ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS IN THE US: A STUDY OF STATE SULFUR DIOXIDE STANDARDS

2005 ◽  
Vol 07 (03) ◽  
pp. 331-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARY E. DAVIS
Keyword(s):  
Sulfur Dioxide ◽  
Environmental Regulations ◽  
National Level ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
The State ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
State Legislator ◽  
The Us ◽  
Meteorological Influences ◽  
The Cost

What determines the environmental regulatory regime of a country or region? This paper addresses the question in detail, using the US and its widely varying environmental policies as the case study. What factors lead some US states to pass strict environmental regulations, while others are content with the baseline standards required at the national level? This work outlines the state environmental choice as a trade-off between the desires of consumers (who want better environmental quality) and of producers (who want less restrictive environmental standards). A rational state legislator maximises her chances of being re-elected by balancing these two competing forces when setting environmental policy. I test this model by directly analysing the state decision to adopt more restrictive sulfur dioxide regulations than those required by the federal government under the Environmental Protection Agency's "National Ambient Air Quality Standards" program. The statistical results suggest that legislators weigh the relative influence of consumer and producer groups when setting sulfur dioxide standards, in addition to accounting for meteorological influences that affect the cost of compliance with stricter environmental regulations. Limited evidence is also provided to support an inverted-U shaped relationship between income levels and environmental regulations.

Evidence of corrosion in home piping system began to appear in fixture stains and metallic taste. In 1985, the Federal Government did surveys of heavy metals in water supplies, focusing on lead in drinking water and its effect on children. The prevalence of this metal resulted in the banning of lead from solder used in plumbing. In 1988, and in 1989, regulations reduced the safe limit of lead in water from 50^gm/L to 5 μgm/L, with an action level at 15pgm/L in a first draw sample. At the same time the E.P.A. provided guidance documents to schools and day care centers to help reduce children's lead exposure in water supplies. Grants were made available to states to be used for spreading the knowledge about this danger. However, the Federal regulations applied only to public water supplies, which were defined as systems serving 25 or more people. But private wells serving family homes, many containing children, were not included. Children could be assured of regulated water supplies in school, but not at home. Aware that lead was a problem in paint chips, Connecticut required that pediatricians test for traces of lead in children at age two. The Federal act recognized that the primary source of lead in water supplies came through home plumbing systems stemming from the corrosion by the water. This was remedied by requiring public water supplies to prevent corrosion, usually by adding alkalinity to the water. Here again, private wells not included in the educational phase of the program were also not included in the remedies. While these activities with water supplies were occurring, a phenomenon of a different sort was originating in states hundreds of miles away from Southeastern Connecticut. Throughout the Midwest and into West Virginia and Kentucky, electric power generators were erecting tall stacks to disperse sulfur dioxide gasses high into the atmosphere. The gas came mostly from the burning of high sulfur coal mined nearby. The Federal air pollution standards for ambient air were being met in the Midwest by the use of these tall stacks. In the eastern states, restrictions on sulfur content of fuels, mostly petroleum based, were used to meet the ambient air standards. By the early 1980's Connecticut eased its restrictions on sulfur content in these fuels from 0.5% to 1% by weight . Still, during the next five years the sulfur dioxide level actually decreased. However, in 1986, other data collected by the State showed that 32% of the rain storms had an acidic pH of 4.0 or below [ 1 ]. The lowest pH ’ s recorded that year were 3.6. The State also reported that from 1985 to 1996 there had been a further decrease in ambient sulfur dioxide levels [ 2 ].

2014 ◽  
pp. 860-860
Keyword(s):  
Sulfur Dioxide ◽  
Sulfur Content ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
The State ◽  
Piping System ◽  
Water Supplies ◽  
Power Generators ◽  
Plumbing Systems ◽  
Private Wells

scholarly journals Heterogeneous Monetary Policy Transmission in the US Housing Market

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-96
Author(s):  
Maria Christidou ◽  
Panagiotis Theodore Konstantinou ◽  
Costas Roumanias
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
House Prices ◽  
National Level ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Housing Investment ◽  
Policy Transmission ◽  
The Us

We assess the effects of monetary policy on real house prices and housing investment across the US states during the period 1983-2008. We find that an expansionary monetary shock generates higher housing investment and house prices at the national level. At the state level, however the responses of housing investment and house prices differ from the nation-wide responses. We relate this heterogeneity to various observable factors such as property tax rates, howeownership, income inequality, poverty and demographic factors. All these factors are crucial in explaining the heterogeneity of the state-level responses.

