These are great insights, and I thought of a 4th one, at the intersection of your 1) and 3): when a rural land-owner wants to develop their property or small or

These are great insights, and I thought of a 4th one, at the intersection of your 1) and 3): when a rural land-owner wants to develop their property or small or large business wants to start a new venture locally, the environmental regulations can be seen as blocking their ability to get ahead like everyone else. It doesn't help that urban areas have essentially stamped our their own sensitive environmental areas in prior generations, so they have the ability to develop and enrich themselves. Rural owners see this, including all the electronics and toys, but don't have the ability to match it. The sibling comment by freehunter makes a good point too. But the bottling plant went in because someone was able to sell or develop their land, and because of the demand in the urban areas. You can bet if environmental regulations had blocked it, there would have been lots of local grumbling against the EPA--and of course no mention of how the threat to their wells had been identified and avoided.