The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued a report that says the relationship between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states has devolved into a system where states, including Arizona, must implement federal environmental programs while receiving progressively less money from federal sources.
The report said that states administer 96.5 percent of all federally mandated environmental programs, yet the federal government grants on average 28 percent of the funds needed to run these programs. Arizona receives only 13.4 percent of the overall budget needed to run the federal government's required environmental programs.
The report makes several recommendations to Congress addressing the issue in an attempt to rectify the funding issue.
This report is one of many released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce designed to hold the government accountable for an increasingly complicated environmental and technological regulations.