Coexistence or Conflict? U.S. Chemical Facility Relations with their Communities Donald P. Haider-Markel University of Kansas May 2004 This research was funded by the STAR Program of the Environmental Protection Agency, grant #R

Project Overview Investigators: Donald P. Haider-Markel (PS), Dietrich Earnhart (ECON), Tatsuji Ebihara (ENGIN), Robert Glicksman (LAW) Project Goals and Objectives Main: to determine and isolate the effects of government interventions on corporate environmental behavior and performance (CEBP) at individual facilities in the industrial sector of chemical and allied products. Of Central Interest: Can communities shape the environmental performance and behavior of local industry? Additionally: How do facilities view their communities and interact with their communities Survey: One way to address these questions is to survey facilities themselves.

Survey of Chemical Facilities Attempted to survey chemical facilities with active NPDES permits Survey began in March 2002 Significant problems with contact information (56%) Ended with 267 completed surveys; the response rate was 20 percent. The cooperation rate was 26.6 percent

Descriptive Statistics

Summary of Multivariate Analysis Results of multivariate statistical analysis finds only weak links between community characteristics and respondent perceptions And only weak links to facility environmental behavior Respondent perceptions and facility behavior seem to be influenced by political participation and partisanship Weak results are likely stem from the use of rough surrogates for community pressure

Discussion and Conclusions Influence of community weaker than anticipated But facilities do indicate they are responsive to their communities Facilities are making efforts to obtain community feedback Most responsive facilities tend to be larger and publicly owned