Change and Continuity in the Role of State Attorneys General in the Obama and Trump Administrations

During the Trump Administration, state attorneys general (AGs) have become entrenched as integral policymaking actors in the United States. Their expanding policymaking role fits broader patterns of polarized politics, as partisan coalitions of AGs are increasingly willing to sue the federal government, a trend that gathered steam in the Obama Administration and has reached a crescendo in Trump’s first year. However, state AGs do cooperate, particularly in corporate litigation to address allegedly widespread, illegal behavior. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset of multi-state lawsuits and Supreme Court amicus briefs, we identify continuity and change in how AGs have employed their powers, by examining their activities during the first year of the Trump presidency and placing these activities in the context of previous administrations. This analysis is accompanied by a pair of case studies, one on conflictual AG environmental litigation and another on bipartisan efforts to address the opioid epidemic. Both demonstrate AG’s prominent policymaking power, a power unlikely to abate anytime soon

Second‐Order Devolution or Local Activism?: Local Air Agencies Revisited

In response to calls from previous scholarship for further bottom-up examination of local government roles in environmental policy, the authors revisit local air agencies to examine two separate phenomena occurring in environmental federalism: one from the top-down (second- order devolution) and one from the bottom-up (local activism). Using survey data from local air agencies on devolved authorities to set air quality standards and to enforce federal and/or state standards, the authors identify three different types of local agencies: state administrative sub- units (only enforcement authority), fully devolved agencies (authority to both set and enforce standards), and activist agencies (neither authority). Further findings indicate that state administrative sub-units and fully-devolved agencies are likely functions of second-order devolution, while activist agencies are likely functions of local activism. Conclusions suggest that both top-down and bottom-up approaches to environmental federalism are shaping local government roles in environmental management