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Pollution, Politics, and Preferences for Environmental Spending in the States
Author(s) -
Newmark Adam J.,
Witko Christopher
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
review of policy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1541-1338
pISSN - 1541-132X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1541-1338.2007.00284.x
Subject(s) - politics , state (computer science) , natural resource , environmental pollution , scope (computer science) , economics , public economics , process (computing) , pollution , resource (disambiguation) , natural resource economics , political science , environmental protection , environmental science , ecology , law , computer network , algorithm , computer science , biology , programming language , operating system
While state environmental and natural resource spending is designed to address actual environmental problems, the budget process is also inherently political. Thus, in the following article we ask a simple question: to what extent does state environmental and natural resource spending respond to the scope of environmental problems in a state, versus the demands of the political process? Unlike the bulk of previous research, we consider both aggregate spending and program‐specific spending. We also consider how the severity of environmental problems and the political environment may interact to determine spending. The findings show that politics, specifically the strength of the environmental movement, is a more important determinant of state environmental spending than pollution severity. However, for some program areas, it appears that strong environmental groups make state budgets more responsive to the severity of environmental problems.