Three Essays On Enforcement and Compliance with Water Regulation in the United States

This dissertation consists of three separate papers in environmental economics. The first chapter uses an event study to examine the transition from federal to state management of the Clean Water Act (CWA). I find that, overall, the transition from federal to state control has little effect on the fraction of facilities in violation. However, states with a long run prevalence of corruption see a large decrease in the fraction of facilities in violation after authorization relative to states without corruption. Alternative specifications support these findings. I explore whether the response to transition to state control differs across political ideology, GDP and income per capita, government size, environmental preferences and government management performance. None of these alternative state level characteristics seem to account for the observed difference.;In the second chapter, joint work with Laura Grant, we measure the effects of nonprofit groups on enforcement and compliance of the Clean Water Act. We geographically link data from the EPA regarding facility inspections, violations, SNC Category I violations, enforcement actions and penalties with information about nearby nonprofit groups. Our results suggest that state governments decrease inspections as the number of groups increase. We also find a decrease in the most serious classification of effluent violations. However, we do not find changes in regulatory enforcement actions or penalties. The results suggest that groups affect compliance primarily through indirect oversight of firms rather than official regulatory channels. Using land cover as an instrumental variable strengthens our evidence that watershed groups encourage firm compliance and decrease official monitoring.;In the third chapter, I examine the effectiveness of the Public Notification rule under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Safe Drinking Water Act addresses harmful contaminants in drinking water by providing states the authority to monitor public water systems, notify the public of exceedances above allowable levels and cite persistent violators. Violating water systems are subject to intense regulatory and public scrutiny. The relationship between violation status and contaminant levels has not been explored empirically. This paper addresses this relationship through an event study using data on arsenic and nitrate levels in California. I find that violation status has a significant positive effect on nitrate levels post violation, but no effect on arsenic levels. I also examine the effect of the 2006 arsenic Maximum Contaminant Level revision, finding a discontinuity in contaminant levels at revision. These results suggest that while public disclosure may deter systems from violating, once they go into violation the Public Notification Rule is not effective at encouraging a return to compliance.