Over the last two decades, political polarization has gridlocked federal congressional capacity to meet environmental regulatory demands. As a result, presidential authority has expanded to overcome this legislative impediment leading to a new era of “administrative presidency.” In this new era, presidents have increasingly used their administrative authority to meet politically driven environmental goals. Yet, we still know little about how federal-level executive political actions impact the outcomes and operations of local regulatory environmental systems. This study fills this scholarly void by empirically testing the effect of a federal COVID-19 Clean Water Act (CWA) enforcement reduction on Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) implementation outcomes for local community water systems (CWSs) sourcing from surface waters (SWs). Using a framework grounded in transaction cost federalism, we argue that a politically motivated executive reduction in federal CWA enforcement is associated with poor local SDWA implementation outcomes. We test this assumption with a differences-in-differences econometric approach using data drawn from the federal Safe Drinking Water Information System database. Our findings suggest that the CWA enforcement reduction resulted in an over 50% increase in SDWA health violations by CWSs sourcing from SWs. The implications of this study extend to U.S. water policy and environmental federalism, highlighting the need for better coordination between the CWA and SDWA and the potential risks associated with relying on broadened executive actions to drive U.S. environmental policy. Further research is warranted to understand the consequences of administrative policy changes on U.S. environmental governance.

中文翻译：

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行政总统的交易成本：来自特朗普时代清洁水法案执法减少的证据

在过去的二十年里，政治两极分化导致联邦国会满足环境监管要求的能力陷入僵局。结果，总统权力得到了扩大，以克服这一立法障碍，从而进入“行政总统制”的新时代。在这个新时代，总统越来越多地利用其行政权力来实现政治驱动的环境目标。然而，我们对联邦一级行政政治行动如何影响地方监管环境系统的结果和运作仍然知之甚少。本研究通过实证测试联邦新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 清洁水法案 (CWA) 执法减少对取自地表水 (SW) 的当地社区供水系统 (CWS) 的安全饮用水法案 (SDWA) 实施结果的影响，填补了这一学术空白。 。使用基于交易成本联邦制的框架，我们认为，出于政治动机而减少联邦 CWA 执法的行政人员与当地 SDWA 实施结果不佳有关。我们使用从联邦安全饮用水信息系统数据库中提取的数据，通过双重差分计量经济学方法检验了这一假设。我们的研究结果表明，CWA 执法力度的减少导致从 SW 采购的 CWS 导致 SDWA 健康违规行为增加了 50% 以上。这项研究的影响延伸到了美国水政策和环境联邦制，强调了 CWA 和 SDWA 之间更好协调的必要性，以及依赖扩大行政行动来推动美国环境政策的潜在风险。需要进一步研究来了解行政政策变化对美国环境治理的影响。