Pubic concern about potential environmental risks of agricultural business for the
livestock production and processing is increasing, as many recent changes in state
level environmental policies in regard to animal feeding operations reflect. However,
the impact of more stringent policies on environmental quality and the livestock
industry is unclear. This lack of clarity may be either due to data constraints or
analytical challenges in tackling this complex issue. I hope to contribute to the
resolution of this problem through a cross sectional and time series analysis of state-
level environmental policy on the hog and beef cattle industries. In this analysis, I
examine different impacts of policy on industry and operation size across these two
important livestock industry subsectors in the U.S.
