. CalEPA implemented emergency water cutbacks such that community allowances ranged from approximately 70%–430% of the U.S. average for water consumption. Decades of research find that racial and ethnic minorities face greater environmental burdens than others. Did the CalEPA cutbacks disproportionately affect already burdened communities or those with higher percentages of minorities? Using geographic information systems and spatial regression analysis, we find that the water cutbacks did not, ceteris paribus, further stress already burdened communities, but communities with a more significant percentage of Hispanics are estimated to receive lower water allowances even controlling for poverty. This research broadens the areas in which we can look for environmental (in)justice beyond standard dis/amenities, and implies that even intra‐organizational policy goals of reducing environmental justice burdens may not be enough. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The concept of learning has long played a central role in the theories and frameworks used to understand policy processes. Findings described here aim to contribute to the theoretical and methodological understanding of individual learning in the policy process by explicitly examining belief change and belief reinforcement as products of policy learning, measuring both, as well as measuring the absence of either. The objective of this study is to use the lens of the Advocacy Coalition Framework to examine some of the factors that promote and shape policy learning, including policy actors' beliefs and the extent to which policy actors engage in various policy activities within and between belief coalitions. The results indicate that extreme beliefs are associated with belief reinforcement, relative to policy actors with more moderate beliefs, and that collaboration with individuals with differing policy views is associated with belief change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a majority of scholarship on the study of transnational advocacy networks ( TANs) has focused on the role of value-and-belief-sharing as these networks link activists across nations together, less has been written concerning the role of knowledge exchange among environmental nongovernmental organizations ( ENGOs) in helping effect policy change. This article examines how transnational coalitions of ENGOs in North America have helped shape environmental policy across the Canada- U.S.- Mexico borders. In the paper, I explore two cases of nonstate actor mobilization: the North American Pollutant Release, and Transfer Registry Project and the Citizen Submission on Enforcement Matters. In this article, I bridge notions of 'soft power' with scholarship on knowledge sharing, thereby showing that nonstate actors use it as a model to build stronger transnational coalitions, effecting pressure on industry and intergovernmental actors, and provide policy input in environmental decision making across borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transboundary water resources are very challenging to manage, generating numerous unresolved management issues. North America possesses two different spatial contexts in which transboundary water resource management issues exist, the arid U. S.- Mexico border region and the humid U. S.- Canada border region. Past work on the U. S.- Mexico border has explored a range of institutional arrangements by which resources are managed, with a special focus on both existing and new institutions and how the locus of policy formulation may vary across scale. In this article, I explore water resource issues in the U. S.- Canadian transboundary context through a comparative examination of management frameworks in the westernmost section on the U. S.- Canada border. Specifically, I examine the Cascadia Corridor region within which the Salish Sea and smaller nested watersheds lie, exploring how concepts of devolution, regionalization, subnational participation, and spatial scale have unfolded in transboundary management efforts in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilateral governance of transboundary water resources between the United States and Mexico is in flux today. Historically, the International Boundary and Water Commission ( IBWC), the joint commission by which the two countries jointly manage shared rivers, has dominated decision making and policy in the border region by defining problems and framing knowledge. However, over the past two decades, a transnational network has been emerging to restore the Colorado River Delta. In this paper, we explore how a transnational network has been operating collaboratively to shift transboundary water governance in the Colorado River Delta region toward greater participatory, science-based governance. We explore the IBWC in this context of governance change to reveal the adoption of institutional and policy reforms, along with some resistance to this change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a historical background of the evolution of transboundary water governance and environmental diplomacy in the Great Lakes- St. Lawrence basin, with a focus on the International Joint Commission ( IJC), during the twentieth century. This study focuses on water quantity issues, such as diversions, canals, hydroelectric developments, control works, and water levels, revealing the range of artificial and natural impacts on water levels in the Great Lakes- St. Lawrence basin. Doing so provides for a revealing examination of the IJC, which has traditionally been the main forum in which Canada and the United States manage their environmental relations and border water issues, which allows for an engagement with a range of North American transboundary governance theories. While the IJC is often lauded as a model of transnational environmental cooperation, this paper demonstrates that the evolution of this bilateral institution up to the 1960s is more complicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many governments have implemented environmental justice mandates requiring agencies to consider the implications of cleanup decisions for poor and/or minority populations. To the extent that this mandate alters decisions, it usually does so by considering the composition of a community in the present without adjusting for potential demographic changes that may occur over time. However, communities change and these changes are likely to affect how well an agency meets its environmental justice mandate over the long term. In this research, an agent-based model is introduced to simulate how alternative environmental remediation scenarios may affect environmental justice outcomes in a dynamic residential environment with two demographic classes with preferences for living in proximity to neighbors similar to themselves. Under these circumstances, there is unlikely to be one best strategy to achieve both environmental improvement and environmental equity, and a focus on valuable land is the least effective over the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of environmental policy employ various empirical strategies for measuring state environmental effort. The majority of these strategies can be divided into four categories: indices of state programmatic indicators, government expenditures, pollution abatement costs, and regulatory enforcement actions. In this article, we argue that these measures are empirically distinct, capture different attributes of state environmental policy, and are correlated with different intrastate factors. Thus, the choice among environmental policy measures is substantively important for researchers to consider, and we conclude by providing advice to scholars concerning choosing among these measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American environmental legislation cannot be fully explained under traditional interest-group theory, which emphasizes the success of well-financed, organized interests. One alternative explanation holds that the American public accepts a new environmental ethos that is protective of the natural world and human health. This study examines 100 years of state-level ballot questions on environmental policy and empirically establishes the emergence and persistence of this new environmental ethos as well as the changing nature of American support for environmental policy. This ethos emerges in 40 years, environmental policy making of this type has been increasingly citizen-led, inclusive of a wider variety of environmental problems, while embracing a greater range of policy solutions including those premised on more radical notions of humanity?s relationship with the natural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]