Assessing the influence of regional Environmental Protection Agency offices on state hazardous waste enforcement decisions

In assessing the influence of regional Environmental Protection Agency EPA offices on the state management of hazardous waste programs, we focused on the extent to which federal administrative decisions affect levels of enforcement activity by state environmental agencies and whether these effects vary over time. Our results indicated that state enforcement actions were affected by state program capacity variables such as primacy and the strength of existing hazardous waste policies as well as one federal-level factor—the distribution of grant monies. The impact of federal oversight decisions was minimal.