Institutional Variation, Professionalization, and State Implementation Choices: An Examination of Investment in Water Quality Across the 50 States

• Author: Ryan D. Williamson,Jonathan M. Fisk,John C. Morris
• DOI: 10.1177/02750740211007965
• Published date: 01 August 2021
• Date: 01 August 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740211007965

American Review of Public Administration

2021, Vol. 51(6) 436 –448

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/02750740211007965

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Article

America’s water resources represent one of the cornerstones

of the green regulatory state (Klyza & Sousa, 2008).

Safeguarding those resources, however, has precipitated one

of more the intense environmental debates of the twentieth

century and one that has continued well into the twenty-first.

The federal role in water quality was cemented in 1972 with

the passage of the Clean Water Act (Morris, 2022). Congress

has subsequently amended this original “green state” law to

devolve and decentralize implementation authority to the

states (Klyza & Sousa, 2008; Morris, 1997). In 1987, as part

of the Water Quality Act, for example, Congress granted the

states additional flexibility in how they meet water quality

infrastructure and wastewater standards1 (Conlan, 1988;

Morris, 1999b). This downward shift marked a dramatic

change for state water quality and wastewater managers and

has set the stage for significant implementation differences

across the states.

Today, state regulators issue the majority of all environ-

mental permits and engage in three-quarters of total enforce-

ment actions, while relying on the federal government for

approximately 25 percent of their funding (Rabe, 2004, 2006;

U.S. EPA, 2019). Thus, as it relates to water quality, states

and their decisions matter. A cursory review of water quality

spending suggests that states vary in their commitment to

water quality protection, the institutional “location” of the

implementing agency, the amounts they are able/willing to

spend, and the degree to which they rely federal and local

actors for support. In short, state lawmakers face a consequen-

tial set of institutional and intergovernmental choices related

to investing in and implementing federal water quality initia-

tives (See Morris, 1997, 1999a; Travis et al., 2004). Some

states have elected to fund a smaller water quality “footprint”

and have been less willing to make large investments in meet-

ing federal wastewater/water quality infrastructure goals.

Other states, however, have implemented more robust water

quality programs and have allocated considerable sums toward

meeting the goals of the Water Quality Act. Despite the

increasing importance of states as environmental actors, there

is only a small body of research that assesses how states imple-

ment federal water quality standards. There is even less schol-

arship dedicated to understanding how states decide to finance

water quality infrastructure. Recognizing these gaps in the

environmental policy literature, this paper addresses why

some states decide to spend more on water quality infrastruc-

ture for wastewater whereas other states do not.

1007965ARPXXX10.1177/02750740211007965The American Review of Public AdministrationWilliamson et al.

research-article2021

1Auburn University, AL, USA

Corresponding Author:

John C. Morris, Auburn University, 7080 Haley Center, Auburn, AL

36849-5412, USA.

Email: jcm0143@auburn.edu

Institutional Variation, Professionalization,

and State Implementation Choices:

An Examination of Investment in

Water Quality Across the 50 States

Ryan D. Williamson1, John C. Morris1, and Jonathan M. Fisk1

Abstract

The question of the effect of administrative arrangements on program administration and program outcomes is a central

question for those interested in policy implementation. In the implementation of federal programs, the specific state-level

administrative arrangements can have a significant impact not only on resource distribution patterns, but also on the ability

of involved agencies to secure adequate state resources for the program. This paper addresses this question through the lens

of the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund program designed to fund water quality infrastructure. Employing a dataset

covering nearly thirty years of state-level data, we find that measures of administrative structure and state capability are

more powerful explanators of state resource decisions than are more standard explanations of politics, needs, and ideology.

Keywords

state choice, environmental policy, OLS cross-sectional time series, legislative professionalism, state centralization, state

implementation