Pros And Cons Of The Clean Water Act - 277 Words | Bartleby Row 6 is calculated by multiplying each grant by the parameter estimate in TableII, column (1), and applying the result to all waters within 25 miles downstream of the treatment plant. Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act of 2022 In this sense, the existence of the Clean Water Act did crowd out aggregate municipal investment in wastewater treatment. Compared to the mean grant, grants to declining urban areas are significantly less cost-effective, whereas grants to the generally rural counties where many people go fishing or swimming are significantly more effective. These controls could help address possible omitted variables bias due to city growth in these difference-in-differences regressions, but are potentially a case of bad controls (Angrist and Pischke 2009) because they could be affected by grants. Swimmable waters must have BOD below 1.5mg/L, dissolved oxygen above 83% saturation (equivalently, dissolved oxygen deficits below 17%), fecal coliforms below 200 MPN/100mL, and TSS below 10mg/L. Hines (1967) describes state and local control of water pollution in the 1960s, which typically included legislation designating regulated waters and water quality standards, a state pollution control board, and enforcement powers against polluters including fines and incarceration. Point sources are discrete conveyances such as pipes or man-made ditches. Flint, Michigan, has recently had high lead levels in drinking water due to switching its water source from the Detroit River to the Flint River. Incomplete information would be especially important if pollution abatement improves health. The EPA did audit grants to minimize malfeasance. In the presence of such general equilibrium changes, our estimates could be interpreted as a lower bound on willingness to pay (Banzhaf 2015). Dollar values in |${\$}$|2014 millions. Column (3) adds river basin year fixed effects. We discuss a range of pass-through estimates including these for cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis. 2011; Poor etal. Adler Robert W., Landman Jessica C., Cameron Diane M.. Angrist Joshua D., Pischke Jrn-Steffen, Artell Janne, Ahtiainen Heini, Pouta Eija, , Boscoe Francis P., Henry Kevin A., Zdeb Michael S., , Carson Richard T., Mitchell Robert Cameron, , Currie Janet, Zivin Joshua Graff, Meckel Katherine, Neidell Matthew, Schlenker Wolfram, , Deschenes Olivier, Greenstone Michael, Shapiro Joseph S., , Faulkner H., Green A., Pellaumail K., Weaver T., , Gianessi Leonard P., Peskin Henry M., , Jeon Yongsik, Herriges Joseph A., Kling Catherine L., Downing John, , Kahn Matthew E., Li Pei, Zhao Kaxuan, , Keiser David A., Kling Catherine L., Shapiro Joseph S., , Kling Catherine L., Phaneuf Daniel J., Zhao Jinhua, , Leggett Christopher G., Bockstael Nancy E., , Lipscomb Molly, Mobarak Ahmed Mushfiq, , Muehlenbachs Lucija, Spiller Elisheba, Timmins Christopher, , Muller Nicholas Z., Mendelsohn Robert, , Muller Nicholas Z., Mendelsohn Robert, Nordhaus William, , Olmstead Sheila M., Muehlenbachs Lucija A., Shih Jhih-Shyang, Chu Ziyan, Krupnick Alan J., , Peiser Richard B., Smith Lawrence B., , Poor P. Joan, Boyle Kevin J., Taylor Laura O., Bouchard Roy, , Smith Richard A., Alexander Richard B., Wolman M. Gordon, , Smith V. Kerry, Wolloh Carlos Valcarcel, , Steinwender Astrid, Gundacker Caludia, Wittmann Karl J., , Wu Junjie, Adams Richard M., Kling Catherine L., Tanaka Katsuya, , Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Online Appendix F discusses other reasons we believe have weaker support. One involves declining returns to abatement of pollution from point sources. At the same time, much oxygen-demanding pollution comes from agriculture and other nonpoint sources, and those sources have remained largely unregulated. Notes. Our approach focuses on the effects of cleaning up an individual site and is not as well suited to capture the potentially distinct effects of cleaning up entire river systems. Effects of Clean Water Act Grants on Housing Demand. The largest ratios of estimated benefits to costs are for areas where outdoor fishing or swimming is common (ratio of 0.53), for high-amenity urban areas (ratio of 0.40), and in the South (ratio of 0.84). Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality The year in these data refers to each local governments fiscal year. \end{equation}, \begin{equation} For example, the USEPAs (2000a,b) estimate of the benefit/cost ratio of the Clean Water Act is below 1, though the EPAs preferred estimate of the benefit/cost ratio of the Clean Air Act is 42 (USEPA 1997).28. The main regression sample includes only a balanced panel of tracts that appear in all four censuses between 1970 and 2000; imputing values for missing homes hardly changes the ratio in column (4). We report both the double-difference and triple-difference estimators for both outcomes, and obtain qualitatively similar conclusions. The Clean Water Act first appeared in American legislation in 1948 with the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Resources for the Future, Public Policies for Environmental Protection, The Impact of Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers: A Synthesis of the Conceptual and Empirical Literature, Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers: Principles and Practice, Analysis of National Water Pollution Control Policies: 2. Grants and population are both skewed, so large shares of both are in the top decile. Dissolved oxygen deficits and the share of waters that are not fishable both decreased almost every year between 1962 and 1990 (FigureII). Online Appendix FigureVII illustrates. The ultimate entity responsible for local capital costs and operation and maintenance costs is ambiguous because local governments may receive other payments from state or federal governments to help cover these costs. Land Rents, Local Productivity, and the Total Value of Amenities, Watersheds in Child Mortality: The Role of Effective Water and Sewerage Infrastructure, 1880 to 1920, Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Water and Wastewater Treatment Infrastructure, Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricists Companion, Subjective vs. For this reason, our preferred methodology in Section IV.B to assess how Clean Water Act grants affect water pollution uses a triple-difference estimator comparing upstream and downstream areas. As the modification to the Federal Pollution Control Act of 1972, the Clean Water Act of 1977 is the most important federal law that protects the sanitation of water, which includes lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. Notes. Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act 1990-2020, the Second - US EPA Fecal coliforms are approximately log-normally distributed, and BOD and TSS are somewhat skewed (Online Appendix FigureI). They give similar qualitative conclusions as the main results, though exact point estimates vary. Notes. The USEPAs (2000a) cost-benefit analysis of the Clean Water Act estimates that nonuse values are a sixth as large as use values. V_{py}=\gamma G_{py}+X_{py}^{^{\,\,\prime }}\beta +\eta _{p}+\eta _{wy}+\epsilon _{py}. Dissolved oxygen deficit equals 100 minus dissolved oxygen saturation, measured in percentage points. The hedonic price schedule provides information about willingness to pay for amenity j because it reflects the points of tangency between consumer bid curves and firm offer curves. The Clean Water Act targets industry by focusing on the chemical aspects of polluted water. These estimates divide treatment plants into 10 deciles of the number of housing units in 2000 within 25 miles of downstream river segments. Letting States Do the Dirty Work: State Responsibility for Federal Environmental Regulation, Transboundary Spillovers and Decentralization of Environmental Policies, Water-Quality Trends in the Nations Rivers. These values are similar without survey weights, or when excluding outlier reported travel distances (above 150 miles). GLS based on the number of underlying pollution readings in each plant downstream year is an efficient response to heteroskedasticity since we have grouped data. River miles * pct. Related patterns have been found for air pollution, and suggest that allowing the stringency of pollution regulation to vary over space has potential to increase social welfare. We find large declines in most pollutants that the Clean Water Act targeted. This is potentially informative because increased taxes, sewer fees, or changes in other municipal expenditures are likely to be concentrated in the municipal authority managing the treatment plant, whereas the change in water quality is relevant for areas further downstream. Objective Measures in the Valuation of Water Quality, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Water Use and Conservation in Manufacturing: Evidence from U.S. Microdata, A Nationwide Comparison of Driving Distance versus Straight-Line Distance to Hospitals, The Value of Clean Water: The Publics Willingness to Pay for Boatable, Fishable, and Swimmable Quality Water, Efficient Investment in Wastewater Treatment Plants, The Effectiveness of Incomplete and Overlapping Pollution Regulation: Evidence from Bans on Phosphate in Automatic Dishwasher Detergent, Something in the Water: Contaminated Drinking Water and Infant Health, Defensive Investments and the Demand for Air Quality: Evidence from the NOx Budget Program, Panel Data Analysis of Regulatory Factors Shaping Environmental Performance, Regulatory Factors Shaping Environmental Performance at Public-Owned Treatment Plants, The Consequences of Industrialization: Evidence from Water Pollution and Digestive Cancers in China, Residents Perceptions of Water Quality Improvements Following Remediation Work in the Pymmes Brook Catchment, North London, UK. When we fit the change in home values, we do so both for only the balanced panel of tract-years reporting home values, and for all tract-years. However, it leaves it up to EPA. PDF Clean Water Act and Pollutant Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) The increases are small and statistically insignificant in most years. We convert the data to calendar years using data from these surveys on the month when each governments fiscal year ends, assuming that government expenditure is evenly distributed across months. Dependent variable mean describes mean in 19621972. We use the following regression to estimate the effects of Clean Water Act grants on water pollution: \begin{equation} Pros of legalism are There were much fewer crimes in china and the laws. The 30-year duration of these benefits is also consistent with, though on the lower end of, engineering predictions. Online Appendix E.2 investigates heterogeneity in grants effects on water pollution and cost-effectiveness. A review of 10 U.S. studies found pass-through estimates between 0.25 and 1.06 (Hines and Thaler 1995). We estimate many sensitivity analyses, including restricting to high-quality subsamples of the data, adding important controls, weighting by population, and many others. 