Explaining State Allocation Shares Under the Water Quality Act of 1987: Politics, Incrementalism, or Need?

What is the basis of the allocation of federal funding for wastewater treatment infrastructure? The Water Quality Act of 1987 changed the ways in which the national government helped to offset the costs of compliance with the Clean Water Act by changing the scheme to allocate grant funds to states. However, the available literature provides no clues as to how the allocations for each state were determined. Our model to predict state shares under the 1987 legislation includes policy need and population; we also include variables to represent each state’s influence in the House and Senate committees. We find that the most likely explanation for the 1987 allocation is incrementalism, although small-state representation on the Senate committee is positively correlated with higher allocation amounts. This research contributes to our understanding of federal legislative funding allocation formulae, particularly for environmental infrastructure programs.