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Comparative Environmental Federalism: Subsidiarity and Central Regulation in the United States and China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2017

Huiyu Zhao  and
Robert Percival
Huiyu Zhao
Affiliation:
KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Shanghai University Think Tank and Shanghai Social Science Innovation ‘Research Base on National Marine Strategy and Rights’, Shanghai (China). Email: zhaohy28@gmail.com.
Robert Percival
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, Francis King Carey School of Law, Baltimore, MD (United States (US)). Email: rpercival@law.umaryland.edu.
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Abstract

The proper division of responsibility for environmental protection between national and state governments has long been the subject of fierce debate. During the 1970s the United States Congress decided to shift the most important environmental responsibilities from state governments to the federal government. The main reason for this decision was to prevent a ‘race to the bottom’ in that states competing for industries could otherwise be lax in implementing and enforcing federal environmental standards. Yet, some scholars have argued that there could just as easily be a ‘race to the top’ among states as they compete to attract people and businesses concerned with environmental protection. China, in turn, is plagued with severe air and water pollution and soil contamination, which is attributed largely to ineffective enforcement of its national environmental laws. This article investigates whether China’s experience confirms the race-to-the-bottom theory. It demonstrates that devolution of responsibility for environmental protection to lower levels of government tends to result in lax implementation and enforcement of national environmental laws, particularly where national governments also create strong incentives for economic growth. It concludes that China’s highly devolved system of environmental governance is consistent with this theory, even if it does not provide conclusive evidence of its correctness.

Keywords

FederalismRace to the bottomUnited States (US) environmental lawChinese environmental lawImplementation
Type
Articles
Information
Transnational Environmental Law , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , November 2017 , pp. 531 - 549
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

My work was supported by the 2016 Fund of the Shanghai University Think Tank and Shanghai Social Science Innovation ‘Research Base on National Marine Strategy and Rights’, and special funds for the cross-cutting project, issue number 11JCY11, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China).

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