679 Words. Implemented in response to growing public awareness and concern for controlling water pollution in the U.S., the Clean Water Act followed the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970, and preceded the Endangered Species Act of 1973, making it part of a period of landmark . Part I: State Pollution Control Programs, The Role of Water Quality Perceptions in Modelling Lake Recreation Demand, The International Handbook on Non-Market Environmental Valuation, The Displacement of Local Spending for Pollution Control by Federal Construction Grants, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, Water Pollution Progress at Borders: The Role of Changes in Chinas Political Promotion Incentives, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, The Missing Benefits of Clean Water and the Role of Mismeasured Pollution Data, The Low but Uncertain Measured Benefits of US Water Quality Policy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Replication Data for Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality, Evaluating Public Programs with Close Substitutes: The Case of Head Start. Decent Essays. Our interpretation is that once the Clean Water Act began, cities became less likely to spend municipal funds on wastewater treatment capital. This analysis, however, is subject to serious concerns about use and nonuse estimates in the underlying studies. Objective versus Subjective Assessments of Environmental Quality of Standing and Running Waters in a Large City, 1967 Census of Manufactures: Water Use in Manufacturing, National Water Quality Inventory. Our recreation data also represent all trips, and water-based recreation trips might require different travel distances. This does not seem consistent with our results because it would likely create pretrends in pollution or home values, whereas we observe none. 5 Things To Know About NY's Clean Water, Air, And Green Jobs Bond Act None of these subsets of grants considered has a ratio of measured benefits to costs above one, though many of the confidence regions cannot reject a ratio of 1. TableIV reports estimates corresponding to equation (5). The only econometric analysis we know of such policies tests how the French policy of jointly taxing industrial air pollution and subsidizing abatement technologies affected emissions, using data from 226 plants (Millock and Nauges 2006). The share of waters that are not fishable fell on average by about half a percentage point per year, and the share that are not swimmable fell at a similar rate (TableI, Panel A). We also report unweighted estimates. We find some evidence that the net benefits of Clean Water Act grants vary over space in tandem with population density and the popularity of water-based recreation. The Clean Water Act was passed by a bi-partisan vote in the early 1970s after decades of Congress trying unsuccessfully to get the states to clean up pollution in our nation's waterways. Calculations include grants given in 19622000. The positive coefficients in the richer specifications of columns (2) through (4) are consistent with increases in home values, though most are statistically insignificant. Industrial Water Pollution in the United States: Direct Regulation or Market Incentive? These estimates are within a standard deviation of one, so fail to reject the hypothesis that the municipal wastewater investment exactly equals the cost listed in the grant project data.20. Column (4) implies that each grant increases mean home values within 25 miles of affected waters by 0.024 percentage point. A third question involves substitution. Sample size in all regressions is 6,336. Season controls are a cubic polynomial in day of year. The Clean Water Act Flashcards | Quizlet Row 8 equals row 1 divided by 30 times row 6. Because no reference category is required in this kind of event study setting, where one observation can receive multiple treatments, for ease of interpretation, we recenter the graph line so the coefficient for the year before treatment ( = 1) equals 0. One possible channel is that wages change to reflect the improvement in amenities (Roback 1982). These calculations use our regression estimates and the cost data. It remains one of our nation's most vital safeguards for the health and safety of our communities and our environment. These studies ask: The positives of the Lacey Act it is one of . 7 things to know about the Clean Water Act after 50 years \end{equation}, Political Internalization of Economic Externalities and Environmental Policy, What Are Cities Worth? Notes. This implies that pollution levels in upstream and downstream waters had similar trends before grants were received. Clean Water Act Pros And Cons - 1085 Words | Cram Fourth, this analysis abstracts from general equilibrium changes. We emphasize a few caveats in interpreting TableIV. Current policy debates center on the uncertainty around wetland benefits. This tells us little about the Clean Water Acts effects, however, since its investments may take time to affect water pollution, expanded during the 1970s, and may be effective even if not obvious from a national time series. The curve 1 describes the bid function of one type of consumer. 1974 Report to the Congress. The tablet dissolves into the liquid and releases some of the chemicals to purify the water instantly. Finally, we interpret our pass-through estimates cautiously because they reflect only 198 cities, do not use upstream waters as a comparison group, and reflect pass-through of marginal changes in investment, rather than the entire Clean Water Act. The other pollutants decrease as wellBOD falls by about 2.4%, fecal coliforms fall by 3.6%, and the probability that downstream waters are not swimmable by about half a percentage point. In Panel B, the year variables are recentered around 1972. The ratio of the change in housing values to federal capital costs in columns (2)(4) of TableVI ranges from 0.8 to 0.9; the ratio of the change in housing values to the sum of federal capital costs and operating costs (but excluding local capital costs) in these columns is around 0.3. Overall, this evidence does not suggest dramatic heterogeneity in cost-effectiveness. First "water pollution control" legislation. We now turn to estimate the cost-effectiveness of these grants. The Clean Water Act has protected our health for more than 40 years -- and helped our nation clean up