Environmental Regulators on the Front-Lines: A View from the States.

The enforcement approach and regulatory style of regulators is often the subject of study in a host of policy arenas. Related to understanding enforcement is the nature of the interactions between regulator and regulatee. Yet, in the realm of U.S. environmental policy, these interactions remain understudied. We strive to understand how front-line environmental regulators with state environmental protection agencies interact with their counterparts in the regulated community since these interactions constitute environmental policy. We conducted an extensive online survey of these regulators in seventeen states, which resulted in a sample of more than 1,200 regulators. To our knowledge, no survey of this scale has been conducted in the U.S. with this population; further, this level of participation provides perspectives from around the nation and includes states that are both environmental leaders and laggards. These data reveal that environmental regulators generally have positive interactions and are building productive relationships with their regulatory counterparts. Our findings contribute to the dialogue on responsive regulation and the ability of regulators to have positive, productive interactions without the automatic presumption of regulatory capture. By documenting the voices of these front-line regulators, we can better articulate how environmental regulation can and should evolve in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]