Deterring Wage Theft: Alt-Labor, State Politics, and the Policy Determinants of Minimum Wage Compliance

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Galvin
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Wage Theft ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Effective Deterrent ◽  
The Rich

Can stronger state-level public policies help protect workers from “wage theft?” In recent years, workers' rights groups have responded to policy drift and legislative inaction at the national level by launching campaigns to enact stronger penalties for wage and hour violations at the state level. Many of these campaigns have been legislatively successful and formative for the development of “alt-labor.” But are such policies actually effective in deterring wage theft? Previous scholarship has long concluded that although stronger penalties should theoretically make a difference, in practice, they do not. But by confining the analysis to the admittedly weak national-level regulatory regime, the existing literature has eliminated all variation from the costs side of the equation and overlooked the rich variety of employment laws that exist at the state level. Using an original dataset of state laws, new estimates of minimum wage violations, and difference-in-differences analyses of a dozen recently enacted “wage-theft laws,” I find that stronger penalties can, in fact, serve as an effective deterrent against wage theft, but the structure of the policy matters a great deal, as does its enforcement. The implications for workers' rights and the changing shape of the labor movement are discussed in detail.

The Regulatory World of Agri-food: Politics, Power, and Conventions

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Morgan ◽  
Terry Marsden ◽  
Jonathan Murdoch
Keyword(s):  
Developed Countries ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
The State ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
United States Department ◽  
Farming Practices ◽  
Intensive Farming ◽  
The Us ◽  
Main Culprit ◽  
Post War

The history of agriculture in developed countries over the past seventy years is first and foremost a political history because of the intense interplay between farming and the state. Indeed, it is difficult to think of any other ‘industry’ which has been so comprehensively regulated by the state, over such a long period of time, as agriculture. Even neo-liberal governments in OECD countries have accepted the political compact between farming and the state on account of the ‘exceptionalism’ of agriculture. The rationale for its exceptional status might vary from country to country, but it invariably has something to do with one major aspect that distinguishes agriculture from all other industries: the fact that we ingest its products. In other words, the centrality of agriculture to human health is far and away the most important reason why many countries have sought to ensure a measure of food security by protecting their national farm sectors through permutations of production subsidies, price supports, and import controls—the origins of which stretch back to the 1930s in the case of the US and as far back as the nineteenth-century Corn Laws in the case, for example, of the UK. Agricultural history can be read in a number of different ways. The most polarized readings are the productivist and the ecological interpretations. The productivist discourse, which emphasizes the phenomenal productivity gains that have been achieved since the Second World War, is essentially a story of unalloyed economic success due to a tripartite alliance of state, science, and farmers. The ecological discourse, by contrast, points not to the economic benefits of the post-war productivity miracle, but to the social and environmental costs of agricultural intensification. In the US, where intensive farming practices are most advanced, such problems as soil erosion and animal welfare were attributed to the regulatory regime operated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which actively encouraged unsustainable farming practices. Similar connections have been made in Europe, where the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was deemed to be the main culprit.

scholarly journals La La insoportable levedad de la regulación de las profesiones del deporte (The unbearable lightness of the regulation of the sports professions)

Retos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julián Espartero Casado
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Autonomous Community ◽  
Legislative Action ◽  
State Legislator ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
Professional Intervention

 La contumaz inacción del Estado en la regulación de las profesiones del deporte, determinó la actuación legislativa de concretas Comunidades Autónomas en pro de configurar la misma en su ámbito territorial. Esto generó una problemática añadida a la ausencia de regulación estatal que incluso motivó que el legislador estatal reclamara la intervención del ejecutivo para corregir las disfunciones padecidas en este contexto. Sin embargo, ello ni ha traído la tan deseada intervención del Estado, ni tampoco ha frenado la iniciativa legislativa autonómica en este contexto, al que se han sumado cuatro nuevas leyes. Ello implica la progresiva consolidación de un modelo que, por las limitaciones competenciales autonómicas en materia de regulación profesional, no puede llevar a cabo una tarea crucial en el sistema, cual es la diferenciación en los niveles de intervención profesional a través de la necesaria coherencia entre la cualificación poseída y la actividad desempeñada. Asimismo, las normativas autonómicas existentes establecen regulaciones propias que difieren entre sí en la denominación y en los requisitos de acceso a las profesiones reguladas que ordenan, exacerban la configuración de un mercado fragmentado. Además, esta heterogeneidad regulatoria obstaculiza la vertebración de la negociación colectiva a nivel nacional en el sector, dado que formaciones exigidas por el vigente convenio colectivo para ejercer las funciones de sus categorías profesionales difieren con las que regulan estas diversas leyes autonómicas. Todo lo cual, como se justifica, solo puede solventarse con la intervención del Estado, vía del ejercicio de sus competencias exclusivas en la materia. Abstract: The persistent inactivity of the State on the regulation of the sports professions, prompted the legislative action of some specific Autonomous Community for drafting this at their territorial scope, which created some added problems to this absence of the state regulation that even caused the state legislator demanded the intervention of the goverment for correcting the malfunctions endured in this context. Nevertheless, it neither has brought the much-desired intervention of the State, nor has stopped the legislative Autonomous initiative in this context, to which four new laws have been joined. This involves the progressive consolidation of a model that, because the Autonomous competency limitations with respect to professional regulation, cannot accomplish a crucial task in the system. That is the differentiation at the levels of professional intervention through the necessary coherence among the obtained qualification and the performed activity. Moreover, the existing Autonomous regulations establish some own regulations which are different each other about denomination and requisites of access to the regulated professions that order and exacerbate the configuration of a fragmented market. What is more, this regulatory heterogeneity obstructs the realization of the collective bargaining of national level in the sector, since required occupational trainings by the current collective agreement in order to practice the roles of their professions differ with those that regulate these various Autonomous laws. All this, as justified, can be overcome only with the intervention of the State, via the practice of its exclusive powers over this matter.