hundreds of thousands of miles of polluted waterways. Clear protections mean cleaner water. The estimates in TableIV are generally consistent with near complete pass-through, that is, little or no crowding out or in beyond the required municipal capital copayment. Standard errors are clustered by watershed. Beginning in 1977, grants provided a higher 85% subsidy to projects using innovative technology, such as those sending waste-water through constructed wetlands for treatment. Event study graphs for other pollutants are consistent with these results, but are less precise (Online Appendix FigureIV). Rainwater monitors that are not in our data record increases of similar magnitude in rainwater pH over this period, and attribute it to declines in atmospheric sulfur air pollution (USEPA 2007). A second question is scope. Environmental Bill: The Pros and Cons - The New York Times Online Appendix E.3 discusses interpretations of our housing estimates under alternative pass-through numbers. First, the analysis is based on only 198 cities. The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters. Graphs show year fixed effects plus a constant from regressions that also control for monitoring site fixed effects, a day-of-year cubic polynomial, and an hour-of-day cubic polynomial, corresponding to equation (1) from the text. These pass-through estimates also speak to the broader flypaper literature in public finance, so named to reflect its finding that federal government spending sticks where it hits. Researchers have estimated the pass-through of federal grants to local expenditure in education, social assistance, and other public services. RFF is committed to being the most widely trusted source of research insights and policy solutions leading to a healthy environment and a thriving economy. Panels A and B show different ranges of values on their y-axes. But if local governments ultimately pay these costs, they could depress home values. Water is one of the resources on the Earth that is becoming more and more scarce and the . Legal attempts at resolution: CIITES pros are it is harder and takes a lot longer to get a permit to cut down trees and it protects 700 other species. Estimates come from regression specifications corresponding to TableV, columns (3) and (4). All You Need to Know About The Clean Water Act & Its Amendments The Clean Water Act was produced as a means for the EPA to implement pollution control programs alongside setting water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters. This article assembles an array of new data to assess water pollutions trends, causes, and welfare consequences. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Environmental Policy Choice: Pollution Abatement Subsidies, Water Pollution Policy. The top decile of counties includes ratios between 0.31 and 0.41. JavaScript appears to be disabled on this computer. The Clean Water Act and Water Pollution, VI. Research does find statistically significant but imperfect correlation between perceived local water pollution and objectively measured local water pollution (Faulkner etal. The share of waters that are fishable has grown by 12 percentage points since the Clean Water Act. Fourth, to obtain regression estimates for the average housing unit and provide an efficient response to heteroskedasticity, we include GLS weights proportional to the number of total housing units in the plant-year observation and to the sampling probability.17. See main text for description of dwelling and baseline covariates. GLS estimates the effect for the average pollution reading rather than for the average plant downstream year. Electricity-generating units and other sources do contribute to thermal pollution in rivers, but increasing temperature is an outlier from decreasing trends in most other water pollutants. The simplest specification of column (1), which includes rivers with water quality data, implies that it cost |${\$}$|0.67 million a year to increase dissolved oxygen saturation in a river-mile by 10%; the broadest specification of column (3), which assumes every treatment plant has 25 miles of downstream waters affected, implies that it cost |${\$}$|0.53 million a year. But because residents who live upstream of treatment plants can benefit from clean water downstream of treatment plants (e.g., by traveling for recreation), upstream homes could benefit from grants. Under the CWA, EPA has implemented pollution control programs such as setting wastewater standards for industry. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Asterisks denote p-value <.01 (***). Regressions with linear trend and trend break specifications underscore these findings, subject to the caveats mentioned earlier about the linear approximations and the long post period. We now compare the ratio of a grants effect on housing values (its measured benefits) to its costs. The historic law was designed to protect all of our waters - from the smallest streams to the mightiest rivers - from pollution and destruction. Panels A and B reflect the classic hedonic model, with fixed housing stock. \end{equation*}. Second, measuring cost-effectiveness is insufficient to reach conclusions about social welfare; Section VII discusses peoples value for these changes. Some of the pernicious substances that have been found in water supply systems across the United States include: Arsenic (declared safe for drinking water by the government at twice the levels recommended by private scientists) Uranium Mercury Lead Manganese Perchlorate - a rocket fuel additive Trichloroethylene - a degreaser used in manufacturing But municipal investments that occurred were closely connected to grants, and point estimates imply that the grant costs in our data accurately represent the actual change in spending. Standard errors are clustered by watershed.