A Dirty River Runs Through it (the Failure of Enforcement in the Clean Water Act)

Abstract

Though our environmental legal system is set up in co-operative federalism, which supposedly allows the federal government or citizens to enforce environmental laws if the states do not do so in the first instance, it has a particular weakness. Under the legal doctrines, any enforcement will do, but all enforcement is not created equally. This article does a stastical analysis of two states enforcement records and shows that there enforcement is vastly different. This suggests that the possibility of uniform state enforcement is a myth, leading to problems with environmental protection.

Keywords: state enforcement, environment, citizens suit, federalism, cooperative federalism, Clean Water Act, Georgia water act enforcement, Washington water act enforcement

JEL Classification: C12, H77, I18, K23, K32, Q28