Do environmental incidents affect state-level environmental building policy?

This article explores the impact of environmental incidents or focusing events on state-level green building policy-making in the United States. Environmental policy researchers have identified several factors and their impact on states' ability and willingness to formulate green policies. A recent study by Bose and Pandey shows that state-level environmental incidents are important in determining environmental policy linked to climate and energy issues. We test for the impact of environmental incidents and its interaction with the strength of environmental organizations on the formulation of green policies at the state level that are tied to green building policy. Empirical results from the longitudinal data indicate that the states that witness environmental incidents in the current period are less likely to formulate environmental policies during that period. Further, changes in environmental membership are negatively associated with green building policy. We also find that environmental organizations do not root their advocacy programs on the previous period's environmental incident(s). This indicates that environmental focusing events do not affect state-level green building policy. Our results partly agree and partly differ from Bose and Pandey's work on climate and energy issues. These results contribute to our understanding of the critical determinants of environmental policy-making.