The Selective Enforcement of Government Regulation : Battleground States, State Regulators, and the EPA

The Electoral College creates incentives for politicians and regulators to direct policy favors to so called "battleground" or "swing" states (the median voters in presidential elections). We examinewhether regulators treat battleground states favorably by examining whether the EPA is less likelyto find a regulated facility in violation of the Clean Water Act if it is located in a battleground state.We find that violation rates for these facilities are significantly lower than those in non-battlegroundstates. Reduced enforcement is widespread and spans a sample period of over thirty years. Weprovide important evidence for a mechanism by which this occurs: facilities in battleground statesare issued permits that are more lenient than those in non-battleground states. Identification isobtained by the analysis of the violation rates of similar facilities located along the border betweenbattleground and non-battleground states. This selective enforcement appears to primarily resultfrom lax EPA oversight of state-level regulators