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 off-site 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.

我们探讨了各州用于环境保护的资源变化在多大程度上导致环境结果变化，特别是根据《资源保护和回收法》（RCRA）监管的大型危险废物设施的监控和执行。我们的工具变量回归结果表明，平均状态是通过减少接受检查和执行行动的大型RCRA设施的比例来应对其每个设施的环境机构预算的减少。我们还发现有证据表明，减少州的环境预算可能会导致从资源密集型的现场检查替代为成本更低的非现场检查。如果后一种类型的检查在发现违规方面相对无效，那么这种替代很可能导致较差的环境结果。总的来说，我们的结果表明，EPA向州环境机构提供的资金减少，以及对环境计划的责任进一步下放给州，可能会导致某些地区的环境保护水平降低。