BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Oct. 13 (UPI) -- New research suggests government agencies and publicly owned entities are less likely than their privately owned counterparts to comply with environmental regulations.
Researchers at Indiana University also found government regulators are less likely to properly police their own. Public facilities and infrastructure are less likely to be fined for noncompliance with certain environmental regulations.
Researchers detailed the public-private discrepancy in a new paper, published online in the American Journal of Political Science.
"We find pretty good evidence for power plants, hospitals and water utilities that government-owned facilities are more likely to violate standards than are their private-sector counterparts," study co-author David Konisky, an associated professor at Indiana's School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said in a press release. "And when they do violate, the government is less likely to come down hard on them."
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Konisky and researcher partner Manny Teodoro, an associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University, analyzed regulatory violations committed by thousands of power plants, hospitals and water utilities.
Publicly owned and operated facilities were more likely to commit violations of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. The same facilities were also more likely to commit more serious violations than their private peers. At the same time, public violators were less likely to be formally punished with fines or sanctions.
Konisky says the violations aren't necessarily proof that public entities are more reckless. Complying with environmental regulations costs money, and public entities often face greater barriers to raising funding for compliance, whether through public allocations or rate hikes.
Though privatization of public facilities and utilities may appear a clear solution, Konisky warns privatizing public entities comes with other risks, like a lack of accountability and over-spending on infrastructure.
Other solutions might include creating stronger incentives for compliance or programs to help public entities comply with new environmental regulations, which often requires the installation of new technologies.
Researchers hope their work will inspire other political scientists to take a closer look at the relationships between the regulators and the regulated.
"We also hope the idea of government regulating government will spark interest for research in other domains," Konisky said. "We're investigating the environmental dimensions of the issue, but if other scholars want to pick up these ideas and investigate them in other spaces, that would be great."
