摘要：Many of the biggest environmental policies are federal: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and so forth. Yet those federal laws leave important niches to be filled by state authorities; there are areas of environmental policy in which state governments can and should take the lead. Some state policy initiatives are of particular relevance to rural areas. However, two questions must be answered before attempts are made to formulate any such state policy: which environmental problems are “rural?” and “what role should state government play?” I provide recommendations for state policy related to water pollution and species conservation which employ pollution standards, economic incentives, liability policy enforcement, and measures to improve the technical capacity of state environmental agencies. These problems are likely to be important in many states, and thinking through them provides an opportunity to showcase some general principles of state environmental policy formation.
