 Why, one might ask, is a strong central government such as China's not able to control maverick local and regional officials?The problem may have something to do with the fact that China's top environmental agency—the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) has barely one-hundredth the number of employees as the United States Environmental Protection Agency, while attempting to enforce regulations over a similarly sized but much more populated land mass than the US.Another reason for lack of compliance is apparently because local governments now have a chunk of funding for which they are not beholden to the central government, and are motivated to protect those funding sources which pollute, but pollute profitably.