Environmental Regulation, Fiscal Decentralization, and Agricultural Carbon Intensity: A Challenge to Ecological Sustainability Policies in the United States

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors!

The topic is interesting, also from the point of view of problems environmental regulation, fiscal decentralization, and agricultural carbon intensity.

It is good, that the Authors note the limitations in the availability of data, and the resulting consequences. They wrote:  “However, the trustworthiness of the findings is impacted by the continued uncertainty around the coefficients below the states level. The agricultural sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and a potential carbon sink. More precise carbon emissions data may be produced in the future because of improvements in the methods used to compute carbon emissions and carbon absorption. Last but not least, obtaining data at the city or county level is necessary since it is so patent differences in agricultural development between regions within a State in order to obtain a more accurate and explanatory relationship between agricultural carbon intensity, environmental regulation, and fiscal decentralization”.[lines 708-715].

The conclusions are very progressive. Practical application requires deepening and confirmation in subsequent studies. It should be noted that there are also different concepts regarding carbon intensity and agricultural reform.

The work uses advanced analytical methods. This paper is interesting and well qualified in publication. I consider that the authors have done good work. The topic of this paper is appropriate to the scope of Sustainability Journal.

Author Response

I am writing to express my sincerest gratitude for your dedicated time and effort in reviewing my work. Your valuable feedback and suggestions have immensely helped improve my manuscript's quality.

I appreciate the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of your review, and I am glad to inform you that every suggestion and recommendation you made has been carefully incorporated into the revised manuscript. Your insightful comments have enabled me to refine my arguments and better articulate my ideas, and I am confident that the manuscript is now more robust and more coherent due to your input.

Your commitment to maintaining the highest standards of academic excellence is commendable, and I am honored that you found my work worthy of your attention. Your feedback has undoubtedly contributed to making my manuscript a more comprehensive and well-rounded contribution to the field.

Once again, I thank you for your time and attention, and I hope that the revised manuscript reflects the care and effort you invested in your review.

Sincerely,

PS

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper analyses the ecological sustainability of energy policies in the US. It is based on an interesting idea and presents a relevant topic. Below is a list of remarks that might help improve the manuscript:

1)     Abstract. According to the Journal’s guidelines, the abstract is too long. The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum.

2)     Introduction. The segment would benefit from having a brief content at the end that shortly highlights the key segments of the paper.

3)     Quality of presentation. Simply listing tables with data does not offer an easy, intuitive way for readers to understand your research and its implications. It would be meaningful for the authors to invest extra effort in presenting their results with graphical figures.

4)     Conclusion. This segment should be enhanced with additional outcomes and comparisons with other studies in the field. Are your results aligned with those of other studies in the field?

a.      Also, the benefits of the proposed model are not clear enough and should be described more concisely.

Author Response

I am writing to express my sincerest gratitude for your dedicated time and effort in reviewing my work. Your valuable feedback and suggestions have immensely helped improve my manuscript's quality.

I appreciate the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of your review, and I am glad to inform you that every suggestion and recommendation you made has been carefully incorporated into the revised manuscript. Your insightful comments have enabled me to refine my arguments and better articulate my ideas. I am confident that the manuscript is now more robust and more coherent due to your input.

Your commitment to maintaining the highest standards of academic excellence is commendable, and I am honored that you found my work worthy of your attention. Your feedback has undoubtedly contributed to making my manuscript a more comprehensive and well-rounded contribution to the field.

Once again, I thank you for your time and attention, and I hope that the revised manuscript reflects the care and effort you invested in your review.

Sincerely,

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Summary:

This paper attempts to examine the relationship between environmental regulation, fiscal decentralization, and agricultural carbon intensity in the United States between the years 2000 and 2019. The overarching objective is to guide policies that support ecological sustainability.

Review:

There are serious issues with the writing. This paper requires a thorough rewrite before it can be considered for publication, as it is currently difficult to understand the objectives, hypotheses, and results. Confusing statements include the very opening sentence on 51 (the greenhouse effect contributes to air pollution? Do you mean GHG increases or literal air pollutants? Is there a citation for this?); line 65 (who are the other 1.4 billion?); line 89 (what system of ecological governance are you referring to?); line 110 (underlying mechanisms of what? ACI? Or FD?); line 211 (who is exceeding EPA regulations and what regulations are you describing?) line 236 (who are the researchers?); and so on.

Throughout the paper, terms are regularly mentioned but never defined (including, but not limited to, race to the bottom, spillover effect, double carbon, green conundrum, Potter hypothesis, race to the top, free-riding, mutual imitation, green paradox). Acronyms are also used and never defined (including TI, GL, and GDP). This is very distracting and makes the paper difficult to interpret.

Furthermore, citations do not appear to match statements made in the paper, or are not included at all. For example, citations 8 and 9 are about China’s food security and land-use. However, authors use these citations to justify a statement about the United States’ “top priority” and its percent arable land vs agricultural output. Citations either need to be better placed within each sentence, so proper attribution is present and legible, or citations need to be reconsidered altogether. There are also statements that include no citation, though they make claims that require textual evidence (including but not limited to statements on line 51, 78, 82).

There are significant issues with how methodology is reported. For equation 2, how is “value-added production” defined? And is this metric per commodity? Per region? For section 3.3.1, is there an equation for this? Fiscal decentralization is a flux over time… though time is not a factor in the described process. Is “per capita” limited to a specific region? For section 3.3.2 there are also many undefined terms. What does “investment in environmental pollution” mean? Where does the data come from?

Results are also very difficult to interpret as currently described. What is table 4 showing us? Why is the LR-IND result listed as a b while all others are a, but never described in-text? Why is there no explanation of acronyms or displayed stats? Similar comment for all figures. Authors report that there are relationships between FD, ER, and ACI, though it is very difficult to understand what the relationships are. The creation of summary figures or visual data graphics would perhaps help this, but the sections need to be rewritten. For example, multiple times the authors state there is a trend of “high in the north low in the south” but what does “high” mean when discussing FD? How are north and south defined? There is also a statement about coastal vs interior ER, though it seems to contradict the statements made about N vs S. Statements about “high and low” or “strong and weak” are not legible as is. Heat maps may be helpful.

Finally, there is a high volume of distracting editing errors: line 270 does not include the figure number; line 257 has an unnecessary apostrophe; and so on.

This paper may describe important research which has practical implications for policy creation in the United States. The topic may be novel and original. However, these determinations cannot be made without extensive prior editing.

Author Response

I am writing to express my sincerest gratitude for your dedicated time and effort in reviewing my work. Your valuable feedback and suggestions have immensely helped improve my manuscript's quality.

I appreciate the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of your review, and I am glad to inform you that every suggestion and recommendation you made has been carefully incorporated into the revised manuscript. Your insightful comments have enabled me to refine my arguments and better articulate my ideas. I am confident that the manuscript is now more robust and more coherent due to your input.

Your commitment to maintaining the highest standards of academic excellence is commendable, and I am honored that you found my work worthy of your attention. Your feedback has undoubtedly made my manuscript a more comprehensive and well-rounded contribution to the field.

Once again, I thank you for your time and attention, and I hope that the revised manuscript reflects the care and effort you invested in your review.

Sincerely,

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors revised the paper according to the remarks made during the review.