Environmental Commitment among the States: Integrating Alternative Approaches to State Environmental Policy

This article examines variation in state commitment to protectingthe natural environment. We contribute to theoretical and empiricalresearch in this area in two primary ways. First, our dependentvariable consists of a general measure of state commitment tothe environment. Second, we develop a causal model that integratessix major explanatory approaches to state environmental policy.Our results show that stales with liberal public opinion, strongenvironmental interest groups, liberal legislatures, and professionalizedlegislatures are the most committed to environmental protection.States' manufacturing interests and economic resources playa relatively minor role, and slates' environmental conditionsand the influence of the federal government play virtually norole in explaining variation in general state commitment toenvironmental protection.