The cost-utility of the rivastigmine transdermal patch in the management of patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease in the US

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (S 02) ◽  
Author(s):  
A Brennan ◽  
B Nagy ◽  
A Brandtmüller ◽  
SK Thomas ◽  
M Gallagher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Cost Utility ◽  
Transdermal Patch ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cost

California

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Social Cartography ◽  
Family Network ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Police Surveillance ◽  
Us Mexico Border

I utilize my situated position as anthropologist, academician, and citizen to argue not only that we should “think” California, but also that we should “rethink” our state—both its condition and its social cartography. To be clear, I see all my research and endeavors—my research on the US/Mexico border; my time among the markets and entrepreneurs I have worked and lived with; my focus on those places in which I was raised: Lemon Grove, Logan Heights; the family network and my community ethnographic work—as personal. I am in this academic game and the telling of our story because it is personal. When Lemon Grove was segregated, it was about my family; when Logan Heights was split by the construction of Interstate 5 and threatened by police surveillance, it was about our community; when the border was sanctioned and militarized it again was about the communities of which I am a part. A rethinking California is rooted in the experience of living California, of knowing and feeling the condition and the struggles we are experiencing and the crises we have gone through. We need to rethink California, especially the current failure of the state. This too is ultimately personal, because it affects each and every one of us, especially those historically unrepresented folks who have endured over the decades.

General Particulars Regarding the Conflict of Interest

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-149
Author(s):  
Aurelia Teodora Drăghici
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Conflict Of Interest ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
National Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Legal Implications ◽  
Determining Factors ◽  
Changing Role

SummaryTheme conflicts of interest is one of the major reasons for concern local government, regional and central administrative and criminal legal implications aiming to uphold the integrity and decisions objectively. Also, most obviously, conflicts of interest occur at the national level where political stakes are usually highest, one of the determining factors of this segment being the changing role of the state itself, which creates opportunities for individual gain through its transformations.

PREREQUISITES FOR THE FORMATION OF A MECHANISM FOR STATE REGULATION OF SOCIAL GUARANTEES IN THE REGION

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vitaly Lobas ◽  
◽  
Elena Petryaeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Well Being ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Periodic Review ◽  
Cost Of Living ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
State Management ◽  
The Cost

The article deals with modern mechanisms for managing social protection of the population by the state and the private sector. From the point of view of forms of state regulation of the sphere of social protection, system indicators usually include the state and dynamics of growth in the standard of living of the population, material goods, services and social guarantees for the poorly provided segments of the population. The main indicator among the above is the state of the consumer market, as one of the main factors in the development of the state. Priority areas of public administration with the use of various forms of social security have been identified. It should be emphasized that, despite the legislative conflicts that exist today in Ukraine, mandatory indexation of the cost of living is established, which is associated with inflation. Various scientists note that although the definition of the cost of living index has a well-established methodology, there are quite a lot of regional features in the structure of consumption. All this is due to restrictions that are included in the consumer basket of goods and different levels of socio-economic development of regions. The analysis of the establishment and periodic review of the minimum consumer budgets of the subsistence minimum and wages of the working population and the need to form state insurance funds for unforeseen circumstances is carried out. Considering in this context the levers of state management of social guarantees of the population, we drew attention to the crisis periods that are associated with the market transformation of the regional economy. In these conditions, there is a need to develop and implement new mechanisms and clusters in the system of socio-economic relations. The components of the mechanisms ofstate regulation ofsocial guarantees of the population are proposed. The deepening of market relations in the process of reforming the system of social protection of the population should be aimed at social well-being.

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