Did the EPA's Voluntary Industrial Toxics Program Reduce Emissions? A GIS Analysis of Distributional Impacts and By-Media Analysis of Substitution

Abstract

Voluntary programs in which manufacturing plants pledge to reduce their emissions beyond the legal requirement have been promoted as a low-cost way to achieve health and environmental protection. The EPA's Industrial Toxics program is evaluated using an author-assembled GIS-database of manufacturing plants in the 48 contiguous states, controlling for mandated reductions in ozone depleting chemicals and changes in reporting of emissions. I find that, controlling for participants' self-selection into the program, relative to non-participants, participants do not reduce their health-indexed emissions of target chemicals in several key industries. Where reductions are detected in selected industries, participants' increased off-site transfers to recyclers give reasons to question whether this program truly reduced emissions. Moreover, the program did not reduce emissions in less politically active communities.

Keywords: Voluntary programs, Cross-media substitution, Health-indexed emissions, Toxic release inventory, Geographical information systems

JEL Classification: Q58, Q53, L60