Effectiveness of State Participation in Voluntary Programs for Pollution Control

"Regulating pollution levels can be costly for governments and polluters. In hopes of a more cost­effective manner for reducing pollution, the EPA launched its first voluntary programs for pollution control in 1991. Such programs form partnerships with firms, industries, and state and local governments using voluntary commitments to reduce pollution not generally addressed by laws and regulations. The Clean Energy­Environment State Partnership Program (CEESP) is a program that helps states review and adopt policies and programs that effectively integrate clean energy into a low­cost, clean, and reliable energy system. The intended result of the program is the public good of reduced pollution levels. While firm participation in voluntary programs has been studied to a significant degree, state participation has not. The intent of this study is to understand which state characteristics encourage participation in a voluntary program, specifically CEESP, and whether a state's participation significantly and positively affects a state's generation of green power."