Public outcry over dirty rivers spurred Congress to pass the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972. Regulating Untaxable Externalities: Are Vehicle Air Pollution Standards Effective and Efficient? Fecal coliforms had the fastest rate of decrease, at 2.5% a year. This analysis, however, is subject to serious concerns about use and nonuse estimates in the underlying studies. Event study graphs for other pollutants are consistent with these results, but are less precise (Online Appendix FigureIV). Electricity-generating units and other sources do contribute to thermal pollution in rivers, but increasing temperature is an outlier from decreasing trends in most other water pollutants. Our topic is clean water and sanitation. Objective Measures in the Valuation of Water Quality, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Water Use and Conservation in Manufacturing: Evidence from U.S. Microdata, A Nationwide Comparison of Driving Distance versus Straight-Line Distance to Hospitals, The Value of Clean Water: The Publics Willingness to Pay for Boatable, Fishable, and Swimmable Quality Water, Efficient Investment in Wastewater Treatment Plants, The Effectiveness of Incomplete and Overlapping Pollution Regulation: Evidence from Bans on Phosphate in Automatic Dishwasher Detergent, Something in the Water: Contaminated Drinking Water and Infant Health, Defensive Investments and the Demand for Air Quality: Evidence from the NOx Budget Program, Panel Data Analysis of Regulatory Factors Shaping Environmental Performance, Regulatory Factors Shaping Environmental Performance at Public-Owned Treatment Plants, The Consequences of Industrialization: Evidence from Water Pollution and Digestive Cancers in China, Residents Perceptions of Water Quality Improvements Following Remediation Work in the Pymmes Brook Catchment, North London, UK. Clear protections mean cleaner water. The positives of the Lacey Act it is one of . Provide federal assistance to control municipal discharges of wastewater. A blueprint for clean water everywhere, for everyone The wastewater treatment plants that are the focus of this article also receive effluent permits through the NPDES program, so our analysis of grants may also reflect NPDES permits distributed to wastewater treatment plants. It may be useful to highlight differences in how the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts answer four important questions about environmental regulation. Water Pollution Control Act 1948. The 30-year duration of these benefits is also consistent with, though on the lower end of, engineering predictions. The simplest specification of column (1), which includes rivers with water quality data, implies that it cost |${\$}$|0.67 million a year to increase dissolved oxygen saturation in a river-mile by 10%; the broadest specification of column (3), which assumes every treatment plant has 25 miles of downstream waters affected, implies that it cost |${\$}$|0.53 million a year. We considered a fourth repository, the Sustaining the Earths Watersheds: Agricultural Research Data System (STEWARDS), managed by the USDA. First, the analysis is based on only 198 cities. A third question involves substitution. The basis of the CWA was enacted in 1948 and was called the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, but the Act was significantly reorganized and expanded in 1972. These confidence regions do not reject the hypothesis that the ratio of the change in home values to the grants costs is zero but do reject the hypothesis that the change in home values equals the grants costs. The Clean Water Act was produced as a means for the EPA to implement pollution control programs alongside setting water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters. Two are marginally significant (Panel C, column (1)), though the precision and point estimate diminish with the controls of column (2). Fourth, this analysis abstracts from general equilibrium changes. C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: C3 - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple, C4 - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special, C6 - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation, C8 - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer, E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal, E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and, E6 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General, F2 - International Factor Movements and International, F4 - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and, F5 - International Relations, National Security, and International Political, H3 - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic, H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related, H7 - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental, J5 - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective, J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant, K4 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal, L1 - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market, L7 - Industry Studies: Primary Products and, L9 - Industry Studies: Transportation and, M - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel. Online Appendix FigureVI shows national trends in federal versus state and local spending on wastewater treatment capital over 19601983.21 State and local spending on wastewater treatment capital declined steadily from a total of |${\$}$|43 billion in 1963 to |${\$}$|22 billion in 1971 and then to |${\$}$|7 billion annually by the late 1970s.